Greetings!


              What’s Up? It is March, can Spring be far away. Having lived in Michigan all my life that March is unpredictable, and winter can come back with gusto! I am appreciating the warmer temperatures and looking forward to Spring flowers popping out of the soil in all their glory!


              I know it is early in Lent, but how is your Lent going so far? I know that as I have been working through the daily journal, there were some things that jumped at me out of nowhere. Things that had been dreams that I had, that I had not long forgotten but pushed back and wasn’t doing anything to work towards them. In the first couple of weeks the journaling (I do not like to journal…may need to rethink that), has helped me to focus on a few things that were important to me in the past and I need to revitalize those dreams. How about you?


              The dreams we dream for our lives. I don’t know if you remember the animated movie “Up”. I bought the book to use in the Chapel time with Noah’s Ark. The story is about Carl an elderly man whose wife has died and he’s missing her very much. Since they were young, Carl and his wife had a dream to visit Paradise Falls in South America and they never were able to get there. Now he wanted to fulfill that dream, so he got hundreds of balloons and tied them to his house and the house went up. Carl was on his way to making his dream come true…then a knock on the door and there was Russell, hanging on to the porch for dear life, not part of Carl’s dream. Then the house crashes with the Falls in view and they have to walk the rest of the way, where they encountered a large bird, they named Kevin…only Kevin was a mom who was trying to get back to her babies. They came up against a bad guy who wanted to capture Kevin and had to rescue the bird. Not exactly how Carl had imagined and planned his dream.

              The truth is that as we pursue our dreams, there will be bumps in the road, things will get in the way, disappointments will come our way, unexpected events will happen…life happens. All of those things tend to have us thinking that we dreamed too big and maybe we’re not supposed to be pursing that dream. That’s not what God wants. God wants us to dream big dreams. After all God had big dreams for us, that’s why he sent Jesus. “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from the heavens, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (Matthew 1:9-11). And with that God’s plan, God’s dream for humanity was moving forward.

              God wants us to dream and know that there will be challenges that we have to overcome in order to achieve our dreams. But when we are faced with those challenges, don’t give up on your dreams! Instead, we need to rise above whatever seeks to keep from our dreams, from living the life God created us to live. “Be who God created you to be, and you will set the world on fire” (St. Catherine of Sienna).

              The prophet Joel writes, “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28).  Just maybe our dreams are God pouring out the Spirit on us!

              The world needs what we have to offer! The world needs our dreams. The world needs our passion and our compassion. The world needs us! The world needs our dreams! So go ahead get up and follow your dreams, and wherever your dreams lead you the Spirit will always lead you to be up to something good for the good of God’s world.

Shalom,

Pastor Mona

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