Finding Hope and Grace

Sunset, Sunday, September 14, 2025

Our first question at Sunday School this week was a doozy, considering the week the world had had.

"Can you think of a time when you felt like giving up on people? What helped you come back to a place of grace or hope?" 

I'd like to say that the lesson then shared a revolutionary "How to save the world in 10 easy steps." It didn't. 

The lesson centered on Psalm 14. And, at first glance, Psalm 14 is pretty depressing. 

The fool says in his heart,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
    there is no one who does good.

² The Lord looks down from heaven
    on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
³ All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
    there is no one who does good,
    not even one.

Yikes ... After that first question, I thought we were supposed to be finding grace and hope. 

So ...  How do we find hope? How do we keep hope? 

I didn't quit thinking about it after I left the Sunday School room. Or after I trudged down the church steps to the car after the church service. 

On Monday, I looked up the lesson summary from UMC Discipleship (the source of the Sunday School material). It says that in Psalm 14, hope happens somewhere in the space between the comma and the “but”: 

“You would confound the plans of the poor, BUT the LORD is their refuge” (Psalm 14:6).

But God. 

But the good news.

But grace. 

 

We find and keep hope when we name all that is hard in our world ...

Take a breath ... 

And then remember, BUT GOD.

 

However, if we are trying to find God on social media, it may be tough. 

 

If we are trying to find God when we only get our news from the sources that confirm our own ideas and denigrate anyone who dares to disagree, it may be tough. 

 

Sunset, Sunday, September 14, 2025

 

For me, it's a lot easier to find God on a lonely country road, surrounded by God's beautiful creation. 

 

Just maybe, it will give us the strength to encourage one another to live in hope instead of despair.

The psalm suggests that God is a refuge for the poor and the righteous. What does it mean for God to be a refuge? The Sunday School lesson suggests:

• A place of safety, dignity, and protection
• A place of truth-telling without rejection
• A source of strength when the world feels hostile.

Sunset, Quivira National Wildlife Refuge, January 2022

Maybe if we follow Jesus' example, the ripples could be far-reaching. 

It's worth a try, right? 

Sunset, Sunday, September 14, 2025

Closing Prayer from the Sunday School lesson:

God of justice and mercy, when the world seems filled with disappointment or corruption, remind us that you are still our refuge. Help us to see others as you see them, not as categories, but as beloved children. Soften our hearts and strengthen our hope. In Jesus' name, Amen.

And giving credit where credit is due: The Sunday School lesson was written by the Rev. Anthony J. Tang, the Senior Associate Minister of Mission and Vision at First United Methodist Church of Dallas, Texas.

Bends and Folds

Sunset, looking south

A week ago at Sunday School, our facilitator handed each of us a white square of paper. Kristen said that the small group lessons we'd been using every week had taken an unexpected departure. While she read the Scripture for the week, along with some supporting materials, we were supposed to follow the instructions she'd copied for each of us and create an origami sea turtle. It was a pattern provided by the World Wildlife Federation.

Origami is a 6th century Japanese art form that transforms paper into shapes. The photo above shows what it was supposed to look like when we got done. Then there were three pages of detailed instructions. The first two pages are shown below:

 

There also was a third page of instructions. I didn't take the time to scan it and include it here because not a single one of us got past Step 5. 

It led to a lot of laughter and camaraderie. But it didn't lead to any marine sea turtles. It also led to me volunteering to find non-origami Sunday School lessons for as long as this particular series lasts. May 4, we were supposed to make a fish. May 11 is supposed to be origami sheep and May 18 is supposed to be an origami dolphin. You get the idea. I'm guessing our success on these creations would have been about the same as the sea turtle.

I've done some thinking about origami (and why we were all so bad at it) since the laughter died and we turned off the light in the Sunday School room for another week. I don't think I have any answers. Some in the class were convinced the instructions weren't definitive enough. Some suggested that a YouTube video with visuals to follow might have helped. Others of us were reminded of our less-than-stellar stint in high school geometry class. Those diagrams were looking just a little too much like geometry, so that self-preservation gene kicks in and you figure you might as well give up now. 

