Calendar for Smooth Sailing

Laity Page--Come worship with us

 This is what the Lord says:
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
Behold, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

Oldest mother at the Terrace FUMC-- Marie Cassel, at age 97

Volunteer st Southern Ocean County Hospital;

Chair person for SOCH Sewing (Group makes puppets for children who are hospitalized).

Dear Friends,

Things I Learned from my Mother

We could all  list a dozen or so things that our mothers taught us as we
were growing up, but I wonder if we could narrow that list to one special thing that has sheltered us
over the years— that has shown us lightness when we  were only too willing to see darkness.  When
I was just a kid, the word that stood out was HOPE. 

 When there  were stormy seas and my father, a commercial fisherman, was out in his boat, sometimes
20 or more miles in the ocean, my mother and I waited and we hoped that all would go well with Pop,
that his skiff would withstand the high waves. We would sit close and pray and hope. It was as simple
as that.thing with feathgers,

In her poem on Hope, Emily Dickenson sees it this way:

"Hope is the thing with feathers--
That perches in the soul--
And sings the tune without the words--
And never stops--at all.” 

Mary Lou Redding, former Olympic champion, affirms the power of hope: ”Our hope in God pulls us into the future.
Hope allows us to affirm the reality of the abundant life that is ours in Christ. Hope allows us to stand with
those in pain and to hold them until they are able to feel the love of God for themselves again. Hope allows
us to work to bring God's reign upon the earth even when we see no results. Our hope begins and ends in
God, the source of all hope."

One of the things that my mother taught me about hope was that no matter how tough things seemed— how
dark and gloomy— if you could hold on to hope, you could be drawn closer to God.  You would know that there
was a chance that things could be turned around again, that all of life was not a “wash-out.”

But Mom always said that if you can hold your head high and believe that God loves you, no matter what, then
there is hope for the storms to clear. Little Hilma probably learned this truth at her  mother’s knee in Udevalla,
Sweden.  Swedes have an apt expression: “Du skal inte bechemra. Du skal hoppas. God han ar god.” ("Don’t worry.
You should hope. God is good.”).  Yes, in Swedish God and good are the same word!   God is good— all the time. 

We can become too comfortable in the “good news,” that we as Christians have only to accept God’s forgiveness
when we have taken the wrong course and continue to “sin bravely,” as Martin Luther indicated.  Not so. Lessons
in life come hard, but when there is hope, there is that opportunity to turn things around— “to go and sin no more.” 
Through hope, we are able to come closer to God while we distance ourselves from the humanity that pulls us down. 
There is liberation in hope!

Let us remember our mothers, those who gave us life, whether they are with us or have passed to heavenly glory.

                                            Gladys Gale, Lay Leader at the Terrace First United Methodist Church