As life races by, stopping to acknowledge and celebrate milestones is a healthy practice. We are a couple short days away from the high school graduation ceremony for our eldest.

Jesus was a Jew—not a Christian—a person of color—not white—born in Bethlehem and was an immigrant in Egypt because an ignorant, insecure, power-hungry national leader was afraid of losing his power and control and wanted to kill Love and Light and Justice, the Prince of Peace.

I have been thinking a lot about my friend, Tara. I was one of the lucky ones, and I got to meet Tara just over eight years ago.

One of my favorite hymns is, “Here I am, Lord”. When I was a kid, I loved the catchy tune and loved singing along, even though I didn’t fully understand its meaning. Now I understand—thanks to my rock star pastor—that this hymn was inspired by scripture in 1 Samuel 3:4 (and Isaiah 6:8, but we are just focusing on 1 Samuel for now, so bear with me).