November 28: Promise

Today, while I was walking by the edge of the sea, I encountered a woman whose belly was ripe, taut with life waiting to be born. I greeted her; her response was so warm, so full of a certain kind of anticipation. Promise—the root meaning is to send forward. An expectant mother’s belly, a baby’s first cry, one star in the night sky—harbingers of newness, giving us hope that at the core of what has grown old, been cast down, been felled to the stump lies the seed of new life, waiting to be sent forward into a world longing, always, to begin again. Come Lord Jesus, Come.
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– The Rt. Reverend Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina