From the Senior Warden January 2022

Need to contact several members or the entire Vestry quickly? We have created a joint email account that all Vestry members are able to check regularly. Please contact us at vestry@redeemershelby.com with

any of your needs or concerns.

The Vestry is also excited to begin

the new year, especially kicking off with our Parish Meeting on January 23rd. Please join us to vote for a new class of Vestry members. Many thanks to Dick Baker, Mary Howe and Perry Hildreth for their time spent serving our Parish these last three years.

From the Rector January 2022

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,

‘therefore I will hope in him.’ Lamentations 3: 22-24

New year, new resolutions and yet..... And yet, life has still not calmed down. We are back to masks and social distancing and, well, enough already - we are all sick of hearing it.

The above portion of Lamentations often seems to get used as a sort of consolation prize when things go wrong. Life is terrible, we might tell ourselves, but God still loves us so everything is just fine. This is an unhealthy relationship with scripture and a damaging image of God.

What does God look like if God is already in the tough stuff, right there, in the middle of all our struggles? That is exactly where God is. God is not a sort of star player who we call in from the sidelines when life gets difficult to handle, God is already on the field, through good and through bad.

Read those Lamentations verses a few times - there is a real tenderness in them, a longing to be close to God - not a god who is outside, but a God who brings new life each day to our whole being. Our hope is not that God will come in and swoop us up out of harms way but, rather, that we will find God where God has always been, and will always be - right in the middle of our lives, especially in the messy bits.

Caroline+

From our Deacons

From Rev. Dcn. Michele Wiltfong

I had a friend call me last week. He was very quiet as he tried to formulate his question. Finally he said, “How do I know God is ok with me, you know?”

His particular “you know” involved his sexuality, but we all have a “you know” we question in our heads and hearts. I tried to help him realize that God knew him before he was a twinkle in the eye of his parents. God smiled when he took his first steps and spoke his first word.

So I looked, and it said LOVE is referred to in the Bible as many as 541 times. It is not the most used word, but that still shows the significance of the truth behind the phrase “God is love.” When we awake in the morning and self-doubt from societal expectations hits, try to remember God loves us. When the boss rakes us over the coals for not doing things exactly right, God still loves us. When we feel anger toward someone or something and we don’t know why, we are still loved beyond measure.

It’s not easy being a true follower of Christ anymore. People in our lives have expectations of us and seem offended when we fall short. They put us in a box of how they think we should behave. They put God in a box based on how they think “He” would feel about a certain situation. But if we let God and each other be who they/we are called to be, we would realize that God loves every hair on our head and every question in our hearts.

So what I’m asking you is the same thing I asked the friend who called me. “How could God know who we are before we came in to being and not love us for exactly who we are?” Base your image and love of self on God and not who someone else wants you to be. Life would be so much simpler if we cut out the middleman and went to the Source.

My favorite verse in the entirety of the Bible is Proverbs 17:17. “A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.” So my phone call with my friend ended well and he was ok with who he is at that moment, but the doubt has a way of returning. Let us pray that each and every one of us may be able to look into the eyes of our brother and see the very same person God sees. Let us be ok with who our neighbor is on the outside and the inside. Let us love our neighbor, and ourselves, as deeply and wholly as God loves us!

Peace and love, Michele