LENT

Lenten Discipline: Bowing and Becoming

shelliwilliams LENT, Prayer, Spiritual Disciplines
“Then Jesus went to a place called Gethsemane…” (Matt. 26: 36)

During the Sundays of this season of Lent, I am posting some thoughts on different spiritual disciplines.  Today I have chosen prayer.  Who am I to talk about prayer?  After all, it is probably “THE” spiritual discipline, the one that we all do (or think we should do more often!), that we all know (or think we should know better!), that we all feel like we should be doing better.  So, what is prayer to you?  At its simplest it is a conversation with God, a connection with the holy and the sacred.  So why is it that most of us claim that we need a deeper prayer life.  Are we not satisfied with the conversation?  Are we not getting the answers we want?  Or do we think that God wants more from us?  My guess is that it would be a little of all of the above.

In my “previous life” before ordained ministry, I sang in the choir as a layperson.  We almost always did a choral response following The Lord’s Prayer.  So, to this day, I cannot say that prayer in worship without looking up when I get to the last line, as if I’m still watching for the cue from the director.  (Of course, if you who go to St. Paul’s and you already know that, I guess it means you don’t have your eyes closed either!)  But, the point is that I cannot NOT do it and when I catch myself looking up while everyone’s heads are still bowed in prayer, I’m always a little embarrassed.  But, when you think about it, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.  Prayer is a way of  “attuning ourselves to a conversation that is already going on deep in our hearts”, as Marjorie Thompson says (in Soul Feast, p. 31.). It does not end with “Amen.”  It, like most good spiritual disciplines and all good faith stories, ends with a beginning.  It ends with our becoming engaged with God and joining what began long before we came along to the story.

There is a story from the Sufi mystical tradition of a disciple that comes to an elder for direction.  “Where shall I find God?” the disciple asked the elder.  “God is with you,” the Holy One replied.  “But if that is true,” the disciple asked, “why can I not see this Presence?” “Because you are like the fish who, when in the ocean, never notices the water.”  It is not that God is not with us; it is that we are unaware of that incredible Presence. (From There is a Season, by Joan Chittister, p. 14.)

And yet, most of us tend to pray prayers as if we’re throwing something out to a God that is “out there” somewhere, hoping against hope that God will pick them up and answer them (hopefully with the answer that we desire!).  We are told to “turn everything over to God.” I don’t think, though, that God meant to be in this alone.  Our prayers should not resemble our Christmas list of desires or even our grocery list of needs.  Rather, our prayers are our way of connecting to and entering the heart of that incredible Presence that is everywhere that we can imagine and everywhere that we will never know, the Presence of God.  Think of prayer as reaching and grasping, connecting and attuning, enfolding and becoming a part of the holy and the sacred God that is everywhere in our lives.  Prayers are indeed answered.  We just have to attune ourselves to the answer that is already present in our lives.  God’s desire is to fulfill our heartfelt prayers by filling our open heart with God.

Prayer is indeed “THE” spiritual discipline.  In fact, prayer is everything we are and everything we do, our whole life, every breath, every person we meet, every word we say, every thought we think that brings us closer to knowing this God who is already there.  Think of your “amen” as the beginning of that journey of holiness and wholeness that fills your life.  Maria Boudling says of prayer:  “All your love, your stretching out, your hope, your thirst, God is creating in you so that God may fill you…God is on the inside of the longing.”  And needing to pray, or wanting to pray, or just knowing that you “should” be praying means that you have already entered the conversation.  Amen.

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, unuttered or expressed,
the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, 
the upward glancing of an eye, when none but God is near.
Prayer is the simplest form of speek that infant lips can try;
prayer the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high.
Prayer is the contrite sinners’ voice, returning from their way,
while angels in their songs rejoice and cry, “Behold, they pray!”
Prayer is the Christians’ vital breath, the Christian’s native air;
their watchword at the gates of death; they enter heaven with prayer.
O Thou, by whom we come to God, the Life, the Truth, the Way:
the path of prayer thyself hast trod; Lord, teach us how to pray!
                                           (James Montgomery, 1818, in The United Methodist Hymnal, # 492) 

So, in this Lenten season, become your prayer and let your prayer become part of all that is God.



