I know you’re wondering how I got my chubby little princess fingers on such an exquisitely rare gem so let me resolve the mystery for you. I went empty-handed to a children’s evangelistic crusade at our church and returned home having hit the Jesus dessert plate jackpot. Okay, here’s how it happened because I know you’re dying for details.

On the off chance you’ve never been exposed to a child and were never one yourself, let me clue you in on something. Whenever a large number of children are jammed in one room together and told to be seated, the odds of them actually remaining in their seats instead of jumping up and down for no particular reason other than hyperactivity is statistically unlikely. This is why those of us with a little more experience with children (having been one or met one) place the youngest and thereby shortest children toward the front of the herd so they can actually see whatever there is that might be worth seeing. It also works well in that the youngest children are usually the only ones in the whole lot of jumping beans who still have any vested interest in vying for the role of teacher’s pet in which case sitting within the teacher’s frame of vision is a crucial element.

Everything was working in my favor that day. I was in the front row, dead center to the stage and so when the leader asked for a volunteer I popped my hand up in the air, kicked my adorability factor up into overdrive and the next thing I knew I was being beckoned up on stage where the leader stood with a wrapped present in her hands.

Her: This present is for you. Do you want it?

Me: Yes!!!

Her: That’s great because this present is for you and I think you’re really going to like what’s inside.

Me: (Thinking to myself: So quit talking and give me the present!)

Her: It’s your present. What do you suppose you need to do to get it?

Me: Hmmmm….say “please?”

Her: No. It’s already yours. You don’t need to ask for it.

Me: Oh. (Thinking to myself: Why did I raise my hand?)

Her: So if the present is already yours and you don’t need to ask for it what do you need to do to get it?

Me: Hmmmm…say “thank you?”

Her: Well, that would be nice to say after you get the present but there’s something you need to do first. (Now she begins to talk slowly as though she’s trying to work the right answer out of a puppy.) If I hold this present out to give it to you, what-do-you-need-to-do-to-get-it?

Me: Pause. Pause. Pause. And then the light bulb lit up over my head. Take it! I have to take it!

And with the right answer finally achieved, the leader placed the package in my hand, motioning for me to return to my chair, front row, center stage, and as you may have already guessed by now, being as clever as we all know you are, the point she was trying to demonstrate was that God’s gift of salvation through Jesus had already been given to us and we simply needed to take (receive) what was already ours, although the point was probably lost on us since our minds were already drifting to snack time and the possibilities it held in sugar consumption.

And that’s the story of how my cherished fake gold Jesus plate came to be in my possession; a story brought back to mind yesterday when I read these words in “Beyond Grace” by Frederick Buechner:

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

The grace of God means something like: “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. Its for you I created the universe. I love you.”

There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.

So just how am I going to smoothly tie my simple little childhood recollection into Buechner’s theologically profound reflection?

Here’s how.

Take the present. It’s already yours. Come on. You know you want to. Just take it.

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Those are just three of the emails that arrived this week and as is always the case what I received personally in those emails is far more than I was able to give back in return. Courage. Determination. Love. Passionate desire to please God. Hunger to be whole and at peace. Faithfulness in the midst of doubt. Resilience in painful circumstances. Every time I receive letters such as these I’m reminded again in such a tangible way that our lives don’t speak the loudest when we think we have it all together but when we’re frayed at the edges and not sure what tomorrow will bring and how we’ll come out the other side or even if we will and yet we refuse to let go of our grip on life, on God, and on hope that tomorrow may hold more grace and understanding that we possess in today.

Whatever is going on in your life, how ever many difficulties you’re facing, whatever hurt you’re enduring, whatever questions, doubts, fears or uncertainties are swirling around you, your life is speaking. That you are overwhelmed but not overcome is a powerful witness to others, not only of the nature of your character but of the presence of God’s Spirit within you. You’re touching lives. You might never know who, you might never know how deeply, but God is using you today. You are a worthy vessel and you don’t need to wait until the end of your life to hear God say, “This is my child in whom I am well pleased.” You are and God is. Today.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness. – Zephaniah 3:17

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.  – 2 Corinthians 2:3-4

We are again attempting to upgrade the message board system as we tried unsuccessfully to do several months ago and it appears we’re running into some of the same glitches. At the present it appears the board data (posts and memberships) have been dated back to sometime in February so that nothing that’s been added since then including the addition of new members is there. Please be assured nothing has been lost. The database was backed up and will eventually be restored. No one’s membership has been deleted. No posts were removed.

