St. Luke's Blogs

Over the last few months, my oldest daughter Cate has been taking piano lessons with Candace Fish, the Director of Traditional Worship at the Edmond Campus. Candace is so incredible with Cate; she is calm, kind, and patient – everything you could want in a teacher.

Now, something you should know about Cate is that she has some sensory processing hurdles and upper limb weakness which can make something like playing the piano, which requires strong hands and loud noises, tricky. Additionally, she can be incredibly hard on herself when she doesn’t get everything right on the first try. A little over a month ago, they had a specifically hard practice…

For much of my career, my success depended solely on what I knew and what I did. But when I became a manager, my success suddenly depended on others. The change was disquieting, to say the least. My mentor explained, “Your job now isn’t to know everything; it’s to know how to handle things.” He told me there would be times I would try things that wouldn’t work, and I’d have to try something else. “Chris,” he said, “you have to learn to be comfortable with discomfort.” I thought he was just talking about my job, but he was really talking about life…

One of the practices I use to help me connect to God is listening to music. There are so many wonderful Christian songs with powerful messages. Whether they are great hymns or contemporary songs, I find tremendous comfort and inspiration in the lyrics, melodies, and performances of these songs. One of the songs that I have enjoyed of late is “How Far” by Tasha Layton. It is a powerful song that reflects so beautifully on the message of our faith.

The opening of this song expresses the feelings that so many people have about their own life. It also reflects the depth and breadth of the mercy and love of God. Here are the opening lyrics to How Far:

How far is too far. I thought I’d be there by now. I followed shame to the place.
I was sure Your grace ran out. So I kept running and running and running.
But You kept chasing and chasing and chasing. A million miles of my mistakes.
Still couldn’t keep Your love away. However far away I am from home.
That’s how far Your love will go…

Every year there seems to be a new trend or family tradition popping up during different holidays. A few years ago, it was Elf on the Shelf. During the month of December, a little ornery elf appears in different places in homes to help countdown to Christmas. Every family assigns a name to their Elf and the fun begins!

I’ve also heard of parents creating specialty-filled goody bags to use on New Year’s Eve to help count down the hours until midnight. The family opens one bag every hour to enjoy the surprises inside.

Most recently, I learned of families celebrating Valentine’s Day uniquely. Each morning, from February 1- 14, they place a heart on their child’s bedroom door stating something they love about that child…

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe upon him, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spat upon him, and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe, and put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him.

Dost thou now believe? Then ‘the love of God is’ now ‘shed abroad in thy heart.’ Thou lovest Him, because He first loved us. And, because thou lovest God, thou lovest thy brother also. And being filled with ‘love, peace, joy,’ thou art also filled with ‘ long-suffering, gentleness, fidelity, goodness, meekness, temperance,’ and all the other fruits of the same Spirit; in a word, with whatever dispositions are holy, are heavenly, or divine. For while thou ‘ beholdest with open,’ uncovered ‘ face’ (the veil now being taken away) ‘ the glory of the Lord,’ His glorious love, and the glorious image wherein thou wast created, thou art ‘changed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord.’

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. – 1 Peter 4:8

In Genesis 3, we are introduced to the concept of sin when Adam and Eve partake of the tree in the Garden from which God had specifically told them not to eat. Shortly after, Adam and Eve hear God walking in the garden and hide among the trees. God calls to them, “Where are you?” Adam answers, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so, I hid.” – Genesis 3:8-10

Adam and Eve’s sin caused a brokenness in their relationship with their Creator. They were “afraid” because of their nakedness. Their sin had left them exposed and vulnerable, and their pure relationships with God and one another became tainted by fear. Oh, how easily I identify with Adam and Eve. Too often, in my own life, I have violated God’s word (through selfishness, greed, anger, unforgiveness, etc.) and been left feeling exposed and afraid…

Like a lot of you, I do not like change. I will do whatever is needed to ensure I don’t have to change. I don’t like disruptions to my routine, my profession, or even my friends. As much as I don’t like it, I have learned that I do need to embrace change. Since I became a mother seven years ago, there has been a lot of change in my life. Children are anything but predictable. They may like a certain food one day, and absolutely despise it the next. Once your children get on a good sleep schedule, don’t worry, they will soon forfeit their sleep time for playtime in the middle of the night. As frustrating as it is, we love our children throughout it all.

Can you imagine how God feels about all of us, His children?…

As a middle school student growing up at St. Luke’s, I remember my first mission trip. I was going into the 7th grade and we were spending a week of our summer traveling to West Monroe, Louisiana for Youth Force. Youth Force is a mission trip camp that St. Luke’s youth still do today. Students from all different churches come together for a week of working on homes to do repairs that the homeowners physically are not able to do themselves and cannot afford to pay someone else to do. In the evenings, the students all come together after working on homes across the city for a time of worship, games, and small groups.

I can still vividly remember the church we stayed at and sleeping on air mattresses each night…

Every week, I have the good fortune of being a part of a tangible representation of Christ’s love- our St. Luke’s Food Ministry program. It has many components: we provide home-delivered meals through Meals on Wheels, and we hand out fresh produce and other food staples to families and individuals through Community Market each week. We also help support a monthly meal to Sisu Youth Services clients, and we bring the Community Market to many in our El Sistema family.

It is a joy to participate with hundreds of volunteers from our family of faith and the community to help carry out these valuable programs. Sometimes the number of people that need these services is staggering…