Gifts & Graces: Part 1

Reflecting on the Gift of Life

The days following Easter, the season of new life which we celebrated last month, are commonly known as Eastertide. During these days following Easter, like the tides of the ocean, wave after wave washes over us, each one bringing in new life as we pause to reflect on & live into the blessed gifts & graces God bestowed upon us through creation & now through the new life offered at Easter time. This is a season of growth. As we reflect on God our Creator’s creation & new life, we can’t help but be both overwhelmed & humbled at the amazing wonder of the gifts & graces of God’s creative & redemptive hand, each of which contains & thus reflects the very heart of God. The starting place of our time of reflection on the new life given by God’s radical Grace through the blessed Easter experience, is to reflect on the gifts & graces of life given by God at the time of creation. I invite you to pause & to think of life given for a moment: “In the beginning when God created the heavens & the earth, darkness covered the face of the deep & the very breath of God swept over the face of the waters & there was light & dark—day & night. He separated the: light from the dark, the waters & the sky, & the earth & the seas. He created the earth to bring forth vegetation, plants yielding seeds, flowers, & trees of every kind, insects that fly, crawl & that spread pollen, birds that sing & soar, & fish from minnows to whales, then every living thing that creeps upon the ground & it was all good. This is our world, our environment, God’s creative order. And then, God made humankind. Think how very humbling that is. God included us in His wonderful world. His very heart lives in every living thing: in the water, in every blade of grass, in every tree, every flower, every plant, every creature, & in each one of us, regardless of our age or particular health condition, or our race, size, or gender, we are created in the image of God & by His grace & the power of the Holy Spirit, He lives within us. Every breeze contains the very breath of God.

~Posted by Rev Kathryn Bindig, MDiv. MS; Pastoral Care Minister with assistance from Rich Muscatello; Director of Business Development & Strategy