FAB Heart to Heart

09/25/2022

03/02/2022

Ash Wednesday Blessings, Sisters,

Though Ash Wednesday may not be a day we often associate with blessing, it has become so to me in the past several years.

I hear the reminder of our humanity, frailty and complete and utter dependence on God as a confirmation of what life has written on my bones: I cannot do everything …sometimes, I cannot do anything …

And while that may surprise and frustrate me, it does NOT surprise or frustrate the God who created us, is redeeming us, and sustains us with every breath.

What a gift: we are dust—beloved dust.

As you pray for your Heart to Heart sister this month, I invite you to consider this prayer-poem, “Blessing the Dust” by Pastor Jan Richardson. We will be using in tonight’s Ash Wednesday service. May we all know how truly we are dust and how truly we are loved.

Ash Wednesday Blessings,
Alicia Davis Porterfield

Blessing the Dust

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

Or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

02/03/2022

As you reach out to your Heart to Heart partner in this season of hearts and love, here is a simple prayer from Psalm 118 that you might pray for one another throughout the month.

One of the things I so appreciated about the Psalmist’s prayer is how it focuses on God—God is the One who turns our hearts and teaches us.

We participate with God turning and teaching us, but our primary work is in asking for God to turn and teach us and allowing God to do just that. We reach out and respond to God, but the primary work belongs to our Abba Father who loves us far more than our human hearts can hold.

We are not in charge—God is! What good news! May God’s great love for you and for all of us fill you to overflowing this month!

Grateful for each of you!

01/06/2022

Happy New Year! Check your e-mail for a January blessing and prayer idea! Grateful for all of you and your commitment to praying for one another.

11/10/2021

Heart to Heart Sisters, look for a special gift coming your way in the next week!

06/10/2021

What a JOY it was to provide an End of Year Staff Lunch for our amazing mission partner school Central City Elementary! After this long, challenging year, it was such a gift to offer a blessing to these gifted, dedicated staff members who have repeatedly gone far above and beyond. Special thanks to Gina Finley, Jensen Bird, Donna Myers, Phyllis Mease, and Gerry Smith for the homemade desserts! Please continue praying for the staff, the students, and their families this summer.

06/04/2021

Please pray for all teachers and staff and especially our friends at CCES! They're in the home stretch of one of the hardest, most challenging school years ever.

03/10/2021

This prayer was on the breastplate of the real St. Patrick, whose life was a beautiful testimony to how God's love relentlessly reaches out to us. To learn a bit more about him, see this article: https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/st-patricks-life-kidnapping-catholicism.
I am praying this prayer for all of our Heart to Heart sisters and myself today. May Christ's love encompass everything we do and say today!
Thankful for all of you,
Alicia