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Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, therefore I lack nothing.
He shall feed me in green pasture, and lead me beside still waters.
He shall convert my soul, and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness for his Names sake.
Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me.
Thou shall prepare a table before me in the presence of them that trouble me; thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full.
Surely thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

What is a Shepherd? A person who cares for a flock of sheep.

When I came down with Covid19 I was one of the flock. In fact, I did not know what had happened to me. My only recollection was that I was in an ambulance. The next weeks seem to be a blur, Dreams and Hallucinations. I felt that God had forsaken me. I wanted everything to be over, like “Giving up the ghost”. I even asked Jill to end this horror. It took a nurse to break me out of this. She was an Angel of Mercy, asking me what was important to me, and I said my family and my grandchildren. This thought has remained with me throughout my recovery.

I had walked through the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” and God sent this messenger to give me comfort. I was on the right path, one that would take me another 8 months and still counting. He brought me to Virtual Church, and I am still there every Sunday.

I must say that I never could have done this without the support of Jill and the rest of my family, which includes the prayers of all at church and beyond.

I am a firm believer in the power of prayer.

Luke 3.1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

As I read this passage from Luke, the last piece, where John is proclaiming repentance caught my attention. “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” It reminded me of this past week's lessons from our Sacred Ground Group on healing and trauma. The crying out in the wilderness or trauma that we all go through at times can be so debilitating and damaging to us and for many generations to come, and yet in order to heal we have to forgive our oppressor. How do we do that? How difficult is it to make the rough ways smooth or the crooked paths straight? It is never easy because in repenting and forgiving we have to behold the other person's grievance and accept the transgression and forgive them. Then and only then can the healing begin.

During this time when we are restricted in many ways of doing the things we love because of the pandemic, I am sure many times we have been angry, sad or depressed because maybe those in power made things worse by putting politics before lives, or when issues of race become imbedded in hate. Can we forgive those who continue to hurt us? In this passage, God is calling upon us to make our paths straight, perhaps by making every mountain and hill low, straightening what is crooked in us by forgiving others. When you forgive those that hurt you, a time of healing begins. Coming into the new year I am hopeful that we can all work on forgiveness and start 2021 by preparing the way of the Lord and healing ourselves, “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”