My thoughts (Kristen Lee):

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Romans 12:12, NRSV

I work at a women’s prison. There are times when an offender serving a sentence on one case is transported out to court in another case for a crime committed prior to her incarceration. Recently I informed a pregnant offender in such a situation that the court had issued its sentence, the result being that she would be incarcerated for an additional two years. After allowing her time to digest the news, we met again to revisit whether the person she’d chosen to be the caregiver of her unborn baby would be able to support the baby for an additional year or two.

The mother sat across from me and explained that she’d been living in another state where she probably wouldn’t have been arrested on her warrant, but she didn’t want to be looking over her shoulder wondering if she’d be plucked from her life. So she turned herself in to the authorities in Indiana. She said she had wanted to do the right thing but now wondered if doing the right thing had been the correct choice.

She explained that she’d lived on her own since she was 13, raising her brothers and sisters. For a brief moment, the collected mask over her face dropped and I could see her as a child trying to manage a family. I could see the uncertainty, anxiety, and fear she had felt but stuffed down deep inside so she could survive. She wondered why, after giving up her own days of carefree youth to parent others, she couldn’t have the privilege of raising her own child. (Her charges are for check fraud; a child raising her siblings needed money to make ends meet.)

She didn’t whine or complain. I could see her sincerity in wondering what she was supposed to learn from God and this experience of not being able to parent her own blood as she desired. After listening to her, I realized that she had all that she needed to get through her trials. She already had more than any words I could have given her. Even in this troubling time, she maintained a relationship with God. She was questioning, trying to understand, but she hadn’t abandoned her faith.

The times we spent together were brief, but I will never forget her. And when my faith starts to shake, I hope to do the right thing, to make the correct choice, and keep God by my side as I struggle to make amends for my wrongs.

Thought for the day: What area of my life do I need to be intentional in bringing God with me as I rejoice, endure, or persevere?

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

Today’s scripture: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?

My thoughts (Kristin Lee):

There are times in my life when God feels so distant and aloof. I wonder if this is when we are given opportunity to see God in a different shade. My eyes tend to be focused on one color, one view, or one perspective.

In the movie Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith’s son tells his dad an obvious joke that I have heard from children many times. The four year old boy relays a story of a man who was stranded by tragedy. The stranded man prays passionately for God’s help. A plane comes by to offer the man a ride, but the man declines the offer stating, “God will save me.” A boat comes by with an offer to help and the stranded man states, “No thanks, God will save me.” The man eventually dies and meets God asking, “God, I prayed to you many times and you never saved me!” To this, God states, “I sent a plane and a boat!”

Unfortunately, the man was unable to see that God was in the boat and the plane. (Interesting that God didn’t give up the first time and tried both!) The stranded man had his sights on only one way at looking for God. Yet through the tragic event, was God trying to convey himself in another hue? Tragic events have a way of doing that.

God can come in many human forms. God can even come to us through those that we would least accept or expect. Maybe this is why relationships are so important. We tend to focus on relationships within the subcultures in which we exist, or choose to form, and disassociate with those that aren’t like us. Could God be in the person with whom we wouldn’t normally associate?

Relationship is foundational to God’s character. God is in us. We are the hands and feet of God. If we don’t form relationships with the people God brings our way — no matter how “unlikely” we may think they are — we may miss the boat (or plane).

Thought for the day: Where is God? God is here, in us. When I can’t see God, maybe I need to change my point of view. “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Ecclesiastes 4.12

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Kristin Lee):

Often, passages in the Bible read like a foreign language to me. When I started writing for Be Still and Know, I bought a Bible translator book that summarizes each book into “regular words.” During the assignments when I’ve needed even more help, I’ve stopped by the church to review a copy of one of the children’s Bibles. Neither tactic worked for today’s reading.

I considered asking for a new assignment. I considered confessing that despite my professional degree and high supervisory position at work, I couldn’t grasp the meaning of three short verses. I thought about taking this experience as a sign that it was time to put the cap back on my pen.

I turned to a friend and asked if she could explain it to me in very simple words. With her help, I heard that every person already has what he or she needs. We have all the gifts, talents, and opportunities that we need to live the life God wants us to live. It reminded me of the prayer that I’ve had to call out more than a few hundred times in my life: “God, help me to be happy and content with the life I have. Help me to believe in myself.”

Thought for the day: Lord, it’s easy to think about what I don’t have and then to blame those things or characteristics as the cause of my unhappiness. Help me to believe in myself.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Kristin Lee):

In today’s scripture, Jesus reproaches the people living where he’d committed great acts (such as restoring sight to a blind man and multiplying a few fishes and loaves to feed thousands) for not changing their ways, and he warns them about their impending judgment day.