For the time begin I’d ask that everyone take a weekend holiday from the message boards since I can’t guarantee that when the database is restored any new data added during this down time will be lost. As soon as we have the boards are back in place and running smoothly I’ll pass the word along.

Now, go play with sparklers or something!

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Thanks Honey but really, no I’m not.”

“You were standing right beside her and I just couldn’t help but notice you were smaller.”

“I can’t be. She was just a regular sized woman.”

“You are a regular sized woman Anita.”

We’ve had a number of similar exchanges over the past few weeks. Sometimes the roles are reversed but the conversation is the same with one of us unable to grasp the reality of being in an average-sized body.

I know I’ll get there, where I see my body as it really is. The reality is I don’t weigh 325 pounds anymore even if there are days when I feel like I do. It’s just going to take some time to adjust, to let go of how I’ve always seen myself in my head and instead look in the mirror and believe that what I see is really me and trust that when D tries to give me a perspective on how I look by comparing my size to someone else, she’s not lying to me just to make me feel good.

If I’m needing to work on seeing my body as it really is, even when the evidence is right in front of my face and starring back at me in the mirror, is it any wonder so many of us struggle to see ourselves as God sees us? We look at our life and remember every little mistake we’ve ever made and sin we’ve ever committed. We’re so obsessed by our weaknesses and failings that we barely have any vision left to see our strengths and the gifts we bring into the world. We remember every person we’ve ever disappointed but we go blank if asked to recount the names of just a few people whose lives were blessed for having known us. We sat in little wood chairs in Sunday School class every week and learned about our sin and wretchedness; our depraved fallen nature and sinful flesh; messages so loud and troubling that they drowned out the messages of glory and joy that we were created in the very likeness of God and that we are the beloved, the children of God, the apple of God’s eye, the delight of God’s heart. We are living epistles, a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood. We are the lost lamb worthy of the Shepherd’s attention. We are the coin valuable enough to be searched for and celebrated when found. We are the child so loved God lifts up his hem of his robe so he can bolt down the road to greet us with open arms. We are the baby birds protected in the shelter of the Almighty’s wing. Wait. Let me edit what I just wrote. You are the lost lamb worthy of the Shepherd’s attention. You are the coin valuable enough to be searched for and celebrated when found. You are the child so loved and longed for that God lifts up his hem of his robe so he can bolt down the road to greet you with open arms and tear-stained cheeks. You are the baby bird protected in the shelter of the Almighty’s wing. There. That was better.

But for some that’s only the beginning because there are those of you who were told throughout your childhood that you were a failure, a disappointment, unwanted, unworthy, a waste; and those who came to believe through neglect that you were invisible nothingness or that you deserved the abuse you endured.

And what of the messages ground into the hearts and minds of young people and adults who in secret confusion and torment about their sexuality hear from church pulpits and loved ones that homosexuality is a perversion, a sin, an abomination, and that there’s no place in God’s kingdom or in the church for the unrepentant homosexual; messages that compare gay men and women to pedophiles, adulterers, murderers, and those who practice bestiality.

When I look in the mirror the main obstacle I have to seeing who I really am is letting go in my mind of the 160 pounds that are no longer there on my body, but to see ourselves as God sees us means we have to be willing to let go of so much more. We have to let go of messages, whether the intention be for good or evil, that in one way or another diminished our identity as God’s handiwork. We have to let go of any neglect or abusive that scarred our hearts and devalued our worth. We have to accept ourselves as being human and have compassion on ourselves for living that out in sometimes messy, fumbling ways while acknowledging those other moments when we rose to the occasion and let glory shine through us. We need to silence the voices in our head from those who judge us and remind ourselves again of what the gospel message tells us and only then, but certainly then, we will begin to see ourselves in shades and glimpses as God sees us. Beloved. Beautiful. Adored.

