Lifestyle

Finally, my last piece for the August series of The Continuum of Creation: Faith and the Land.

Week three in my August series of The Continuum of Creation: Faith and the Land, again helps us to see how creation is ongoing. This week the main topic is not just creation, but re-creation and transformation. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” This amazing “new creation” comes through our faith in Christ. And faith isn’t a one-time thing, but a process that continues over our entire life growing and evolving.

There’s a Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant that we like to eat at in Woodbury. The owner, Duc (pronounced Duke), and his wife run the restaurant and all of the food they serve is delicious. They are proud to say that everything is freshly made – and no canned sauces! Even Duc himself waits on tables and likes to interact with the customers. He also enjoys giving people a hard time.

As I add another week in my August series of The Continuum of Creation: Faith and the Land, I can’t help but write about how God’s creation continues personally in our lives; in each of our lives. In Psalm 139:13-14, the psalmist tells us “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

August is here. The summer goes by so quickly and yet, it’s just a regular part of our continuing lives. August seems to be the end of summer just because school starts, and we start to put away the summer equipment, and drain the pools, and oil up the snow blower. The end of summer is part of the continuum of creation. For the month of August, I’ll be writing on “The Continuum of Creation: Faith and the Land.”

If you already have your will and other advanced planning documents in place, there are some important reminders for you at the end of this column! I recently received an email from Southwest Initiative Foundation (SWIF) with a reminder that August is National Make-A-Will month. SWIF has a valuable partnership with FreeWill, an online tool to write a legal will at no personal cost. SWIF is an independent community foundation whose mission is connecting people, investing in ideas, and building communities. They support many initiatives in our region, in fact, my position at Prairie Five is funded in part with a grant from SWIF.

Sometimes it seems heaviness just keeps piling up. I’ve felt it lately: relentless heat, shocking headlines of young lives cut short, quiet goodbyes to older loved ones, as well as devastating images of flooding fields, rivers, and homes. Through social media, I’ve seen corn fields perfect one minute, and totally destroyed by rain and wind the next. In these moments, we are powerfully reminded of the biblical truth: as God “sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), so too does hardship, storms, and trials touch every life without discrimination. Flooding, car accidents, or heart disease don’t happen to people because they are bad or evil; these things just happen in this earthly life.