At first glance, Jesus’ warning sounds a lot like a mother saying to her naughty child, “Just wait until your father gets home. Then you’ll be sorry.” These words of impending regret and sorrow accurately describe the notion of judgment day I was taught as a child, which parallels the scene in the 1970’s movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Veruca Salt is deemed a bad egg and disappears forever.

As an adult, I looked for clues about this judgment day I feared. I found no scripture description of when and how the judgment takes place. I can’t locate detail of how acts and thoughts are valued or how the final assessment is delivered. Therefore I wonder how the judgment day became what it is — a threat generated by humans to control humans. Let’s be honest, there’s a ranking of sin in our society that isn’t Bible-based. So no one really knows how wrongs and rights are valued.

Let me give you another image of judgment day I gleamed from the Fannie Flagg novel, Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven. In the story, Elner Shimfissle falls from a ladder as she picks figs from her tree, beginning a wild adventure. Elner prepares herself to be judged, and finds herself in a situation where she’s known for all the mistakes and all the effort throughout her life, and loved just the same.

To me, this latter image of judgment day is consistent with Jesus’ teachings on love and forgiveness, yet it’s more difficult to fathom than the first. I think it’d be easier to receive a failing mark and disappear into a hole than to be seen for all I am, including the times I knew better but failed to act, and yet received love and grace anyway.

Thought for the day: Where in my life can I turn a threat into an opportunity to do better?

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Kristin Lee):

In today’s scripture Esther presents herself before the king, a risky thing for a woman to do in her time without invitation. Obtaining the king’s attention, she then invites him to a banquet. At that banquet, she invites him to a second banquet. Instead of seeking relief for her people (the reason she was there in the first place), she strings the king along until he is right where she wants him, in a state of mind where he will likely grant her request.

What a woman! Not only does she go where no woman was permitted to go, but she plays with fate by delaying her request to the king. She’s so brave, so calm and cool and collected. She proves that some people are made with more strength than others. . .

Hold on there. While it’s accurate that Esther went before the king and waited until the second banquet, I don’t think we should infer that her actions were part of a calculated plan she was born specifically to execute. It’s not accurate to assume someone who has great strength is made any differently than you or me.

The New American Bible provides additional information regarding the first meeting:

“[Esther] glowed with the perfection of her beauty and her countenance was as joyous as it was lovely, though her heart was shrunk with fear. . . As [the king] looked up, his features ablaze with the height of majestic anger, [Esther] staggered, changed color, and leaned weakly against the head of the maid in front of her. But God changed the king’s anger to gentleness.”

Esther was scared to perform her task, just as you and I experience fear when we decide to do the right thing, which often is not the easy thing. We cannot sit back and let others do great things for humanity, our family, our company, or our friend because they possess courage we could only dream of.

When I was in law school, I asked one of my classmates why we found the courses to be so hard when our fellow students would boast about how they found the lessons easy. “They’re lying,” she replied. Granted, some of our classmates found the work more challenging than others, but I understood her point. We want to project strength and confidence, but what’s on the outside is not always what’s on the inside.

Don’t let fear keep you from the greatness within.

Thought for the day: What fear do I need to face to further my relationship with God?

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Kristin Lee):

Today we read that there was strife between Abram’s and Lot’s herdsmen because the land could not support them both. In an effort to keep the peace, Abram and Lot parted ways, with Lot residing in the Jordan Plain and Abram staying in the land of Canaan.

At first glance, this story doesn’t appear appropriate for the Thanksgiving holiday. Holidays are a time to say hello, not goodbye. It’s a time to share space by sitting around one table, not for family members to gather their possessions and travel in different directions. I know I’m right about Thanksgiving because television commercials further the image of extended family sharing a special meal, with smiles and laughter abounding.

But what if the holiday comes and we aren’t as happy as those actors who are able to put aside differences for the good of the holiday? Have we done something wrong? Perhaps. Perhaps it’s time to forgive and move on or apologize and ask for grace.

Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that we cause our own unhappiness with our unreasonable expectations.

But perhaps we haven’t done anything wrong. Perhaps we just don’t get along with someone and never will. Perhaps it’s more detrimental to our soul to be around family than to not. Perhaps, in order to keep from making a bad situation worse, it’s imperative to part ways.

Lot and Abram didn’t have commercials depicting how life should be, but there were certainly societal expectations of how kinsmen should live. Those expectations didn’t work for them, and they did something different so they could live in peace. They made their odd, unique, and unacceptable (to some) decision after thoughtful conversation. We are all strong enough to do the same.

Thought for the day: When inundated with images of how life “should be,” remember that the Bible provides better guidance than a 30 second promotional spot.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.