I have been married for just over a year, which means that many conversations between my husband and I reach a point of raised, frustrated voices and end with “That’s what you meant?!” We’re still learning how to communicate about some things.

I live three hours from my closest friends, so every Tuesday night, three of us have a standing appointment for a FaceTime call together. Another one I talk to several times a week by us sending each other videos back and forth, ranging from 30 seconds to 20 minutes each.

Sometimes my dog gets upset with me when I have to get some work done and can’t play with her, even though she’s in the mood to play (like right now). I have to make it up to her later with an extra long walk.

The underlying theme in all of those snippets of my life is this: Relationships take work. Even a relationship with God takes work.

Mine has been a work in progress for close to 24 years, which is why I’m willing to admit that sometimes it feels like really hard work for me. I struggle with God, not too differently from how Jacob and David famously did (Genesis 32 and 1 Chronicles 13:11 respectively). Of course, their struggles with God weren’t about the same things that mine are, but I would be willing to bet that they often had the same basis as mine: God didn’t do what we thought He would or should, or God wasn’t who we thought He should be.

I’ve been angry with God quite a bit over the last year. Things haven’t gone the way I thought they would go. Decisions have been harder to make because answers from God have been unclear. Friendships have been more difficult to establish than I thought they would be. A spiritual mentor once shared with me that doubt in God can look like disappointment that He didn’t meet your expectations.

The good news is that faith and doubt can co-exist. Wrestling with God, for me, is often a sign that I am actively growing in faith and working on the relationship I have with Him. Doubt does not diminish faith.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the magic answer key for having the perfect relationship with God and trusting everything He does. All I can offer is this: You are not alone. You are not alone in your doubting, in your wishing, in your waiting, in your hurting, or in your rejoicing. God does not leave us or forsake us, even when we doubt (Deuteronomy 31:6-8, Hebrews 13:5).

In what ways are you wrestling with God or have you wrestled with God? How is God meeting you in your doubt? What relationships in your life need a little extra work right now? Who can you walk alongside in faith?

As you wait and watch and wrestle, know that I join you in this journey of faith.

Struggling with you,
Maddie Pease

Sometimes you’ll pick a little up at Christmas worship. Or maybe at Easter. Perhaps a child you know gets excited about a project they worked on in Sunday School and as they explain it to you, a little bit of it stays with you. Once in a while you go to a wedding or a quinceanera and when you get home at the end of the day you look in the mirror and realize you’ve brought home a little something extra from the day.

I’m talking, of course, about glitter.

There aren’t many places in the church where you can’t find at least a little glitter. It shows up in tiny specs that you only see if the light hits it just right, and in big chunks that you can’t miss. In some ways, the big chunks are easier to deal with. They can be picked up by hand, or vacuumed, or ignored completely, which is often the case. But the tiny glitter… it is pervasive. You see it, and by the time you bring the lint roller over to try to pick it up, you can’t find it any more. So it lies in wait until the next time the light hits it and you are reminded of whatever event brought the glitter to church in the first place.

I find that glitter has a lot in common with Sunday morning worship. Not that we tend to be too flashy, but we go home carrying bits of it with us. It might be a tune stuck in our head or a line from the sermon. Maybe just an idea or a feeling that gets us going for the week. Maybe it’s the sense of fellowship we get from a familiar community.

Do we remember every moment from Sunday morning? No. I help plan Sunday worship and even I can’t hold on to all the thoughts and ideas from week to week. But just like that elusive glitter, these little pieces of Sunday morning lodge themselves in unexpected corners of our lives. They might not be immediately apparent, but when the right situation arises – a moment of doubt, a need for encouragement, a chance to offer compassion – that tiny, previously unnoticed fragment of worship sparkles to the surface. It reminds us of a truth we heard, a feeling we shared, or a connection we made.

The beauty of this lingering "glitter" of worship is its subtlety. It's not about perfectly remembering every detail, but about the gentle, persistent influence of the sacred in our everyday lives. It's about the way the messages of love, grace, and justice seep into our consciousness and shape our interactions with the world.

So, the next time you find a stray speck of glitter clinging to your clothes or sparkling on your floor, perhaps it can serve as a reminder of the less tangible, yet equally persistent, gifts we receive each time we gather for worship. These are the little pieces of the holy that we carry with us, often unseen, but always present, ready to shimmer when the light hits them just right, guiding us and reminding us of the deeper truths that sustain us. And just like that glitter, the impact of our shared worship extends far beyond the walls of the church, subtly and beautifully coloring the world around us.

John Johns

One of the easiest ways I can annoy or embarrass my kids is to pull out some fresh Gen X slang from 1986! “Dudes! I’m so stoked to hang and chill with you guys at the mall!” Not only would they probably shake their heads and call me their “old man,” but they may also need a translator. Because several of these words don’t mean what they used to mean, I run the risk of them not understanding what I’m trying to say.

