Sunrise somewhere in Maine.
I just found a sermon a Presbyterian pastor once shared with me, because it made such an impact on me after the many deaths I had witnessed. It was his love song about the famous Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd.
Beholding a most beautiful sunrise over calm waters this morning, the serendipitous encounter with the sermon I received in March 2019 made me reflect on a myriad of things. I share one paragraph of a series of many that the Reverend encapsulated as the essence of life:
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”…
So what about the mess I have made of my life from time to time? What about the loved ones I disappointed, the people I deceived, the compromises I made with my conscience, the scars I left on those I harmed? No one likes to be followed, but in this case I take comfort in the possibility that goodness and mercy might not get too far out ahead of me, but might follow me, picking up the broken pieces of my past and putting them back together again. The assurance here is that goodness, which is the benefit of forgiveness; and mercy, which is the basis of every new chance at life, will follow me all the days of my life.
Dum Spiro Spero 