No matter the reason, there were a lot of crumpled pieces of paper on the table by the time we were done. The trash can in the Sunday School room will likely need dumped more quickly than normal after all our "sea turtles" and instructions were deposited there after class.

Springtime blooms and weather prompted more musing. One night not long ago, I went out to look at the sunset sky. While the western sky is usually the main attraction during sunset, that night, it was the south, east and north that provided more drama - more bends and folds (if we're thinking origami). 

Sunset colors looking northeast

From my vantage point, the thunderheads just made for a dramatic sky. I might have been a little envious of the rain that was likely falling under those far-away clouds. But I wasn't sorry to miss the hail that also was part of the evening drama. 

So what does this have to do with origami? I did some Googling and found a devotional by Megan Simons called "The Origami of Life." It said, in part:

Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, can be incorporated into devotional practices in several ways. One common approach is to associate origami with the concept of transformation, as a simple piece of paper is folded into a more complex and meaningful shape, mirroring the way God shapes and transforms individuals. 

The origins of origami exist within creation itself, where God has planned careful fold patterns for leaves and petals inside of buds. He has created insects whose wings precisely fold and tuck beneath their protective shells. Recently, as I have wrestled through some difficult questions, I have found great comfort in God’s precise planning and careful attention to every aspect of his creation—to the origami of each life. 

Megan Simons

Looking east

When I'm in nature, I'm often struck by how perspective skews our view. That evening of sunset, I had a different perspective than the people who were getting pummeled by hail stones ... or those being blessed with rain. 

It was all in where we were standing. Some of us were in the midst of beauty on the horizon. Others were in the midst of a storm.

We got a little of that beneficial rain last Wednesday. We weren't expecting it, but it left behind about an inch of much-needed moisture.

It will be great for this year's wheat crop and for newly-planted spring crops. 

 

There was even a glimpse of some rainbow colors peaking through the clouds.  

 

Maybe we all gave up a little soon on the origami. (Maybe not. But it's possible.) One of my friends said she was going to take it home and ponder it more to see if she could figure it out. Her husband came back with Sunday with an origami shirt fashioned from a dollar bill. (He watched a YouTube video to do it.)

Another devotional by Rich Forbes shared this prayer at the end:

Father, I am but a crumpled piece of paper in your hand, and at times the suffering I experience is almost too great to bear. Lift me Lord and, with a simple fold, move me past this tribulation; bring me closer to the shape of Christ and reveal more of Him in me each day. Lord God, let your hand hold me until at long last you can place me before you and see me as beautiful and good... made in your image. Holy Father, I realize that I will suffer and face many trials in this life, and I ask that you give me the strength to endure them, and the faith to understand that you will not abandon me to them, or ask me to endure more than I am capable of. Shape me to your liking and take pleasure in your work, and I will seek you always.

 Maybe those crumpled papers weren't so hopeless after all.

Look for God's Face

 

  Time to Think

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful,

 for beauty is God's handwriting.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Time to Act

 Look for beauty in the small, humble places. 

Be present and thank God for what He reveals.

 

Time to Pray

Heavenly Father, help me to carry a heart full of gratitude

 for the small wonders You place in my path.  

 

As I got the next cup of coffee, I looked out the window to the northeast. The sunrise looked promising. 

 

My Facebook feed from yesterday reminded me that I'd missed both a beautiful sunrise and sunset.

 

I decided it was worth the effort to put on my shoes and drive down the road to my sunrise tree for some photos. I wasn't going to make the same mistake again. 

 

Whoops - Just one problem: Our car is in Manhattan, waiting for a new fuel pump. How could I forget? Just a few days ago, we were sitting with a "dead" car at one of Manhattan's busiest intersections. I was out of the car, trying to encourage drivers approaching behind us to move over a lane while we waited for a tow truck. (Yes, I know Manhattan, Kansas, is not Manhattan, NYC, but it was still stressful.)

 

This morning, Randy took the pickup to town to have his weekly breakfast with his buddies. I didn't have a vehicle to drive anywhere. 

 

 

So I pivoted. I just walked out to the silo to see what the view was like there. It was worth the short walk to watch the light come through the clouds, accompanied by bird song.

In the scheme of things, this pivot was a small hiccup. Others are coping with much bigger disruptions in life: the loss of a job ... a sudden illness ... an untimely death ... angry voices everywhere ... uncertainty about the future ... the list seems inexhaustible. 

