Category: Grief
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Blue Christmas (a sermon for the Longest Night)
Luke 2:1-20 2 Now it came to pass in those days, there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to enroll themselves, everyone to his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up […]
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Finish Line
Reflections on Shuffle-Play (the thing where I write a reflection each day on a song from that morning’s run) My husband’s parents died in 2007 – his father, Butch, in January and his mother, Dottie, in August. Our eldest, Owen, was just one year old then and our baby, Jesse, was born in June of […]
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Don’t Leave Me Breathing
(I wrote this on September 26, 2012 – about ten months after my mom’s death. Everything I wrote then felt too personal to share, but now after time has gone by it feels good to look back at the healing that has happened and also to remember how raw the grief was for so long.) […]
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Closing of the Sanctuary
“With thanks to God for the work accomplished in this place, I declare this sanctuary to be vacated for the purposes of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit….” Yesterday I attended the final service in the sanctuary where I went to church […]
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Slippery Strands of Faith
Faith is a funny thing. For some faith is just a lifelong journey beginning with the waters of baptism. It is a beloved relationship. Spirituality may not be something completely understood, but there is nowhere else we are likely to be found on a Sunday morning than right here with our eyes fixed on the […]
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At Two Years
(Written November 1, 2013) For the last two years I have not preached on All Saints Sunday so being in the pulpit this coming Sunday feels like a big deal. Two years ago on All Saints my mother had just died – I was in Minnesota preparing for her funeral the next day. Then, last […]
Ruth E. Hetland 