Posts from January 2024

Dear SCC & Friends, Compassionate and gracious… ~Psalm 103:8 Reflection #204                  You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you. ~John Bunyon~ Compassion is synonymous with love and mercy and demonstrates our capacity to care and focus beyond ourselves. Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ. ~Gal. 6:2 Compassion begins with God and is not something we earn but something we receive from Him. We love because He first loved us and are the…

Dear SCC & Friends, He first loved us… ~1 John 4:19 Reflection #203                  When our children were young, I made the rounds each night tucking them in. Sometimes I would read to them or tell a “war story,” and loved to see their eyes light up when I told them how I got into trouble as a kid. One of our meaningful interactions became routine… “Why do I love you so much?” They’d roll their eyes because they already knew the…

January 17, 2024 Dear SCC & Friends, The secret of the Lord… ~Psalm 25:14 Reflection #202                  The year was 1972. We were “blissful” newlyweds living in Virginia. It was a small apartment, and our upstairs neighbor heard us arguing about how to put up the Christmas tree. What he heard I do not know, but he came down to help and brought a few Christmas lights for our use. Mr. Kosine was 95 years old, still driving and crystal…

Dear SCC & Friends, Honor all men… ~1 Peter 2:17 Reflection #201                  On the whole, it is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. ~Mark Twain~ If we’re honest, we might admit that there are some that make it very hard to honor. Simply put, how do we honor those that rub us the wrong way? They talk too much or don’t talk at all… and nearly every conversation is…

  Dear SCC & Friends, …I will do something new. ~Isaiah 43:19 Reflection #200                  The only way to get rid of your past is to make a future of it. God will waste nothing. ~Phillip Brooks~ It’s a new year, and the old cliché echoes, “Out with the old and in with the new.” Yet, it is the old which God has used to give us substance and bring us to this very day. Nothing is to be wasted…