So you may have seen the hashtag #BellLetsTalk and heard discussions about the significance of today. This is the 11th year that Bell has been running their Let’s Talk campaign for mental health. And while significant money has been raised for support of mental health programs, I’d argue that the bigger deal is the normalization of talking about mental health.

(You can argue with me about how much more a corporation like Bell COULD be doing, if you want, but that’s not what this post is about.)

I’ve been struggling with clinical anxiety during the last several months. I have good days and bad days. I have a prescription that helps me manage it and an online counselling program that I continue to work through. I’ve had to figure out what I am capable of and what I am not, basically on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes I feel like I don’t recognize myself. And yet, after months of support from my doctor and my counselling coach, I can tell you I’m doing better than I was. It’s a bit of a dance – two steps forward and one step backwards – but I am doing better than I was.

I was able to ask for help because of a dear friend who has often shared with me about her battle with anxiety. I thought, ‘if she struggles with this and was able to reach out and ask for help, I can too.’

That’s what this post is about.

If you need help, ask for it. If you want help getting help, if you want to discuss what options you might have, feel free to talk to me about my experience. If not me, then please reach out to someone you feel safe discussing this with.

There is help to be found, but no one knows what is going on inside you, unless you talk about it.

We are all tired. We are all carrying heavy burdens. But none of us are alone.

Until tomorrow, dear friends, keep the conversation going.

(Because Tolkien quotes are always in good order! And because it’s quite frosty in Toronto today, after yesterday’s snowstorm.)

One of the things that always surprises me and delights me about Scripture is the way that seemingly simple lines of Scripture contain great depth. My Dad famously preached a sermon on the word “The” in a certain verse of Scripture. One word contained a whole sermon.

So I loved when I came across this little diagram. It’s a line that most of us know very well. It’s a line I can’t read without singing the little worship chorus that contains these words.

Look at the depth of this little phrase! The numbers of things it tells us, especially when read in light of the rest of Scripture (which is the right way to read Scripture…not isolating a line, but holding it in tension with the other things the Bible tells us).

So my prayer for you until tomorrow, dear friends, is that you may be still, and know that God is God. With all the depth contained in that simple phrase.

This week, of course, has been ALL ABOUT the Bernie Sanders memes. Gotta love it when the internet goes nuts for something like this. Hear are a few of my faves:

I would like some cake (cause I’m already rich in friendships!):

This wise piece of advice:

I think everything should have such an adorable name:

I mean, YES:

Short people problems:

And finally, a blessing for your day:

As we continue our discussion about the very real struggle of these pandemic days, we are taking a look a two short passages from Paul this week. May the service be a blessing to you!

Until tomorrow, dear friends, may you be empowered by the choices you make that reflect the life of Jesus.

Welcome to your weekly round-up of resources to help you prepare for worship!

Let’s start with this exultant version of “Onward Christian Soldiers,” by the youth of Fountainview Academy (this hymn has been, perhaps, not as popular in recent years due to the military imagery used….but we must remember that Jesus subverts the norms of our world, so that a Christian Army becomes not a force of violence, but one that spreads care, love, peace, generosity, feeds the hungry and clothes the poor and includes all):

This wonderful affirmation found on the re:Worship blogspot:

A couple of thoughts on why doing good is important to our life of faith:

This beautiful song by Audrey Assad, “Lead on Kindly Light,” which seems apropos in the midst of this long, dark winter:

Until tomorrow, dear friends, may the light of God continue to light your path.\

As we continue to weather a difficult year, our faith may be on shaky ground. It wouldn’t be terribly surprising. But the very good news is that when we are tired, shaken, doubtful, God is not.

God doesn’t grow weary or doubt whether we are worth it or get shaken by the turbulent times we are in.

He is – always – faithful.

That’s good news because it means we don’t have to rely on our own failing strength. We can rely on the One whose strength never fails, whose love is steadfast, whose faith is unshakable.

Until tomorrow, dear friends, may you know the God who is always faithful.

It was, I think, the poem heard ’round the world. When Amanda Gorman stepped up to the microphone at the Inauguration of President Joe Biden yesterday, the air was electric. I wept, when I got a chance to watch her recital on a rerun. She was not only eloquent in her delivery (and another public speaker who battled a speech impediment up until even the last couple of years), she was also absolutely prophetic. Casting a vision of America as it could be, as it should be.

There were so many brilliant turns of phrase in her work – the ‘just-is/justice’ bit and the ‘quiet is not always peace’ and the ‘victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we made.”

But what I loved best was that she called it brave to see the light, and to be the light. She is absolutely correct. It is brave to be kind. Brave to be generous. Brave to open your heart to love others, because an open heart can (and will) get hurt.

Jesus calls us to be brave. As He was: brave enough to teach the truth, even though it would anger his enemies to the point that they would have him betrayed, arrested, and executed; brave enough to endure pain that is beyond imagination, because bringing peace between God and humanity required sacrifice; brave enough to love those who would ultimately hurt Him; brave enough to see his mission through to it’s bitter end because that end was only a beginning, after all.

Until tomorrow, dear friends, I encourage you to be brave, to see the light and to be the light.

(And of course, here is a link to Amanda Gorman reciting her poem because it bears watching again and again!)

(This just hit me in the centre of my soul this week! Keep fighting, keep going, dear friends!)

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. day in the States. And I found myself with mixed emotions – sadness at the racial divides which continue, fear over what might happen around the inauguration tomorrow, hope at the continuing conversations that at are happening around racism, and as with all things at this point in the pandemic, a tinge of exhaustion.

In trying to fend off fear and exhaustion, I hold to this, one of my favourite quotes by MLK:

And that’s the thing. When I focus on love, when I focus on light, I find the fear and exhaustion retreat. They may not entirely flee from me – the world is a dark and scary and tiring place right now – but when I focus on the light and love of Jesus, I find hope and peace. And I need those things to make it through.

So let’s commit to love, to light. To pushing back against fear, sadness, exhaustion, and most of all, hate.

Until tomorrow, dear friends, keep focusing on love and light, and always on the One who is The Light of the World.