Blessings to you, loved ones.  I hope you’re all staying warm during this unusually cold season.  Surprisingly, it has been colder.  It was -8 degrees on February 12, 1899.

We have decided to discuss week by week when we will be returning to in-person meetings, so watch this space for updates.  This might be a good time to point out that you can subscribe to updates from the web site via email.  On a computer or mobile device in desktop mode it is at the bottom of the sidebar on the right.  On your phone you will find it at the end of the page.  The email address you provide will not be used for any other purpose, but i should say that the company behind WordPress is managing this feature and stores the addresses.

We will be meeting by phone tomorrow.  If you have not been receiving the text messages with the conference number, contact us and we will be sure that you get the information in whatever form you need it.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s day, so I get to talk about love.  You all know it’s my favorite subject.  I also know that many of us are hurting, and this might be a tough one.  Sometimes we don’t feel loved.  Sometimes we’re disappointed because our expectations about what love should look like are not met.  People let us down.  We might even begin to think that God has let us down.  Your enemy will certainly try to make you think so.

What if love comes in forms we may not immediately recognize?  Some years ago while I was reading in John, Chapter 11, my attention was drawn to these words in verses 5-6.

⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶ So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.

This seems to indicate that the reason Jesus stayed where He was after hearing that His friend was sick was because He loved him.  We would have expected this to read “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then came quickly to the place where Lazarus was staying.”  But that’s not what it says.  Jesus had something much bigger in mind.  It would involve more suffering for Lazarus and his family, but the result would be something greater than any of them expected, affecting the lives of many others who would witness what he was about to do.

I pray that you’ll be encouraged by this message.  When you can’t understand what is happening to you, when god seems far away an in no hurry to come your way, when love seems like nothing but a nice notion, know that God has not forgotten you.  He has something better in mind that goes beyond anything you have imagined and touches more lives than your own.  Trust him, and act on that trust.

Love y’all!

Larry