loss
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Table Prayers for Families for All Saints and All Souls
I’ve been working on a couple little projects as All Saints and All Souls approach and was startled to discover that there are very few resources for these particular days for families. The particular resource I’m creating for families is… Continue reading
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Discernment in Coronatide
I never expected that I would be a stay at home mom. I never dreamed that I would find myself isolated in a city where I know no one because a pandemic has forced us to isolate since we arrived… Continue reading
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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… Continue reading
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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.… Continue reading
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Pandemic Prayers for Proper 19
Though I didn’t do anything with the text last week, I’m still thinking about the question Kathryn Matthews posed in her weekly musings in the United Church of Christ’s Sermon Seeds about the grieving parents in the Passover story. How… Continue reading
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Grief and Parenting, Part 5678
I didn’t take my daughters to my mother’s grave. I meant to. It was something that I intended to do while we were in the area for my sister’s wedding. My brother had even asked if we could go together.… Continue reading
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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.… Continue reading
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Tell the Children
I sat there with my daughter in my lap turning the pages. Matt de la Pena’s book Love was sent to me by my cousin. She said it reminded her of me. So my heart was already in my throat… Continue reading
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A Simple Graveside Ritual
Graveside services are often very, very short. Some simple prayers are repeated by the presiding minister. Tears are shed, but there isn’t much else for the grieving family to do. There is nothing asked of them. There’s no action for… Continue reading
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How to Pray Before Giving Birth
This afternoon, after church was over, I finished Rabbi Harold S. Kushner’s international bestseller When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It might seem like an odd book to pick off the shelf for a woman who is expecting to… Continue reading
Cooking with Elsa 