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Adult Class devotions

 Joy, Grief, Prayers, “Slum Songs” 

The Adult Sunday Class continues to meet via email with teacher Mary Ellen Reetz-Pegues delivering or mailing reading material and posting comments and questions over email. Her students are invited to respond through email as well. Below are summaries of some of selected lessons since the last publication of the Echoes.

 


By Mary Ellen Reetz-Pegues


The Upper Room reading for February 26, “Joy Amidst Grief,” addresses the grieving of young people, maybe easy for us to dismiss since everyone in our group is past 30.Kristen Phipps speaks of her mother’s death from ALS and the unbearable pain, watching her mother die, and “painfully continuing life without my mom… .” 


The verses Psalm 139: 7-10 is one of my favorite passages: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there you hand will guide me, you right hand will hold me.” 


There is comfort in these words, knowing the Lord is right there next to you, sustaining you, holding you. 


Kristen recalls her mother’s favorite verse: “The Lord says, ‘Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known’” (Jeremiah 33: 3). The Lord will not hide how much he cares for you. Call on the Lord.

 

1. In a time of so much grieving, will you remember to “call on the Lord?”

2. Can you be the person that our God is calling on to support someone going through the pain of loss?

 


In The Upper Room was the meditation “Happily Ever After” for Friday, March 26. The Scripture reference was Psalm 119: 105-112. The author of our lesson, DeVonna R. Allison, focused on verse 110, “I have suffered much; preserve my life, O Lord.” 


I have wondered, with DeVonna, about people whose prayers were miraculously answered, lives “fixed” in so many ways. Her prayers were not answered in the way she hoped.


Life is hard. Loved ones might die despite our faith and prayer. Diseases, divorces, natural disasters —power is taken away from us in a myriad of ways. Yet the psalmist says, “My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.” (v. 112) We continue to pray and believe that God is good, right, and lovely, and that God’s ways are peace. It can be a struggle to hang on, but we “find joy in knowing we are never alone.”


1. Has there been a time when you’ve given up praying?

2. How does it matter that knowing that God is with you made all the difference?

 


I enjoyed reading “Slum Songs” in Our Daily Bread for March 27. Our scripture reading is from Isaiah, chapter 35, yes, the whole chapter, only 10 verses. 


Verse 1: “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.” Isn’t that a message for spring?! The entire chapter is filled with promise. I really liked verse 3: “Strengthen the feeble hands; steady the knees that give way.” 


The author of this meditation, Sheridan Voysey, tells of the people of Cateura, a slum in Paraguay. Its villagers have crafted musical instruments from recycling items found in its garbage dump. Violins are made from oil cans, saxophones have come from drainpipes, cellos are made from tin drums. “Violins from landfills. Music from slums. That is symbolic of what God does.” 


Isaiah speaks of God’s new creation. ”Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. … And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.” Cateura’s orchestra director says, “The world sends us garbage. We send back music.”

 

1. How have you seen God turn the garbage of life into something beautiful?

2. How might God bring music out of our pain?

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