The last few weeks in Sunday School and in church sermons, the underlying theme has been Steadfast Love. Several of us said we should cut out this snippet of the lesson and put it on our mirrors:

Seek God's face. Seriously. This isn't a cliche to make you feel butter. It is a program for ridding yourself and the world of fear. Set yourself the task of looking for God at work within us. So look. Look for God's face in the face of a stranger serving you lunch, working on your car, asking for a handout. Look for God's face in the gestures of kindness in this terrible world, in the opportunities to laugh and sing, the moments of grace with loved ones, in the passion of body and soul. Seek God's face in the beauty of music, in the wonder of the world around you. You're on a mission. If you fill up your life with the search for God, you won't have time to fear. 

Each lesson has also had a music playlist attached. Because music speaks to me, I've listened every week to the "assigned" song. As I usually do, I looked ahead to this Sunday's lesson. It gives me time to think about what we'll be discussing as a group. 

This week, the suggested song is Kacey Musgraves' "Rainbow." Another favorite was Arvil Lavigne's  "Head Above Water." Give them a listen. And look for God in the every day, ordinary things of life.

 

Faith and the Night Sky

October 15 - my first attempt at taking a photo of the visiting comet

Not long ago, I saw a devotional that suggested we read a passage of the Bible and then try to figure out who in the story most resonates with us.

Am I most like the Samaritan woman? Or am I one of the ones in the crowd, judging her? That will stop you in your tracks, right?

And poor Thomas. Say the name Thomas and ask how that disciple fits into Jesus' resurrection story, and the first thing we do is add a derogatory adjective to it. It's not simply Thomas. But Doubting Thomas.

I must admit that as Randy and I searched the western skies for the Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, I might have that same "Doubting" adjective attached to my name. 

From a Facebook post

Try as we might, we couldn't find it - not with our naked eyes. Not with Randy's binoculars. Not even with my iPhone, which everyone said was the easier way to find it. However, when we went back inside and I did the inevitable scrolling through Facebook, it appeared that others had figured out the "secret formula." They got photos of the comet. 

If we'd relied only on our naked eye, the same could have been said for the Northern Lights.

October 10, 2024

On October 10, news stations were saying that Kansans might again have the opportunity to see the Northern Lights because of solar storms. We had made a similar excursion in May. I thought maybe that had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I was glad for another chance. 

Just like in May, we struggled to see the Northern Lights with our naked eye. But when I looked through my iPhone, the camera's eye was able to see what I couldn't. (Interestingly, Randy's Android phone didn't provide that view.)

It reminded me of the poem, "Who Has Seen the Wind?" by Christina Rossetti.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by. 

Just like the wind that's "invisible" unless it's stirring the leaves (or unprotected fallow farm ground), the lights weren't visible without some help. 

As we stood in the cool fall night, I thought again about how that was a metaphor for faith. 

Hebrews 11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. ² This is what the ancients were commended for.³ By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Following those initial verses, there is a whole chapter of familiar Bible names and the ways they carried out their faith.  

The New Century translation says it this way:

Faith means being sure of the things we hope for and knowing that something is real even if we do not see it.” 

 Hebrews 11:1 (NCV)

What is faith? Faith is believing when you can’t see it. People say, “Seeing is believing.” God says the exact opposite: “Believing is seeing.” Some things you’ll never see unless you believe them first. Every great achievement started when someone first believed it was possible. Faith turns dreams into realities. Nothing happens until someone first believes it’s possible.

We went out a couple of different times and a couple of different locations. The light patterns moved somewhat from the first time we looked to the second time. 

And there was a scientific explanation for why were were able to see the Northern Lights so far south. (Again, count on Facebook to help a girl out.)

 

Still ... as we stood in the dark with a kaleidoscope of color overhead, I couldn't help but think about just how fortunate we are to see the beauty in God's Creation - that we are able to witness "the universe  formed at God’s command." 

An update: 

We tried again to find the comet after seeing a graphic about where to look in the night sky on specific days and Googling information on changing my iPhone settings. 

It's still not an award-winning photo, but we did get to see it.