Sometimes You Just Have to Wait…(See “A Season for Pruning”, 03/31/2011)

 Grace and Peace,

Shelli

There’s Always a Plan B

shelliwilliams Journey, LENT

It is comfortable for us to think about the ideal life as one that moves in a straight line–no bumps, no turns, no dead-ends.  It is comfortable for us to think that God has some sort of grand plan for our lives and that God then leads us down this straight, narrow road to get to the glorious end.  Really?  Do you really think that’s it?  I mean, think about it, would you have traded some of the “bumps” and twists in your life’s pathway?  Would you give up who you are today for walking through those?  And what if your life HAD continued down one of the roads on which you started?  Where would you be today?

I’m not really convinced anymore that God lays out some road on which I am to walk.  (I suppose some of you would say that’s the reason I wander off of it as much as I do!)  After all, there’s that free will thing.  If there was one road for each of us and we then chose to wander from that road or just detour around part of it or if we ended up on someone else’s road altogether, would we then be a failure in God’s eyes?  Would we have messed up God’s perfect pre-ordained plan?  Nah…I don’t think that’s the way God works.

I think that God does have a plan, a plan that brings us to a place where we encounter God, to a place where all of who we are–our gifts, our talents, our minds, our hearts, those things we’ve learned and those things we made up on our own, those mistakes and those choices that we’ve made in our lives–comes together into who God calls us to be.  But I don’t think there is one pre-determined road down which we are required to travel to make that happen.  God is much more grace-filled than that!  When we wander from the road on which we’re traveling, when we cut our own path through life, and even when we follow others on a well-worn route, God, with infinite mercy and wisdom does not pull us back to the center of our road;  rather, God moves the path itself and continues journeying with us.  There’s always a Plan B.

God has done this before.  I have a hard time buying in to the idea of God sending Jesus to this earth specifically to die a painful and horrific death just so we slackers could have eternal life.  I hate the thought of Jesus’ sole mission on this earth being born to die.  Oh, don’t get me wrong–the eternal life thing was God’s purpose.  God had that in mind all along; in fact, God had that in mind from the very beginning of Creation.  We just didn’t get it.  So God came and walked this earth, Emmanuel, God with us, to show us the Way, to show us that at the end was the beginning.  I don’t think it went completely as planned.  (Oh, really now, does life EVER go completely as planned?)  Instead of embracing the Way, humanity put an end to it, hanging it on a cross and walking away.  But God, with infinite mercy and wisdom, did something different.  God took the end that we handed God and recreated it into a beginning.  There’s always a Plan B.

In this Lenten season, we’ve talked a lot about roads and pathways.  Maybe Lent is the time to realize that the end of the road is always the beginning, so the purpose of the journey is the journey.  Maybe that’s a good Plan B.

It may be that when we no longer known what to do, we have come to our real work.  And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.  (Wendell Berry)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

LENT 4A: Peering From the Darkness

shelliwilliams Blind, Darkness, LENT, Light

Lectionary Text:  John 9: 1-14, (15-38) 39-41
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.  The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”   They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes…Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

Our Gospel text for this the fourth Sunday of Lent is the account of the healing of the man blind from birth in the Pool of Siloam (or the Pool of Shelah or the waters of Shiloah). We tend to read this story as a great miracle or healing story where, once again, Jesus comes out as the glorious hero. But what would happen if you flipped the thinking a little bit? Did the man become able to see because Jesus healed him, pulling him out of his disability, his “sin”, and into “righteousness”? Or was the man able to see because he was in darkness and had nowhere else to look but toward the light? Maybe rather than a healing story, this is a story that calls us to look into our own blindness, our own way that we miss seeing God. 19th century artist Paul Gauguin once said that “I shut my eyes in order to see.” It is harder to see light on light. There is no definition, no contrast. It is harder to discern which light is the one that will allow us to see. Light cannot light light.  I mean, really, when was the last time you went outside and gazed at the stars at noon?  Do you think the stars disappear during the day?  Do you think that when the sun goes down, a myriad of stars begin to peek through the ozone layer for our enjoyment?  No, they are there all the time, just waiting for us to peer from the darkness and finally glimpse their light.  It is when we are in the darkness that the light is illuminating, seemingly consuming the darkness, if only for a time.
 
