Off We Go Again!

Dear Friends,

We leave today for two reasons: to worship with the saints at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Harrisonburg, and to attend the Music and Bible Conferences at Massanetta Springs Conference Center there. It seems we have hardly been home, and now we are going again. I do look forward to the enrichment of worship and the conference--there should be some really good preachers there, and the choirs and handbells ought to be glorious!

I know that some of you are involved with Ann Marie Conner's Bible reading schedule, as I am. It is proving to be a good discipline to have a set schedule, and it insists that I read parts of the Bible that I normally spend less time in. The Old Testament readings have been pretty gruesome, some of the time. Currently we are reading Joshua, and I must say that the descriptions of the MANY massacres perpetrated on the Canaanites by the Israelites as they entered the promised land keep my mind reeling. It appears that the Israelites truly understood the destruction of conquered peoples to be God's will, but I have trouble reconciling that with what I understand to be God's steadfast love for the world. I also ponder how easily we all are able to convince ourselves that God is on our side as we plunder through the world, trying to get our own way. Someone sometime said (I think it may have been Abraham Lincoln) that rather than getting God on our side, we ought to be about making sure we are on God's side. I think that I have a lot more reading to do on this subject. But it certainly is still a current issue in our world of many wars!

I continue to keep you all in prayer. I hope you will also pray for us. And, to quote a prayer I heard last night on a BBC vespers service, I ask you to "pray for those who have no one to pray for them."

Grace and Peace,

Linda