October 16, 2024

We got a little chilly. In January, we'll think that 50 degrees feels balmy, but our bodies haven't quite made the shift from summer temperatures to the autumn cooling. So once we found the comet and its tail and I "sorta-kinda" got a photo, we were ready to head back inside.

I was glad to witness it after a recent reminder from an email devotional:

A Time to Think

The simple act of stopping and looking at the beauty around us can be prayer.

-- Patricia Barrett, author

 

A Time to Act

 

Today notice the little things that make your day special.

 

A Time to Pray

Thank you Lord, that however small or seemingly insignificant our gifts, You can weave them into Your glorious symphony.   

Transfiguration

Last Wednesday morning - Valentine's Day - I worked on a future blog post. It combined sunset photos and a few light-on-ice photos from Quivira National Wildlife Refuge that hadn't yet made it into the blog or my Facebook page. On that Ash Wednesday, the blog post also had a tie-in to the transfiguration of Jesus, which was the Scripture and theme for Pastor Benjamin's sermon the previous week. 

I was happy with it and thought it was a fitting beginning to the season of Lent in the Christian year. I hadn't written a devotional-type blog for awhile, and as I went upstairs to work on dinner prep, I thought that it would only take a re-read and a little polishing before I hit "publish" the next Tuesday. 

But then Wednesday afternoon happened. The senseless shooting in the midst of celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade - plus some personal stuff - had me tossing and turning that night. Eventually, I gave up and got out of bed, attempting to find a way to shut off my overactive brain. It was a short night. My well-articulated Thursday morning list was in disarray with other unexpected distractions. 

So much for planning ahead. So, why not do a little mindless Facebook skimming, right? I was behind anyway. And then I clicked on a link provided by an acquaintance from my days in K-State's Concert Choir. On her post, she shared that she'd linked this same choir piece to her Facebook page four years before, and unfortunately, it was relevant yet again. 

The piece is Let My Love Be Heard by Jake Runestad. It was performed by the Bob Cole Conservatory Chamber Choir as a tribute to one of their members killed in a mass shooting in Paris in 2015. (I actually wrote a blog post back in November 2015 about the Paris shooting, too, with a link to another song. (Click HERE for "God Bless Us Every One.")

The words to Jake Runestad's beautiful choral composition say:

Angels where you soar up to God's own light

Take my own lost bird on your hearts tonight

And as grief once more mounts to heaven and sings

Let my love be heard

Let my love be heard

Whispering in your ways

Let my love be heard. 

 

As I sat there with tears running down my face, I realized that perhaps my Facebook skimming wasn't so pointless after all. 

 

The simple - yet overwhelmingly powerful - words of that song preached a more powerful lesson than any blog post. Or any sermon. 

Let my love be heard.

 

I certainly try for that to happen. I spent the rest of the day on Thursday working on a meal for Core, a group works to help get people out of poverty. Our church is just one of the meal providers, taking our turn about once a quarter or so. While I was the planner and the cook, many congregation members contributed money for the ingredients to make it happen. 

 

And I remembered back to the Sunday before, when I'd taken a photo of the children at church, standing by a big pile of food donated for the local food bank as part of a Souper Food Drive on Super Bowl Sunday. 

 

Our little church collected 249 pounds of food, but we were just a tiny cog in a much larger effort for the church conference. Some 84 churches from the Great Plains UMC donated food to help Team KC collect 168,253.66 pounds of food during the Super Bowl drive. The California churches supporting the San Francisco 49ers collected 32,945 pounds. In all, 221 churches across the four conferences took part.

 

That's a victory for local food banks - no matter where the food was tallied. We couldn't accomplish that alone.

But I also had to acknowledge that I wasn't letting "my love be heard" when I commented to Randy about another acquaintance's Facebook post.

I can do better. We can all do better. 

 

I need to be part of the harmony so beautifully illustrated by that spectacular choir. 

I started writing. I changed 90 percent of what I had in the original blog post. But then I looked again at what I'd written to begin with. It included this quote on Jesus' transfiguration written by Scott Clark, a Presbyterian minister. 

 

Transfiguration brings us to the place where the words run out and invites us into the holy experience of silence. The silence between the words. The place where we meet God in ways that words simply cannot express.  

