Prayer: Healing and loving God, make us whole and heal our souls. Revive us as we share the love of Jesus. Amen
Reading: Jeremiah 8: 18-9: 1 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: I write this reflection a couple days before a memorial service for a dear woman of our church. She was in her late nineties when she passed away. Her husband died young and one of her five children, too. Yet she had a cheerful and thankful spirit through to the end. I happen to know her favorite hymn was There is a Balm in Gilead and that it will be sung at the service. So, of course, today's reading has me thinking about Ardis. The prophet Jeremiah asks, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" With a hymn in her heart, Ardis believed that yes there is. There is a balm to make the wounded whole and to heal the sin-sick soul. Discouraged and thinking your work is in vain? The Holy Spirit revives the soul again. Feeling like you cannot preach or pray like Peter or Paul? Just tell the love of Jesus who died for all. Thank you, Ardis. Thank you, God. -- Ruth Gates
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