Tracy's Blog

Note: Before you start reading, I thought I would address the fact that there are many links to Bible passages in this blog. Please do not feel like you need to follow all (or any) of them.  Let the Holy Spirit lead you. Last Monday our driveway was snowed in and the kids had a day off school. Since then the snow hasn't melted much. Winter is still here. Very much so. It is going on much longer than normal (and I hear it is the same for other parts of Canada too). The calendar says “spring” but the temperature says “winter”. The church calendar says Easter is coming, but it looks more like Christmas. Driving to church this Palm Sunday I noticed how high the snow piles really are and thought “this is not how it is suppose to be!” And although that could stress me out or sadden me, instead it gave me an opportunity to think about the first Easter and how it was filled with things that, from a human perspective, were “not suppose to be”.  For example: Palm Sunda...

Mary of Bethany was in the spotlight in this past Sunday's Gospel reading ( John 12:1-8 ). In an act of loving devotion, she pours expensive perfume on Jesus' feet and uses her hair to dry them. Judas judges her actions questioning why the perfume wasn't sold and the money from it given to the poor. Jesus defends Mary: “Leave her alone” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12:7). Mary. She's one of the people in the Bible who catches my attention. Why? Probably because she doesn't do what is expected of her and she gets some pretty serious negative attention as a result. Judas in John 12. Her own sister, Martha, in Luke 10:38-42 . But in both accounts, Jesus stands up for her. He speaks of her doing the right thing. Notice what that is?   Mary gives Jesus her full attention. When Jesus is near Mary, nothing kee...

How long does it take you to realize you are in the wrong place? This past week, I found out that I can realize this pretty quickly – thankfully! Here is what happened. I walked into the supermarket washroom with urgency and I noticed that one of the stalls didn't have a door. “That's strange,” I thought as the bathroom was clean and had been renovated not that long ago. Then I looked in that stall and saw – yes, you guess it – a urinal. I was in the Men's Washroom! So, I quickly got out of there (thankfully, no one else was in the washroom) and pushed open the next door. You know, the one with the lady in the dress on it! How did I react to this? I laughed. Then I thought about repentance. (Yes, this is as true as the part about walking into a Men's Washroom last Wednesday morning!) While it wasn't sin for me to walk into that Men's Room, I was pretty motivated to leave it and this gave me a picture of repentance. What is repentance? It's r...

The Psalm at church last weekend was Psalm 63 . It is a psalm about desire and longing and about deep satisfaction and worship. As soon as I think about this psalm, my memory takes me to a fire escape on the back of an old three story house in the Glebe in Ottawa. (It was on Fourth Avenue for all you who know Ottawa.) The year was 1993 and I was on my first summer assignment as Campus Crusade staff and I felt my need for God. As I sat on that back stairwell, I read, prayed, meditated on, and memorized verses of this psalm and I experienced something real, something deep and lasting. Psalm 63:1-5 (NASB – since that was what I was reading at the time) 1O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. 3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You. 4 So I will bless You as long ...