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A calendar message for the season

There’s a calendar on my desk at work, but it’s not one that I look to as a reminder of what day of the week it is or as a blueprint for the day’s demands.

This one is a calendar that offers a faith-based thought for the day.

It was a Christmas gift from years back, an unconventional calendar in the sense that it isn’t for a particular year and the dates aren’t intended to match up with the days of the week.

That makes it an always timely calendar no matter what year it is, something I’ve discovered in the 10 years that I’ve had it, that the messages never get old.

When I arrive in the office, unload all my stuff and get ready to make that first pot of newsroom coffee, I pick up this calendar first to check out what the thought for the day is, expecting the words to be as much of a jump start as that first cup of morning joe.

The March 23 one made me shake my head, thinking it had been written especially for me as my life’s faith journey has had twists and turns, GPS issues, wrong exits and a detour or two or three or four.

And yet, God’s grace has always returned me to the expressway.

“Faith isn’t the ability to believe long and far into the misty future,” read the quote attributed to Joni Eareckson Tada, who, according to a Google search that I did, is “an evangelical Christian, author, radio host and founder of Joni and Friends, an organization accelerating Christian ministry in the disability community.”

“It’s simply taking God at His word and taking the next step.”

How sweet. How true.

Faith.

It’s a funny thing.

I don’t know why I have it.

I often wonder why I do and others don’t.

I struggle to express how I feel it, live it, embrace it, count on it, yearn for it, want it to keep growing, know that it is.

I just know that it’s real, that it’s very much in my head and heart.

The very thought of it can trigger tears and calm concerns.

And it’s this faith that makes me believe God’s word – on Easter and always – that Christ died on the cross for my sins and that his blood was shed for me as much as for anyone else. A wretch like me.

I’m celebrating that today, “simply taking God at his word,” reminded of the gift of salvation available not because I deserve it, but because I have faith to believe that it’s mine to have, there for the taking.

There for everyone.

I’m no “religion” expert, just a sinner saved by grace, a person who has taken a step of faith and said, yes, I believe.

I take God at his word, and I’m open to taking the next step, forever grateful.

Happy Easter.

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