John 15:13 is an amazing verse which speaks directly to sacrificial love. The same love that brought Jesus to the cross because He loves us so much, He couldn’t bear to leave us in our hopeless state of sin and its dreadful consequences. So how can we live out the words of this Scripture in our own lives? As we celebrate Memorial Day, we remember those who laid down their lives, so we could be free. Their example is one way for someone to lay down one’s life, and we are forever grateful for their sacrifice.
Pastor Chad of Living Word Global Church shared a wonderful way to celebrate Memorial Day. Rather than buy into the consumerism that sadly revolves around this day, do an act of service to honor God. It doesn’t have to be elaborate – something as simple as a phone call to someone who may be feeling lonely. As Pastor Chad put it this morning, we are all going to die someday. God didn’t make our bodies to be perfectly preserved, so that we survive unblemished into our eighties. We are called to stretch and go out of our comfort zones to help others and point them to Jesus. As we celebrate Memorial Day, it would be good to reflect on those who have sacrificed for us and on what we can do to sacrificially help others.
While we are not all called to make that ultimate sacrifice, we can lay down our lives for others in many ways – by serving them. Our lives should be how others see God – by seeking the well-being of others and loving them in His Name. When Josh was in first grade, he talked about this topic. May the pure faith of a child bless your understanding of living a life spent in loving others.
I woke up this morning thinking about how to reconcile celebrating Valentine’s Day with observing Ash Wednesday, when I realized that there isn’t any need for reconciliation; the two events complement each other beautifully. As we reflect solemnly on our sinful state and the admonition that Ash Wednesday brings to the forefront in Genesis 3:19, “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” it is certainly a time of repentance. But it is also a time to draw us closer to experiencing God’s love through the Gospel.
So let me explain the correlation I think we have between these two seemingly dissimilar events. To begin with, it would be good to get a better understanding of the word love. In the English language we use one word to describe many things. We can love our brothers and sisters, we can have a more intimate love for our spouses, we can even love hamburgers, but none of these describes the love that God has for us. When we go back to the original Greek, we see that all of these types of love have a different word assigned to it. Family love or love of an object may fall under Storge στοργή. The brotherly love of friendship is expressed as Philia φιλία, and sexual love as Eros ἔρως. The love of God for man has its own word too. It is called Agape ἀγάπη. God’s love for us is relentless, incomprehensible, sacrificial and unconditional.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, and we have the season of Lent ahead of us. Another Lenten tradition for some folks is to “give something up” for Lent. The purpose is to recognize and share in Jesus’ sacrifice as he withdrew into the desert and fasted for 40 days. Another way we can share in this tradition is rather than give something up, we can commit to do something, as an expression of sacrificial love. For me, I choose to write one card of encouragement each day of Lent (to the person God puts on my heart that day), and mail it. One has to be intentional, and carve out time to do this. Not a great sacrifice perhaps, but it serves the purpose of giving time to God to bless someone else. Just another way to show that ultimately, Ash Wednesday and Lent, while a season of repentance, is grounded in the greatest love of all and is a great way to live out the command Jesus gave us in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
Another GREAT thing to do today is to forgive someone if you have been allowing bitterness to fester in your heart. I know many people who struggle with forgiveness, in that they are either unable to forgive themselves for something they have done or they are unable to forgive someone else for hurting them. When I think about God’s limitless grace and that it is through Christ’s sacrifice at the cross that we have received forgiveness for all of our transgressions – what is even more amazing is that God initiated it, we read in Romans 5:8, “For God demonstrates his great love for us in this; while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” He died for us knowing we were a mess, yet loving us anyway. His forgiveness heals us and if we are unable to forgive ourselves, or others, we are unable to fully experience the peace that comes from the healing power of Christ. If you are in this category, you can read more at my blog post: 
I haven’t written in quite a while because I have been busy with a tremendous opportunity to take part in a software bootcamp being offered by TEKsystems. It is for 13 weeks and while it has been quite challenging, it has also been an amazing experience. I’ve grown in so many ways and have met so many wonderful people. I felt compelled to write a short blog post today because I think between the demands of the bootcamp in addition to the challenging times that we are living in, it is really easy to get caught up in an unhealthy cycle of worrying about things that have not yet occurred. For those attending the bootcamp, our goal is to receive an offer of employment. As humans, we have a tendency to envision scenarios that might happen before they ever come to pass. The temptation in my case would be, what if I’m not offered a job? This can create a lot of unnecessary anxiety and drain me of the energy I could be directing towards more productive pursuits.
I have been thinking about the pandemic and how it has affected not just our family, or even our country, but the entire world. I am very blessed to have a friend named Ingrid. She lives in China. In fact, she lives in the epicenter of the coronavirus, Wuhan. I met Ingrid through my husband Phil’s work. She works for a supplier for his company. During the pandemic, Ingrid and I started exchanging emails. 
Imagine getting ready for work early in the morning after a restless night. Not many people are able to sleep well when constantly being inundated by news of the corona virus. As an essential worker in a grocery store, a typical day will most likely include being asked to work a ten to twelve hour shift because of the shortage of employees. Some co-workers are sick, others have quit due to fear of exposure to the virus, and the need for cleaning and disinfecting has created even more labor. In the past you looked forward to going to work. You enjoyed the opportunity to serve the public and liked your job. While working retail can be tough, especially when dealing with cranky customers, it gives you a sense of satisfaction knowing you are contributing to your community by providing a needed service.
I told him we were regular customers and so grateful for his service and that of his employees. I shared with him that my husband has asthma and hypertension in addition to being over sixty, so we were not leaving the house since he is in multiple high risk groups. It was because of his workers that we could safely get our groceries by utilizing their pickup and delivery options. This manager, who was struggling to keep his store associates encouraged, shared with me that he also has asthma (which puts him in the high risk group). 