'spiritual growth' Tagged Posts (Page 3)
Anxiety
February 1, 2023A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, Over the years, I’ve started to notice the telltale signs in my body that indicate that things are off. Achy shoulders and a stiff neck? Usually I’m feeling SAD. Headache and sinus pressure? Usually I’m OVERWORKED and need a break. Tightness in my lower back or trouble breathing? Usually I’m feeling ANXIOUS. It took me a long time to admit to myself that anxiety was something I struggle with. I used…
All Will Be Well
January 18, 2023A Note from Pastor Jon Dear Friends, In August 2020 I wrote a Letter of Encouragement that shared my struggles with a troublesome mantra that I had learned during Basic Training in the US Army. It was three words that for so long defined the way I took on any objective or project put before me: KILL THE HILL. Kill the Hill: Revisited I invite you to go back and read that reflection from 2020. We were in…
A New Year
January 4, 2023A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, Happy New Year, friends! I’ve always loved the ritual of turning the calendar into a new year. The energy that January brings with it offers a fresh start, and a chance to look ahead with renewed hope about what this year might hold. For many years now, I’ve been in the habit of taking some time to reflect on the prior year and thinking ahead into the new one. This year,…
A Blessing for the New Year
December 28, 2022A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, As we turn toward a new year this Sunday, we offer a word of blessing from one of my favorites, Jan Richardson. May this year be filled with blessings, and may each of us be ready with open hearts to receive… Blessing the Threshold This blessinghas been waiting for youfor a long time. While you have beenmaking your way here,this blessing has beengathering itself,making ready,biding its time,praying. This blessing has beenpolishing…
The Art of Listening
December 21, 2022A Note from Ginny Fisher Dear Friends, What does it mean to really listen? How do we listen? Why do we listen? How can we improve our listening ability? These are some of the questions that the Art of Listening class has been diving into over the past seven weeks, with the guidance of Kay Lindahl and her book The Sacred Art of Listening. True Listening Kay tells us that truly listening to someone (even yourself!) requires an…
I knew it was a God thing…
December 7, 2022A Note from Debbie Detrick Dear Friends, This past Sunday, we shared the announcement that I’ll be retiring on January 8 as the organist/pianist/accompanist at HUMC. I’m sitting here at my computer and thinking about many things I would like to say. I have loved my time here at Hilliard Methodist Church. Thirty-seven years ago, I was invited here as a substitute organist when the former organist was on vacation. When he resigned and I auditioned for the permanent…
Growing Older & Loving Every Minute of It
October 5, 2022A Note from Marilyn Hoeflinger Dear Friends, In November I will celebrate 70 years on this earth. I’m not sure what 70 feels like, honestly. In my mind I am 20, wait, 35, no, most likely 42. I’m not sure why I settle on that number, but when I think of what I want to do and how to do it, it is the body I had when I was 42. When I could sit crisscross applesauce in…
Beginner’s Mind
September 28, 2022A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, When it rolled around two weeks ago, I didn’t expect this birthday to be as hard as it was. I’m halfway through my 40s… halfway to 90. It wasn’t so much that I was feeling old… (After all, 45 is the new 35 or something?) Instead, I was pondering the reality that there’s a good chance I’ve already lived more than half of my life. In one of my favorite Richard…
Seeds of Faith
September 7, 2022A Note from Nikki Buskirk Dear Friends, By now many of you know that I have this dream of being a homesteader, of having acres upon acres of land where I can grow things. Even though that’s a distant dream of mine, I do have a substantial garden plot in my backyard where Tyler, the boys, and I grow food every year, which we harvest and then process to be used until the next growing season. This year…
Where Y’At?!
August 17, 2022A Note from April Andrick Dear Friends, Where Y’At?!?!?! I am finally starting to feel fully rested from our week of camp at Lakeside Institute a couple of weeks ago. I do not know the last time anyone else slept in a non-air-conditioned space, on a metal bunk bed with the thinnest mattress ever produced in the history of mattresses, in a large open bunkroom with 50+ of your closest friends and people you have never met before,…
Full Circle
August 3, 2022A Note from Pastor April Dear Friends, “When life brings you full circle,pay attention.There’s a lesson there.”~Mandy Hale I was eight years old the first time I remember attending Catholic Mass with my grandmother. While some of the rituals felt different from the Methodist church I was used to (why did people keep touching their foreheads and shoulders?), others seemed familiar. I knew you were supposed to stand up when the songs started, and most of the words…
Deeper Waters: Highly Recommended!
July 13, 2022A Note from Emily Clark Dear Friends, Last August, two of my closest friends, Jon Esala and Meredith Osborn, told me of a group that was starting at their church — one that they thought I might be interested in. I had never even attended HUMC, but Jon and Meredith gave me the information, mentioned my name to Beth Palmer, and I decided to apply. The group was Deeper Waters, and I was pretty jazzed when I read…