Today is Friday. Today I have three blessings for you:

One: May the presence of God in your life reveal his loving nurture and your transformation.

So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

2 Corinthians 3:18, NLT

Two: May the presence of God in your life usher in true peace and bring rest to your soul.

The Lord said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Exodus 33:14, NET

Three: May the presence of God in your life saturate your personal relationships with love.

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

1 John 4:7, NLT

Last Sunday, Pastor Micheal Maynard spoke of the problem with platitudes when attempting to help someone who is dealing with grief.

Platitudes are flat, overused sayings.

Ambrose Bierce once sarcastically described platitudes as, “Thoughts that snore, in words that smoke”. 

But Craig Lounsbrough really brings the idea home: “In times of crisis, what we don’t need are nice ideas or colorful platitudes or the congenial pat-on-the-back. What we need is a God who so perfectly transcends the thing that is attacking us that His presence alone obliterates all of the fear within us.”

God’s presence.

That’s what restores our hearts.

That’s what we need when we’re grieving losses of loved ones, relationships, health, or anything else.

Today I’m closing with an additional blessing for those of you who are experiencing grief:

Let us agree for now, that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger, or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love.

Let us promise we will not tell ourselves time will heal the wound, when every day our waking opens it anew.

Perhaps for now it can be enough to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating, as if it were made for precisely this—

—as if it knows the only cure for love is more of it,

—as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still,

—as if it trusts that its own persistent pulse is the rhythm of a blessing we cannot begin to fathom, but will save us nonetheless.

“A Blessing For The Brokenhearted”, Jan Richardson

Today, simply read the blessings. Choose the ones you need most, and read them again.

Dwell with the presence of God, and be blessed.

That’s worship.

–Pastor Steve.