Repent and believe in the gospel, Jesus says. Turn around and believe the the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in the world the gladdest thing of all. (Frederick Buechner)

If you could but for a moment catch a glimpse of yourself through God’s eyes, everything would change. I pray for nothing more or less than each of you would see what God sees because then you would know and never again question or doubt the unfathomable love God has for you and all the delight that fills His heart with every glimpse of you.

Two years ago my adorable howbeit it manically neurotic TweetyCat died in my arms on the way to the vets. This left us a one cat household with AnnieCat inheriting the reigning position of head feline. In our grieving over Tweety’s death we made a mistake. We assumed AnnieCat was grieving too and would be ever indebted to us for bringing a subordinate cat in the house, if for no other reason than to do her bidding and serve her as a living chew toy. We have come over the past two years to accept this was in fact not what she wanted. We know this because months later she continues to climb onto our faces at 3:00 a.m. waking us from a dead sleep with kitty paws on our eyelids to re-emphasize her displeasure at our decision to bring another cat into the house. But that’s AnnieCat’s story to tell and if she has more to say about it then she knows where the laptop is kept and she can start her own blog which would give her something a little more productive to do at say, 3 in the morning.

As for D and I we’re a two cat household and so a few weeks after TweetyCat returned home enshrined in a little wood box to join the feline ashes of the most furry Sophie and the certifiably emotionally disturbed Sarah, we began visiting nearby animal rescue centers for a new cat. D and I clearly knew what we wanted and did not want in a cat. We had a list. We did not want a male cat. We did not want a grown cat. We did not want a black cat. We wanted a fluffy little calico kitty with a pink bow tied behind her ear. We wanted a little princess to complete our house and since we were just entering May, the season when baby kittens are in bloom we felt the odds were stacked in our favor of getting just what we wanted and so on a Saturday afternoon we stopped in at the nearby pet store where the local animal shelter provided dog and cat adoptions every weekend afternoon from 1-4 p.m.

Let’s go over this again. For weeks D and I had discussed and agreed upon what we were looking for and just in case you already forgot or skimmed over the previous paragraph and missed it altogether, let me review. We wanted

• A kitten.
• A girl kitten.
• A calico girl kitten.

In other words, we were not looking for him. He was the antithesis of everything we wanted in a cat but there he was, a boy cat, the equivalent in age to a pimply teenaged sass-you-back-as soon-as-look-at-you boy and black as midnight in a sandstorm during an eclipse of the moon. His wire cage was situated between two other cages on a table and there he was, stretched out on the cage floor with one long arm reaching through the wires of the cage next to him with his paw lightly resting on the head of the cat napping there. That’s what did it. There was something so tender and sweet about seeing that little guy reaching out to touch another cat that it melted us. We watched him for the longest time, and then reminding ourselves what kind of cat we were looking for and that he wasn’t it, we left the store.

I was back in five minutes, having left D at the check out stand at The Container Store with the words, “I’ll be right back. I just want to go ask if the animal rescue will be having adoptions tomorrow.” Fifteen minutes later and tired of waiting for me to return, D found me in the pet store holding the cat we didn’t want who was hanging like dripping jelly in my arms. “We’re taking him home, aren’t we?” she asked. “Hold him,” I answered. “Just hold him.”

For the past two years, not a single day has come and gone that our little black cat, officially dubbed Simbakitty, has failed to make us laugh out loud and just as often scratch our heads. There are days when he acts so much like a rambunctious, curious little boy I fight the urge to dress him in overalls and stick a baseball cap on his head. He chases spiders that aren’t there. He walks around the house unaware that dangling from his pitch back face is a full white beard acquired in a wrestling match with AnnieCat that remains wedged between his teeth. He dashes through the house like a madman until he’s running so fast he slides out of control across the wood floor coming to a sudden and loud stop against the wall. He meows like his shorts are on fire every time either one of us gets out of the bath because at some point in his formative years one of us made the mistake of getting out of the bathtub and giving him a kitty treat and now and forever he feels compelled to remind us that baths, showers, the flushing of the toilet, the running of the faucet, or a bath towel in our hands must naturally lead to the immediate dispensing of kitty treats.

