by Peggy Brown

Dear Blog Readers,

I have decided that since we have a very hectic and “unplannable” summer coming up I am going to take the summer off from writing for Sojourner's Journal.

I have been enjoying putting my thoughts on “paper” for you each week but for it to be useful, like most things, it takes time. It takes time to sit down and collect sometimes-errant thoughts and get them captured in a coherant manner and it takes time to get said thoughts down in writing.

Let’s make a plan, you and I. I will pray for you over the summer and I will come back to blogging in September. In return will you pray for me as we travel, visit kids (and grandbaby), possibly relocate my mother-in-law here from Sacramento (anyone have an inexpensive apartment to rent in SLO?) just to name a few.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to encourage me with feedback, both written and verbal.

What you might not realize is that the goal we have as writers is to encourage and bless you with the thoughts that God puts in our minds and hearts. Feedback lets us know that we are meeting that goal.

So, until September, I will leave you with this:

Eph 3:14-21 (the Message) My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit - not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength - that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know - far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Dear Father, thank you for the opportunity to give words to your work in my life. I ask that as I step away for this time that eah reader will be blessed with the encouragement of the other writers. I ask that you would bless our summers with rest, recuperation and renewal. Help us to have eyes to see the “extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love”. Amen