But read the first chapter of Genesis.  The light did not expel the darkness; it pushed it away, replacing it with light.  The darkness and the light were separated not because one was bad and one was good but because it is in the darkness that we see the light.  That is why the man born blind from birth in our story could so easily gain his sight.  Jesus knew that.  The man lived in darkness.  Light was all he could see.  But those who lived in the light of their own spiritual perfectionism–it was they that were blinded by the light, unable to see, unable to distinguish the light of the their own making from the light of God.

Lent is as much about looking into our own darkness as it is looking into the light.  Think about it…all that is created begins in darkness–the darkness of the great void that existed before we were, the darkness of the womb that held us for a time, and the darkness that encompassed that Friday afternoon when the world was once again plunged into darkness so that it could be created once again.  If the darkness was completely bad, not “of God”, so to speak, why in the world would God leave it in Creation at all?  There is nothing “evil” about darkness.  In fact, I would submit the real possibility that there is a lot more evil going on in broad daylight nowadays, out where we can see it, whether or not we choose to pay attention!

Darkness is a real part of life–the darkness of sin, the darkness of depression, the darkness of poverty and economic hardships, the darkness of substance abuse, the darkness of failure, the darkness of living a life that has not turned out the way we thought it would, the darkness of ______________ (just fill in the blank).  We all begin in darkness.  But it is from the darkness that we can peer into the light, groggy-eyed and body-bent, and see beyond the shadows, beyond the flickering lights of the world, to the illuminating Light of Christ that shows us the Way of Life, the Way of God, the way to see as God sees, the Way to Love, the Way of Grace.  It is from the darkness that we can see what we’ve never seen before.  Helen Keller said that “I believe that life is given us so we may grow in love, and I believe that God is in me as the sun is the colour and fragrance of a flower…I believe that in the life to come I shall have the senses I have not had here, and that my home there will be beautiful with colour, music, and speech of flowers and faces I love. Without this faith there would be little meaning in my life. I should be “a mere pillar of darkness in the dark.”

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,  That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.
T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear. And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear the hour I first believed.
When we’ve been here ten thousand years bright shining as the sun.
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’ve first begun.
                                                                                       (John Newton)

So, in this Lenten season, close your eyes…and open them that you might finally see!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

A Season for Pruning

shelliwilliams Clearing, LENT, Life

I haven’t had a whole lot of time to spend in my yard.  I really want to.  My neighbor and I struck what turned out to be a good deal for both of us and he cleared all of the “dead” stuff out and now I want to plant and work and see what happens.  There just hasn’t been time.  But the roses seem to know what to do anyway.  Drowning in deadness for so long, they seemed to breathe a longed-for breath once it had been cleared away.  I did get out there one day and pruned them, deadheading, removing all of the old blossoms and dried up leaves that were no more.  Again, they seemed relieved, almost free.  And then I waited.  First the bush with the medium pink roses began to bloom.  It is now full of about eight roses.  After that, the dark pink one began to fill itself with color.  Then the two yellow-flowered bushes followed by the white ones.  My favorite bush always blooms last. (Isn’t that typical?  Does it bloom last because it’s my favorite or is it my favorite because it blooms last?)  Right now it has about eight or ten buds on it that are trying desperately to burst forth with the most incredible strata of yellow, coral, and red colors on every flower.  And so I wait a little longer.  I thought yesterday would be the day but last night there were still tightly-closed but expectant buds.  All I can do is wait now.  There is nothing that I can do to hurry the process along.

You know, we comfortably think of God as omnipotent, all-powerful, assuming that if we can’t or won’t get it done, God will somehow be able to swoop in and clean up our mess, somehow force our blooms out of hiding.  I don’t know.  At the risk of questioning the Almighty’s power, is that really the way it works?  Is God really omnipotent?  I don’t see it.  Because you see, God, in infinite wisdom and omniscience, gave away a piece of the Godself and, in turn, denied God’s own omnipotence.  God chose to give away the power to choose.  It’s called free will.  And so God lovingly and patiently waits.

