Listen

Then the Lord God said, “It’s not good that the human is alone. I will make him a helper that is perfect for him.” So the Lord God formed from the fertile land all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky and brought them to the human to see what he would name them. The human gave each living being its name. The human named all the livestock, all the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals. But a helper perfect for him was nowhere to be found.

So the Lord God put the human into a deep and heavy sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh over it. With the rib taken from the human, the Lord God fashioned a woman and brought her to the human being. The human said,

“This one finally is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. She will be called a woman because from a man she was taken.”

This is the reason that a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife, and they become one flesh.

Genesis 2:18-24

Think

Last year I surprisingly got kicked out of my classroom twice. Nope, I wasn’t sent to the principal’s office. My internet crashed. Maybe this happened to you as part of online learning or meetings you were hosting last year!

Both times my class was waiting, with Zoom randomly assigning a student as host in my momentary absence. The first time, students helped each other to keep working. Second time? Someone’s puppy was “teaching” on speaker view when I logged back in, spontaneously providing a laughter-filled community building moment. I was grateful to have students during distance learning who, with their helpful dedication and creativity, made actual learning possible and even joyful, despite the less than perfect circumstances.

In our everyday faith-seeking and learning, we’re all made to be helpers for each other as we seek to grow justice, mercy, and love in our world. Sometimes God may assign us as host in this good work of the family of God, sometimes maybe the co-host, sometimes a participant, but always a helper.

Molly Logan

Pray

Loving God, no matter how alone or less-than-perfect I may feel in the reality of my life today, you want to use me as a helper to another today. Humble me and help me to be open to that moment of grace and service today, even if it might surprise me. Thank you for never kicking me out but always welcoming me to your family. Amen.

Go

This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.

Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other.

1 John 4:10-11

As a beloved member of the family of God, choose to be that love to our world today.