Edgemont Speaks: Betsy Rainer

Good afternoon, my Edgemont friends! One of the unexpected things I’ve found I like about online worship is this newfound practice to stop and reflect during and after the service. Yes, you can actually stop the video, think about what was just said or sung and have a Holy Spirit moment. The old normal constantly says to move to the next thing. This new normal says, as does the message Pastor Henry brought us this week, live in this present a moment. So, I’m going to live in a moment of reflection of Henry’s sermon yesterday. When I was growing up, we frequently made the trip from Dallas through eastern Oklahoma, the stomping grounds of my grandmother’s youth, to the beautiful Northwest corner of Arkansas where both my mother and father grew up. My father’s sister lived on a hillside in a house my father had helped build. We spent evenings in awe of the view of the Milky Way here, and during the day, we kids loved seeking adventures in the hills and caves behind my aunt’s house. A special memory of one of these excursions was brought to mind as I reflected on Pastor Henry’s sermon. My cousin and I, along with my brother, sister, and our collie, came upon a clearing that I always viewed as a one season painting from God. The meadow, the pond, the surrounding vegetation, the birds all could fit Psalm 65’s depiction: ...You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy! You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; The river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. ...The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy. The meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, They shout and sing together for joy. v.8-13 “God’s recreation of the new day!” The surprise view, forever painting a lovely scene on the heart of a young girl, now intersects the thoughts of an older woman on the thoughts of her pastor to a poem by Eleanor Farjean made popular by the singer Cat Stevens. In thinking of God’s recreation of the new day that morning long ago, I am reminded of the myriad of God’s brush strokes to create Christ‘s likeness in each of us. I am grateful! I am blessed! Thank you my Edgemont family, lives recently passed and current cherished friends, for the colors, textures, lines, shapes of Christ’s beautiful brush strokes on my heart. Betsy Rainer