But what God does is give us a season for pruning.  It’s called Lent.  It is the season when God with the profound skill of a master gardener shows us how to prune and deadhead our lives, clearing away all the dried up growth and giving us room to breath and grow.  And God waits for us to choose life, waits for us to choose to bloom into the most magnificent creation, waits for us to choose to walk toward God and become what God intended us to be.  And still God waits until even the last bloom springs forth.  There is nothing that God can do to hurry the process along except to wait with us everyday and try to pluck the deadness that we hold so tightly from our grip.  God gave omnipotence away so that we could choose life.  We cannot do it without God but God will not do it without us.  So ponder anew what the Almighty can do!

So, in this Lenten season, this time for pruning, choose Life.  God is waiting.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

LENT 4A: Images of Light

shelliwilliams LENT, Light

Lectionary Text: Ephesians 5: 8-14
For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the art of Claude Monet, the French Impressionist painter who is probably best known for his incredible landscapes and works of nature as well as for his paintings of those things that were a normal part of his own life. Probably the most fascinating part of Monet’s work are those paintings that he did as part of several series representing similar or even the same subjects—his own incredible gardens, poppy fields, a woman with a parasol, and those unusual haystacks.

The paintings in this series of haystacks were painted under different light conditions at different times of day. Monet would rise before dawn, paint the first canvas for half an hour, by which time the light had changed. Then he would switch to the second canvas, and so on. The next day and for days and months afterward, he would repeat the process. In each painting, the color of the haystack is different because the amount and quality of the light shining on the haystack is different. The subject is the same but the perspective from which it is viewed changes with the light. 

Up until this time, color was thought to be an intrinsic property of an object, such as weight or density. In other words, oranges were orange and lemons were yellow, with no variation as to the lens through which they were viewed. But with Monet’s studies in light and how it affects our view of life, that all changed. As Monet once said, “the subject is of secondary importance to me; what I want to reproduce is that which is in between the subject and me.” (I guess you could say he was painting hay while the sun shines! (sorry, couldn’t resist!))  But, seriously, Monet wasn’t merely painting images of haystacks; he was painting images of light.

I don’t really think of this light of Christ as a bright, blinding spotlight.  It’s really much more nuanced and subtle than that.  Think illuminating, rather than blinding.  And it doesn’t dispel the darkness but rather enlightens it.  It casts a different light, a light that illuminates all.  God, with infinite wisdom, gave us the power and the desire to see through the darkness and glimpse the light shining through, to see the Light that is Christ.  It is a light that is always present regardless of our view, that exposes all that is visible and makes that on which it shines light itself. 

There is a Maori proverb that says “turn your face to the [light] and the shadows will fall behind you.”  They are not consumed; they are still there, light streaming into their midst.  Shadows do not exist without light.  Light is what makes them visible.  We are like that.  Exposed by the Light of Christ, we become visible; and by becoming visible, we become light, children of light, images of the Light that is Christ, the Light that is God.  As I said before, what Monet painted was light.  He captured the visibility of a blank canvas and created a set of masterpieces.  Become visible; become light; become a blank canvas on which God can paint a masterpiece of light.

So, in this Lenten season, be visible, be light!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

Dancing With the Disciples

shelliwilliams Calling, LENT

You know how you do those things that aren’t that terrible but that you would rather most people not know–like (a.) watching soap operas, (b.) eating a whole pint of ice cream, (c.) singing along to The Sound of Music, or (d.) all of the above?  Yes, my answer is, sadly, “(d.)” and that’s probably not all of the stupid things that I do!  So as long as we’re inviting true confessions, I have to admit that I love Dancing With the Stars.  I know it’s stupid.  But I love dancing and, perhaps even more than that, I like watching people that have never danced before, that are scared to death, that are sure that they are the next ones to be voted off by ten or so million of their closest friends, come completely out of themself and have the courage to feel a rhythm that they’ve never felt before.

I pray for all of us that we can do that this Lenten season.  No, not dance with one of the dance pros but, rather, to have the courage to feel a rhythm that we’ve never allowed ourselves to feel before. What would it take to allow ourselves to do that?  What would it take to put aside all of our preconceived ideas, needless inhibitions, and carefully laid plans and just dance?  What would it take for us to finally feel that rhythm of God that runs through us all and truly dance like no one is watching?  You know, I think that one reason my guilty pleasure “Dancing” show is so popular is not that people like to watch others fail (and sometimes even fall!), but that we admire someone who can get out of their element, who can step out of their role that they are “supposed” to live in their life.  Deep down, I am convinced, we all dream of that.  We all know that we’d be better for it.  We all know that there is a dance in our lives that we have yet to dance.  Part of what we’re called to do during this season is do just that–to let go of what we think we should be doing and listen for that rhythm that runs through each of our lives, the rhythm of God calling us to dance whether or not we think we’ve practiced enough.