And he cuddles. Every night. All night. I come to bed and within five minutes, never more and often less, he stands up in his kitty bed, stretches and then ambles up beside me, waiting patiently until I throw back the covers far enough for him to crawl in (I lack all power to say no) and drop against my side like a furry rock. Once settled there and having licked my arm with his sandpaper tongue four licks short of blood shed he rests his chin on my arm and stretching one front arm acroos the bed his paw comes to rest on D. This is how we go to sleep every night.

We did not want this adolescent male cat with black fur. We knew exactly what we wanted and he was not it and yet here we are a couple years later and this guy owns us, heart, soul, and kitty treats. He’s the perfect cat for us. Silly, loving, sweet, affectionate, crazy. He’s our furry little knucklehead of a boy cat.

He was the cat we didn’t want.

What else in my life have I been convinced I didn’t want that ended up being the very thing that brought me the greatest joy? Too many things and moments and events to even count.

Life is gooooooood because…

• Jesus loves me this I know.
• My g’friend is a Christian and she loves me.
• I am well taken care of by my Father
• I’m losing weight
• I’m going back to school at 46 yrs old to get my HS Diploma, with hopes of college.

As you can see by the photo the winner was chosen by a very sophisticated method which involved printing out all the entries, scattering them randomly on our home office floor, turning my back to them, and tossing a quarter over my shoulder! I believe that’s also the method used by the Publisher’s Clearinghouse when they do their 10 Million Dollar Sweepstakes…or so I’ve heard.

Unfortunately Rebeccah didn’t include an email address and so Girlfriend, you have 24 hours to contact me with your mailing address (email me at anita@sisterfriends-together.org) and if I don’t hear from you by then, the runner-up (aka the second fiddle) will be wearing your awesome tee shirts! Remember the saying, you snooze, you lose…so wake up and contact me!

…I have another one going over at my personal blog. Check it out! Now! Seriously, leave and get over there!

I love the simplicity and the whimsy of their designs but most of all I love the core message; life is good, and for the most part that’s been my experience. Even when life is cruddy (I should copyright that slogan before one of you steals it!) it’s still good if I pause long enough in the difficulties immediately before me to consider the wonder and brilliance that comprise the bulk of life.

In the photo to your left are three of my Life is Good tee shirts. The back of the yellow and white ones are blank. The blue one has the word “Optimist” and the number “7″ like a football shirt on the back. All are sized “women’s extra-large” (aka extra-beautiful) and all are in pristine condition because no one does laundry as skillfully as my wife. I’m not kidding. I do laundry and everything comes out pink and two sizes smaller than when it went in but D can take a pile of my played-in, cooked-in, eaten-in tees and make them look so new that I’ve come to suspect either she really is replacing them with exact replicas from a surplus inventory she’s hidden in the garage or she’s practicing some form of ancient laundry voodoo which, not that I think about it, would explain the odd chanting and smells of burning sage coming from the laundry room.

Wow. That was a scary glimpse into the way my mind can wander at will.

So here’s the deal. Between now, whenever now is for you as you’re reading this, and Wednesday, July 1, which is hopefully not after Wednesday, July 1, in which case you snooze, you lose,  I’m inviting you to contribute a list of five things about your life that are good in the comment section of this post. The five things can be anything. Eating frozen candy bars on a hot summer day makes my life good. My life is good because I know with the deepest of assurance that God loves me. Silly or spiritual, it makes no difference. Whatever floats your boat. As you contribute them, I’ll post them, and we’ll all enjoy them. Then on Thursday, July 1, I’ll pick one at random from out of my ever-so dykey baseball cap and the following day I’ll send out the triple tees to the winner along with a bonus mystery prize. There you go. Have at it!

[Note to self: Avoid blogging when the temperature is over 100 degrees as the excessive heat apparently snaps your synapses, causing you to ramble incoherently.]

Update: I just realized that our friends of the male persuasion might want to play and not be so inspired by the idea of winning a triple hit of women’s tee shirts, so in the event a guy wins the drawing they will receive a Peet’s Coffee Messenger Bag, manly and yet oh so fashionable.

