Hello to you. I hope this finds you well. I’m sitting here at the Sunrise Cafe waiting for my food reflecting on today’s message at church. The past couple times here I’ve been able to order vegan sausage. I’m trying to fight cruelty in the food I eat. It is a choice to eat meat and even to this day there is so much cruelty and suffering for food animals. We must vote with our pocket books!

Pastor Jason covered a lot of ground today. One of the bulletin points was “We have a future hope.”The main scripture from Paul, who was a tent maker, was 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 and it speaks to that future hope:

2 Corinthians 5:1-5New International Version

Awaiting the New Body

5 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.² Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, ³ because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴ For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

This scripture really resonated with me! The past couple of weeks this old tent of a body has been really groaning! As I look around at this world and the people in it the whole world seems to be a groaning tent. A couple generations of us are getting older and it shows up in pain in different parts of the body. For me it’s my lower back – thank goodness for Biofreeze! I often refer to this in my own life:

Matthew 26:41New International Version

⁴¹ “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”