As someone who spends their life working with words, it intrigues and frustrates me how quickly language can morph. A recent article posted on BBC offers three reasons why language is always changing:

• Language is constantly adapting and changing to reflect our changing lives, experiences, and cultures.
• Language change enables us to accommodate new ideas, inventions, and technologies.
• It's not just the words themselves which change; the way in which we use them can shift, too.

Our language around faith and theology is not exempt from these shifting patterns.

I remember when my local congregation made the shift in the Apostles’ Creed from “descended into hell” to “descended to the dead” when I was a teen. I stumbled over the change for months, but grew to appreciate the clarity. So much of what we associate with hell is imported from cultural references in books and film, not from the biblical witnesses. By the way, there’s still a footnote about this change in our cranberry Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal.

This month, Lord of Life and our larger church body, along with dozens of other denominations, will be switching the translation of the Bible we use in worship. For many years, our denomination has encouraged Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) congregations to use the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), but this will be replaced with the New Revised Standard Version updated edition (NRSVue) this summer.

Why the shift? The Yale Divinity Library for New Testament studies writes, “The NRSVue reflects discoveries of ancient texts [such as the Dead Sea Scrolls] and new insights made in the 30 years since the NRSV was last revised. This newly-updated translation offers clearer, more direct, and inclusive language, and increased cultural sensitivity absent of the unintended biases of prior versions. The NRSVue includes over 10,000 substantial revisions and 20,000 minor revisions. Some of the NRSVue changes include:

• "slave woman" to "enslaved woman" (Galatians)
• "wise men" to "magi" (Gospel of Matthew)
• "demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics" to "people possessed by demons or having epilepsy or afflicted with paralysis" (Gospel of Matthew)

This Easter season, we are also making a shift in the Lord’s Prayer we use in our communal worship moments. We frequently bounce back and forth between what you may know as the “traditional” Lord’s Prayer, taken from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in 1662, and an alternate version which has been in steady circulation since 1977. Beginning May 4, we’ll only use the newer version.

Why the shift? There are a few reasons, including the biblical reality that God doesn’t lead us into temptation. “Save us from the time of trial” speaks more truth about who God is and how we seek deliverance. An additional shift relates to how we speak. All of our language has shifted away from the King’s English, so the way we speak this most intimate prayer should follow.

As always, you are encouraged to use your favorite translation of the Bible for your devotion, study, and prayer times. Referencing a variety of versions helps us stretch our hearts and minds, and gain greater insight into how God continues to faithfully speak to God’s people. Read, study, and pray whatever version speaks to your heart.

Thank you for your patience as we make these shifts. Together, we strive to make Lord of Life a place where all can live, share, and celebrate the love of Jesus with clarity and hope.

Leaning into Hope!
Pastor Lowell Michelson

For more details about the NRSVue shift, visit https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue and https://www.christiancentury.org/article/interview/even-better-bible.

A couple of weeks ago I was scrolling on social media and stumbled on a song called “Healing” by Cat Burns. The chorus to this song goes as follows:

But now I'm healing, feeling, growing, and unlearning.
My old self has been laid to rest.
Now I'm ready to become my best.

This song touched me because of how relatable it is to my life. Particularly, it resonates with my ongoing journey toward increased vulnerability and comfort in sharing the ways I am feeling, growing, unlearning, and healing in my own life. This song made me reflect on many things, including what healing means.

When I was younger, I always thought of healing only as getting better from an injury or sickness. As I've grown older, I've come to understand that other forms of restoration also occur. We constantly undergo mental, spiritual, and emotional healing, both as individuals and collectively. Healing in these ways is also a lifelong journey that sometimes requires us to do some hard work and reflection, especially when it involves difficult or painful life situations or hurtful experiences.

Having this understanding of healing has been helpful for me. On an individual level, this has been valuable in improving my relationship with others or God. I have often felt deep pain from certain experiences I have had with people and have wrestled with how God is present amid this. This has also helped me when it comes to realizing the deep pain we all might experience collectively when a tragic event happens in our community or in the world such as the COVID-19 pandemic, wars, and mass shootings.

We constantly see Jesus in the Gospels healing individuals. He restores sight to the blind and the ability to walk to those who are paralyzed, casts out demons, and heals the sick. Jesus meets people wherever they are in their restoration journey, especially outcasts and marginalized people. God does this for us, as well. No matter where we are on our journey of continuing to be made whole, God is with us. God walks alongside us as we work to understand what this means in our own lives and remains with us even if full restoration does not occur as we desire. We often share this restoration with others as we struggle, celebrate, and question where we are in the healing journey. Wherever we are, God still calls us to live, celebrate, and share our own stories of healing with others.

How have God and others shown up for you amid healing? Are there ways that you are still trying to heal in your life?

Healing with you,
Pastor Nicole

Original art by Maria Hupp 2025

It is Holy Week. On these days leading up to Easter, Christian communities gather to hear stories about Jesus giving a new commandment “To love one another,” before eating a final meal with his friends and his startling arrest in Gethsemane. We recall his brutal beating and makeshift trial. We remember a denial by the charcoal fire and the crowds screaming “Crucify him!” We try to insulate ourselves from the bizarre parade to execution hill beyond the city walls and the violence of fear and hatred which took his life.