When Jesus called the disciples, one by one, I’m pretty clear that none of them were practicing dancing in their room when everyone thought they were asleep.  The truth is, they were anything but prepared.  (Hence the continual competition to be the “favorite” and to make sure they understood!)  They had planned something else for their lives–something reasonable, something realistic, something sane.  But then the beat began and they couldn’t help themselves.  They could only dance.  I want to be like that.  I want to dance with the disciples.

I was watching Dancing With the Stars last night.  (Well, gee, I guess there’s no hiding that now so why bother anymore!)  In one of the pre-recorded “practices”, one of the “pros” told one of the “stars” that the reason he couldn’t do the Jive is because he was thinking too much.  She said that he needed to feel it and follow it.  Maybe that’s our problem:  We’re trying to think too much, trying to reason out what God is calling us to do, trying to figure out how to fit it into our carefully-planned life.  The music has already started.  We need to start dancing!

Do you remember the T-Mobile Dance in Liverpool Station, UK about two years ago?  Look at it at: T-Mobile Dance and THEN, go to how it was made: The Making of the T-Mobile Dance.  Enough said…I guess life really is for sharing!  Perhaps we disciples could take some lessons!

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth.”  (William W. Purkey)

So, in this Lenten season, dance to the music that’s been there all along and live like it’s heaven on earth.  Who’s stopping you?  What are you hiding?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

LENT 4A: You’re the One!

shelliwilliams Calling, Choices, Journey, LENT

Lectionary Text:  1 Samuel 16: 1-13
The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

Once again, God has called the most unlikely, the most unexpected, and the most unprepared candidate to do God’s work.  There seems to be a pattern here.  This time, God’s choice is a young, but apparently good-looking, shepherd, an eighth son, from the village of Bethlehem, and from a family with no real pedigree or appropriate ancestry at all.  And with this person, God lays the road for the hope of the world.  No pressure there!  But the unlikeliness doesn’t stop there.  What about Samuel? God called him to go to Jesse the Bethlehemite and anoint a new king. Well, I’m pretty sure that Saul (i.e, the King!) would not have been impressed with that had he found out. What if Samuel had just said, “You know, God, I would really rather not. That just doesn’t work into my plan.”?

In this Lenten season, what would change about our journey if we knew where we would end up, if we thought that we might end up in a place that we didn’t plan? And what would change about our life if we knew how it was all going to turn out? I mean, think about it…the boy David is out in the field just minding his own business and doing what probably generations of family members before him had done. He sees his brothers go inside one by one, probably wandering what in the world is going on. Finally, he is called in. “You’re the one!” “What do you mean I’m the one?” he probably asked in his teen-age sarcasm. “What in the world are you talking about? Don’t I even get a choice?” “Not so much.” And so David was anointed. “You’re the one!”

What would have happened if David has just turned and walked away? Well, I’m pretty sure that God would have found someone else, but the road would have turned away from where it was. It would have been a good road, a life-filled road, a road that would have gotten us where we needed to be. But it wouldn’t have been the road that God envisioned it to be.  We know how it all turned out. David started out by playing the supposed evil out of Saul with his lyre. He ultimately became a great king and generations later, a child was brought forth into the world, descended from David. The child grew and became himself anointed—this time not for lyre-playing or earthly kingship but as Messiah, as Savior, as Emmanuel, God-Incarnate. And in turn, God then anoints the ones who are to fall in line and follow him. “You’re the one”.

Do we even get a choice, you ask? Sure, you get a choice. You can close yourself off and try your best to hold on to what is really not yours anyway or you can walk forward into life as the one anointed to build the specific part of God’s Kingdom that is yours. We are all called to different roads in different ways. But the calling is specifically yours. And in the midst of it, there is a choice between death and life. Is there a choice? Not so much! Seeing the way to walk is not necessarily about seeing where the road is going. So just keep walking and enjoy the scenery along the way!

So, on this Lenten journey, look for the unexpected and walk toward it!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli