I was busy updating my favorite poems for Christmas Eve when a colleague posted about permission for a beloved Christmas poem she hoped to use Christmas Eve. It was just another one of those reminders that pastors, like you dear one, are juggling so much right now. You’re not just crafting worship but tending toContinue reading “Another Pandemic Christmas Eve”
Tag Archives: christmas
Pandemic Fireside Prayers for Christmas
There are other things that might be done on Christmas Eve. I have a few options in my kitchen for your pandemic planning. This might not be that. It could be. You know your people best and what might work to best share this good news but I imagined this service for the days afterContinue reading “Pandemic Fireside Prayers for Christmas”
Pandemic Longest Night and Christmas Eve Worship
If you’ve been clicking around From My Kitchen or found my newsletter earlier this week in your email, this is old news to you. You are busy, dear pastor. You have already seen this. You can go do the many other things on your list. If you were not so lucky to find these thingsContinue reading “Pandemic Longest Night and Christmas Eve Worship”
Pandemic Prayers for Advent and Christmas
Though I am not posting weekly prayers during these four weeks, I do not want to leave you orphaned. I also do not think that I am Jesus. For some reason, that Gospel Lesson is working on me so there it is. If you are looking for prayers for this season, I am here forContinue reading “Pandemic Prayers for Advent and Christmas”
Lessons and Carols in Coronatide
Christmas will look different this year. Our favorite traditions will not have the same warmth as being gathered in the same sanctuary singing beloved carols and lighting candles for the Light of the World. It will be different, but the promise will remain the same. Christ will be born. Miracles will never cease. As I’mContinue reading “Lessons and Carols in Coronatide”
Twinkly Lights in Blue Pandemic Days
Several years ago, I created a devotional for the grieving and brokenhearted. I called it Twinkly Lights in Blue Days. It’s sat there in my kitchen for anyone that might have wanted it or needed in the years that followed. Grief is close to my heart. My mother died of breast cancer before anyone reallyContinue reading “Twinkly Lights in Blue Pandemic Days”
Christmas Comes
Christmas comes in the ordinary. It comes into a guest room where strangers are welcomed as friends. A place is made for another night of rest. Two expectant parents wonder if this will be the night. No matter what may have been foretold, it could be any night. The baby will come when its ready.Continue reading “Christmas Comes”
Insistent Hope
It is the first Sunday of Advent and I sat in church. I sat in that pew with my baby bouncing on my lap to hear hope insisted upon. Maybe hope needs to come that way. Maybe it will only come by our stubborn determination or it’ll only be something that dances through our daydreams,Continue reading “Insistent Hope”
New Traditions for Our Family
My husband is an atheist. That’s right. I am an ordained minister in the Christian Church and I married a man who could care less about anything remotely related to God. He will be quick to amend that. He will say that he does care. He cares because I care but it’s not quite theContinue reading “New Traditions for Our Family”
Twinkly Lights in Blue Days
Jan Richardson lost her beloved husband Gary during Advent. It was more sudden than the wars and rumors of war that the gospel Mark hints it could be. Nobody saw it coming and the grief lingered for many more seasons. In her online Advent devotional two years later, Jan shared that she was looking forContinue reading “Twinkly Lights in Blue Days”
Cooking with Elsa 