Grandma’s name was Rosina. She was a true Swiss and the quintessential grandma. She and Grandpa had a family dairy (that continues to this day) and my childhood is stuffed to the brim with memories of being near her side watching her bake dozens of cookies for the tour groups of school children who would visit the dairy so they could milk a real live cow or bake loaves of bread to feed the farm hands in the cook house. I’d sit in the kitchen nook near her while she made multiple calls on the old rotary phone to the florist as she ordered flowers for this or that person she knew who was sick or grieving or celebrating something or another. In the evening I’d be in the living room chair next to her while she sewed on one needlepoint painting after another until they spilled out of her and Grandpa’s home and found their way into our homes, onto our walls, and into our hearts. My grandma was a wonder. I adored her. I still do.

Last Sunday was Father’s Day. It was also the day five years ago when my equally adored dad, Grandma’s boy, died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. For the past couple weeks I’ve been thinking about Dad, about my Grandparents, about my childhood that was so ridiculously joyful and fun and filled with love that I should have been charged rent for growing up in my shoes. As a memory to the dad I loved, who loved his mom, who loved the Lord, I did the thing I knew that would make them both smile. On Sunday, I made a double batch of one of Grandma’s favorite cookie recipes for the church social hour. It was a small gesture. A silly one really. But sometimes you have to do something to say thank you and to honor the memory of those you love even if it’s a very small and silly thing and so I baked a few cookies and spoke their names among others. Judging by the crumb-less serving platters I took home, the church was incredibly supportive of my little cookie gesture.

If you ever want to make some unbelievably yummy refrigerated cookie bars then give these a try and when you do, remember they were first made by a Grandma with a heart just as sweet as the first bite you munch on.

My Grandma’s Graham Cracker Dream Bars

Line the bottom of a 9×13 pan with a layer of whole graham crackers. Cut the crackers so that the entire bottom of the pan is covered to all the edges. Don’t go all crazy trying to cut the graham crackers with a knife because they’re just going to break. Instead, use the knife to shave off one edge of the graham cracker until it fits perfectly in the pan. That’s how my Grandma did it. I’m just saying.

In a *double boiler melt:
1 cup butter
Add:
1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup sugar
1 egg, slightly beaten

Cook everything above in the double boiler until it thickens slightly, stirring continually. It will take about 6-8 minutes over medium high heat.

Add:
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts (or any nut)
1 cup finely crushed graham crackers

While still still warm pour mixture over the graham crackers in the pan. Smooth with a spatula and then lightly place another complete layer of cracker grahams on top. Place pan in refrigerator to cool.

While the mixture is slightly cooling, make the frosting by creaming together:
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter
a couple squeezes of fresh lemon juice
a teaspoon or more of lemon zest to taste

Spread frosting over the top layer of graham crackers and return to refrigerator until bar cookies are firm. Cut with a warm knife. Optional: Sprinkle finely chopped nuts over the frosting before chilling. Replace lemon juice and zest with vanilla.

*Okay. I know you don’t own a double boiler but it’s kind of important to prevent the egg from scrambling and the mixture from scrotching so do what I do. Fit a metal heat-resistant mixing bowl over a deep saucepan.

Today’s post is part of a larger initiative of more than 50 bloggers, all sharing their thoughts on how to “bride the gap” between people on the topic of faith and sexuality.  You can find the links of other bloggers participating in this undertaking at Bridging the Gap, an outreach of New Directions Ministries of Canada. In the near future I will be providing a review of their interactive DVD resource, Bridging the Gap: Conversations on Befriending Our Gay Neighbors (clips available here), along with a blog interview with Wendy VanderWal Gritter, the National Director of New Directions.

Okay. That was the very official sounding introductory blurb. Now let me just talk to you who follow this blog regularly for a minute; those of you who feel fairly banged up and battered emotionally and spiritually by some within the church over the issue of homosexuality. You know where I stand on the issue of homosexuality. I’m a lesbian who is happily married to the finest of women and I’m a Christian who is committed heart, soul, and mind to God through Christ Jesus. Though today’s blog is part of a bigger project and in participating we’ve been encouraged to not defend a particular position I could never in good conscious hold back from sharing up front that a personal relationship with God is available to all who seek God; gay, straight, bisexual, transgendered, queer, same-sex attracted or confused. I have to go through this little bit first on the off-chance that someone would chance upon this blog today for the first time in desperate need of hearing that God loves them just as they are. Here’s a word from my heart to yours free of agenda or hidden motive. The word is this; be assured that right now in this very moment God loves you. You always have been and you always will be, and there is nothing you can do or become that will make you more or less worthy of that love. You are God’s beloved, precious and cherished in His sight. Please hear that and take it in as deep as you can allow it.