Another shooting? Yes, definitely the words had run out. 

Another email devotional included this prayer:

May our gifts reflect the warming light of your love in our lives. Just as Jesus was transfigured before them, may our hearts be transformed, and our actions reflect the love and truth Jesus embodies. Bless our giving and use it to bring your divine light to a world in need. In the name of Jesus, our Lord, we pray. Amen.

Looking for God in my today ... that seems like a good goal to me.

  

Every Day Beauty

Looking west, toward the sunset

This summer, a daughter who had lost her mom unexpectedly asked people to send photos of the sunset. Her mom grew up in Stafford and had maintained her ties with her hometown, my PEO group and our church.

I made a mental note to pay attention as the evening progressed so I could go out and honor this family's wish for their mom/wife/grandma.

For awhile, I thought a rain shower was going to derail my plans. We need the rain, so it was welcome anyway. But as the sun was setting, the sky cleared enough for a beautiful sunset. Later, as I've examined the photo more closely, I'm reminded of a song that meant a lot to me when my mother-in-law, Marie, died unexpectedly. It is called Holes in the Floor of Heaven by Steve Wariner. It's told from the perspective of an 8-year-old boy, which was Brent's age at the time of Marie's death. (Jill was 11, so our granddaughters are that age right now. Brooke just turned 9 on Monday.) Anyway, when I look at the right side of the sunset, it looks like holes in the floor of heaven. I hadn't heard that song for years when it began playing as I drove to town for Brent's homecoming assembly his senior year of high school. It was like a God wink that day.

On the Facebook post, I wrote:

We had a storm a little earlier. This was as the sun was setting on the Stafford/Reno line. I thought about how you are currently going through a storm, but there is still light breaking through. I will pray that for all of you.

When I turned to look at the sky to the south, I found it compelling in a different way.

As is usually the case, the view was dependent upon where and when you looked. Isn't that a metaphor for life itself?

At sunset isn't the only time you can look at things differently. In July, I noticed a sunflower field blooming south of 4th Street Road, which we take to and from Hutchinson. It was worth a short detour for a closer look.

From afar, the sunflowers looked like soldiers at attention. 

But a closer look revealed some differences. This one wasn't quite ready for its closeup, even though its neighbor was preening in the sun.

 Others were already starting to dry down and starting to wilt.

Sunflowers grown as crops for seeds and oil don't stay pretty long. These days, there's not a yellow head to be found. 

But I don't have to drive down the road to realize that beauty can be fleeting. The day lilies in our backyard brighten our days while they bloom each summer. 

But they, too, bloom in their own season and then fade until they return the next year.

 The corn field across the road looked so green and vibrant in late June.

Earlier this week, our neighbor cut the corn. All that was left at sunset were the stalks.

Not a great photo and not a sensational sunset. But I guess it still illustrates the difference in just a couple of months.

 These fleeting moments remind us to appreciate the little things as they come.

I thought about it again as I contemplated what to play on the piano at church this Sunday for prelude, offertory and postlude. I always try to tie the music with the Bible readings and liturgy. In those efforts, I look at a UMC Discipleship website for inspiration. In the materials this week, it talks about God sightings. 

We are the ones who are trying to be tuned into God’s wavelength, listening to God’s broadcast. Therefore, we look for the signs that God is at work in and around us always. ... We might be surprised by where and from whom we encounter God’s presence when we open our eyes to what is around us. We are more than passive observers, however. We are active presenters, active signs of God’s presence in the world. We commit ourselves again this week to presenting the goodness of God in the world around us. We do that best by how we care. We care for one another and seek reconciliation whenever possible. We care for God’s people everywhere by giving and helping and loving. ... We care and are called to care as a way of being a sign of God’s care for creation. What is the sign? It is us. 

Rev. Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries from UMC Discipleship Ministries

 

 Let’s come before him with thanks! Let’s shout songs of joy to him!

—Psalm 95:2

A Time to Think

All the world is an utterance of the Almighty. Its countless beauties, its exquisite adaptations, all speak to you of Him.     –Phillips Brooks, clergyman and author

A Time to Pray

Dear Lord, please help me to see the beauty of every day. 

From the Daily Devotional email from Guideposts