Daily Lenten Offering

A cheerful heart is a good medicine;

a downcast spirit dries up the bones.

—Proverbs 17:22

God, I cannot just choose to be happy. Can I? Reveal to me the path to be honest about my pain without wallowing in my grief. Show me how to share my fear without obligating others with my anxiety. Draw me up into the practice of joy, lest I give into the dehydration of my despair. Amen.

Use your slip of blue paper to write a sentence or two about how you’ve used humor or playfulness to release tension in a conversation. Or tell a story of when you belly laughed this week: who was with you and how did your relationships shift? “Laughter,” Anne Lamott writes, “is carbonated holiness.”


Don't have one handy? Divide any piece of paper (8.5x11) and fold it in half twice. You can pick one up at church.


On Sunday, we ask you to share something with the congregation. Not everyone will be able to share every week. But we hope that everyone will take the time to add a link to our paper chain. 

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