Francine looked around at the...
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Francine looked around at the other members of her adult Sunday church school class. Their teacher had just asked "Where does each of you find God's blessings?" A thoughtful silence followed, but now in the midst of that silence, Francine felt prompted to speak. She began softly, "Often the blessing comes in such little ways. I'll get up in the morning and see the first pink rays of dawn. Or I may miss that, be too bleary-eyed, but on the way to work I'll see the face of a child smiling or hear a laugh coming from somewhere ahead of me on the bus. Blessings like these surprise me, catch me off guard, rattle me into awareness. I'm just going along and suddenly I know God is reaching out to me.
"And sometimes," Francine continued, "blessing comes in very different ways. When I have been hurt ... and I guess we all have been badly hurt at times ... when I have been hurt, and then gradually find myself coming back to peace and wholeness again, that's God's blessing. And when I grow troubled inside over the needs of others, over the hungry and the homeless in our world, that too is God's blessing. That is God prodding me towards a deeper understanding of the peace we are meant to share. There too, just as much in the sunrise or the laughter, I am beckoned and blessed by the caring face of God."
"And sometimes," Francine continued, "blessing comes in very different ways. When I have been hurt ... and I guess we all have been badly hurt at times ... when I have been hurt, and then gradually find myself coming back to peace and wholeness again, that's God's blessing. And when I grow troubled inside over the needs of others, over the hungry and the homeless in our world, that too is God's blessing. That is God prodding me towards a deeper understanding of the peace we are meant to share. There too, just as much in the sunrise or the laughter, I am beckoned and blessed by the caring face of God."