I wish that all of the gruesome events of these solemn and shadowy days were sequestered in the past, but unfortunately our embrace of sin continues to propel similar occurrences right into our days and newsfeeds. Greed, selfishness, and betrayal runs rampant. Hate and revenge dismantles friendships and allegiances. The struggle to maintain power and cling to self-preservation distorts otherwise clear-headed thinking. Manipulation and judgment rooted in fear continues to be lived out in real time right in front of us.

As I write, politicians and lawyers are arguing over what to do with Kilmar Ábrego García after he was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison. Russia and Ukraine continue to launch bombs at one another. Israel and Hamas are at a seeming stalemate as lives continue to be destroyed daily. The Sudanese civil war marks a two year anniversary with more death and starvation. Chaos reigns at our Southern border and a flurry of tariffs strain international relationships. Democrats and Republicans point fingers and blame one another as they dig in their heels. Military budgets swell as countries fortress themselves for the future. Countless children continue to go to bed hungry. Like the disciples, we are paralyzed by waiting and wondering as the shadows lengthen and threaten to overwhelm us.

In the gospel according to John, Jesus refers to himself as light and speaks to the realities that come with that brightness. He tells us that we won’t stumble, our vision will be transformed, and mobility will look different with his encompassing light. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8). The Lord of Light doesn’t say that the darkness is gone, but promises that the veil of gloom will not dominate the landscape of our lives. The Light of Christ shines into every shadowed corner and cranny.

Pastor Daniel Erlander describes it this way: “We do not find God. God finds us – in our darkness, our pain, our emptiness, our loneliness, our weakness… [For us, this] is a new way of seeing… It is here, on the cross, that God meets us. Here God makes Godself present: hidden in weakness, vulnerable, suffering, forsaken, dying… As God meets us where we are, the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see the Cross is God’s embrace – the Cross is God’s victory!”

This line of thinking is called Theology of the Cross. In the cross of Jesus, we see forgiveness, reconciliation, power, hope, life, unconditional love, and triumph. In the cross of Jesus, we are reminded that the goodness of God is stronger than any evil. In the cross of Jesus, God declares that death does not have the final word.

Filled and fueled by these promises, we live as people of Hope who are waiting and watching for something beyond the struggle and pain of now. We cling to God’s resurrection promises! Pain and suffering isn’t the end of the story. Jesus bursts into our presence as the one who once was dead, but now is alive.

Leaning into Hope!
Pastor Lowell Michelson

We all worry about our kids and the kids we love. From babies to adults, we agonize if we have done enough, what direction they are headed, or did we do or say too much? As a parent, aunt, neighbor, and in my position as Director of Faith Formation, I have had the joy and sometimes heartache of experiencing kids in all stages of life.

As I grow older and continue to learn about the grace and peace that a life grounded in the love of Jesus can bring, my heart and mind are less jumbled with worry about my parenting skills and my kids’ success in the eyes of the world. I find myself praying more about the fruits of the spirit in my own life and cultivating them in the children I love. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) are the true markings of a life in Christ.

It’s not easy in this environment with the distractions of phones, devices, social media, and a world oriented to material success to engage with children in an authentic and meaningful way. While you may feel like you are falling short, I can assure you that you are not. I see the fruits of the spirit that you are instilling in your kids even if you receive the full spectrum of their developing minds and hearts at home.

I recently spent the weekend with our Jr. High kids at an overnight retreat at Lord of Life. They were all things that you can imagine a group of 6th to 8th graders would be: active, silly, loud, impatient, and impulsive. However, they were also kind, helpful, empathetic, creative, and faithful—like preschoolers with bigger bodies.

Our theme for the retreat was “God Calls Us to Serve.” We discussed ways to love and care for our neighbors through acts of service. We experienced serving and recognized who serves us. They mentioned their families over and over again as examples of kindness, sharing, and serving others. Well done, families! They are observing and imitating you.

As one of our activities, we served at Matthew 25 by sorting “imperfect” feminine hygiene pads into those that could still be used for their original purpose or those that can be used for cleaning up in areas devastated by war, natural disasters, or poverty. While they might have grumbled at the task initially, they got to work. They made a game of tossing them in the proper bins and competed to see who sorted the fastest, but they also worked diligently to get as many sorted as possible while discussing how different resources can be used to serve others or how we can work to be less wasteful in our own lives to serve creation.

Modeling our faith, priorities, and care for others can sometimes seem to be a daunting task, especially with the distractions and busyness of life. Be kind to yourself and know that the children we love are seeing the fruits of the spirit in you. What small steps can you take this week to live more freely in those life-giving traits?

We may never stop worrying about our children and the children we love but we can rest in the assurance that God will continue to guide our lives through the joys and heartache. I pray that living in the fruits of the spirit will not only nourish us but the lives of the children that surround us.

Living and serving with you through God’s love,
Angie Seiller, Director of Faith Formation