After having said all that for the one person who might stumble across this blog today, this post isn’t about being a gay Christian. Neither is this post about ex-gay ministries or gay-affirming congregations or about the issue of homosexuality within the church today. It’s not even about differing opinions on faith and sexuality or the Bible and homosexuality but instead it’s about how we are to embody honor and respect in our conversations and relationships with those with whom we may disagree on the topic of homosexuality.

Let me be clear about something. To possess a willingness to enter into a conversation with someone else means having a shared commitment to listen to them as much as having them listen to you and we all know fully well there are those on both sides of the gap who have no interest in conversation but instead are given only to diatribes that wound and destroy. I would suggest that for the time being we put those folks to the side; not that we forget about them, or write them off as impossible but instead we begin by turning our attention and energy to one another; to those on the other side of the gap who are equally committed as we are to meeting in the middle; not in the sense of compromising our convictions but in the sense of approaching the other from a place of compassion and grace that says, “Despite our differences you are my brother, you are my sister. Know me and let me know you.” When we who share that same commitment can find a way to come together in Christ then together we can reach out to the edges, to those stuck in their agendas and deafened by their own rhetoric and through our unified spirit and in the Spirit’s power and love draw them in.

So. Here we are. We’re standing here on this side, they’re standing over there on that side, and the place we want to come together is in the middle where Christ is calling us to meet one another. How do we do it? I mean really. How do we take that first step in their direction when we’re all too aware of the risk involved, the all too familiar risk of being rejected and ridiculed, of having words of hate targeted at us, of being patronized and stereotyped or judged and condemned? How about this as a starting off point? How about casting our vision toward the people on the other side of the gap and seeing that for them there’s no less risk than there is for us. We’re all making ourselves vulnerable to one another, willing to risk being hurt by the other for the hope that a community of mutual love and respect can be born and nurtured up among us. As Christians we follow Christ who led by his love for God and the other was forever crossing bridges at incredible risk and had he not take that risk time and again, the blind would never have healed, the leper never restored to community, and the outcast and sinners would have forever been left alone at the table. It makes me wonder what healing and reconciliation we’re preventing in the lives of ourselves and others by hesitating in stepping forward, let alone what incredible glimpses of the invisible kingdom could be seen by all the world were we to step forward with open hearts and hands. Risking all for this moment to lose nothing in the end.

And for me, there’s one basic truth underlying what I just wrote that I keep coming back to every time I’m not sure if I want to bother to keep trying or to reach out again or to stay in the conversation. It’s just this; that what we have in common with one another is more than what divides us. Okay. I got it. They think homosexuality is a sin and that same-sex relationships aren’t God’s ideal for humanity while they think we’re being intolerant and exclusionary in who we welcome and don’t welcome into the church. I’m not minimizing the harm in either position but really folks, for the greater good, that being God’s glory, and the witness of Christ’s church in the world, could we let all that go and focus instead on what we share together? How about these for a start?

1. We’re all human. At least on our good days.

2. We’re all created and loved by God.

3. we’re all of equal worth and value.

4. We’re all equally flawed and messy.

5. We all desire to do what’s right before God.

And then 6 through 10,000 would cover the gambit from we all want to be loved and to love, to none of us want to be seated next to a screaming baby on an international flight. Make your own list by looking at your fears and joys, at your greatest desires and expectations and then attributing them to the other; that one over there on the other side near the edge of the bridge. If I can look across the gap and see him or her as God’s very own, then I stand of chance of being part of what God so longs to do among us; that we would let go of all our judgments of the other and of our need to be right and for them to be wrong, and just allow God to be God, extending Divine compassion and mercy as equally in their lives as God has shown time and again in mine.

I don’t know. Maybe I missed the point of what this whole synchroblog on “Bridging the Gap” was intended to be about, but then again, i’m still trying to figure out what “synchroblog” means anyway.