Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon:

where there is doubt, faith ;

where there is despair, hope

where there is darkness, light

where there is sadness, joy

O divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Enjoy the beautiful photos of our retreat day at the Canaan Prayer Gardens! The Gardens are tended and operated by Sisters Ileana and Gordia of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, which is an ecumencial sisterhood with communities across the world. The prayer gardens are open to the public, free of charge, from about May to October. It's a great place to go and pray, and to spend some time resting in the presence of God.

Below the photos, you'll find the reflection on Isaiah 59:7 that was given in the morning, before we walked the gardens. The purpose of the day was to be present to God, and to allow him to show us how he seeks to heal each of us of the inner bruises and pain that we experience through hardships that we experience. We were encouraged to reflect on how our own healing is part of our greater mission as the people of God. Or, in other words, if people see God's love working in our lives, his love becomes all the more visible in the world.

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Someone once said to me “next time you are in the shower, take a look at your feet, because they are beautiful – they are beautiful because they will announce peace to God’s people”. I thought that was so wonderful because the verse from Isaiah has always been one of my favourites: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns”.So, following on that, the purpose of the day today is to become aware of how we each need God’s peace in our lives. Hopefully today, through the prayer exercises and through your time in the gardens, you experience the opportunity to invite God into a place in your life where you need to feel his gentle peace. Because we can only experience the peace of God when we have peace with God, right?You may be asking “why is peace so important”? And I think that it is because it is so hard to come by. And it is something that we can’t really produce ourselves. It has to come from God. We receive God’s peace by accepting what he’s done for us on Calvary. It is such an amazing mystery to be confronted with, as we gaze at the cross, that our pain, and our sorrow, and our suffering are his to bear.Do you know that song “You find out who your friends are?” As we walk the garden, we find out who Jesus, our friend, our brother, our Saviour is. In John 14: 27 Jesus tells us “I do not give to you as the world gives”. Jesus gives us his very life, his very Spirit. He gives everything that he has. Today we have an opportunity to ask the question “how am I walking with God” “How am I experiencing God’s peace? Am I? Where do I need it in my life?” And it will hopefully be a time where God can begin to transform turmoil into calmness and strength, and fear can be replaced with trust. Someone once said “the path to God is paved with knee prints”. We experience peace not through trying to stand tall and fight our own battles, but through lying down before God what it is that keeps us from trusting him, whatever that might be.  You may be thinking “what does this have to do with my feet”? Because the title for today is “The Feet of the Messenger”.  Well, a lot of us women have a hard time letting people see the bottoms of our feet. I would venture a guess that our feet are in pretty rough shape!  They feel the brunt of our journeys in life, as they get sore so easily, and they have calluses, bunions, deformities, etc. They are sensitive and smelly and all that. When we think about being made in the image of God, we often don’t think of feet! Just so you don’t think it has anything to do with age, take a look at mine! Can you imagine God taking your feet in his hands and saying “these are beautiful! And can you imagine him gently holding them? The dry crackly skin, and bunions, and sweaty shoe smell doesn’t bother him.... Well, that very image, that experience, is the purpose of today. We like to hide our flaws and our hurts and stuff inside, but God knows that it is there. And being the great physician that he is, he wants to heal us of what hurts us – what causes us to suffer, and to have fear, and turmoil. God takes all of us, and wraps his love around us, calluses and all. The Psalmist says:-“darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.....’  (Psalm 139:12).God sees all of us, and he is not turned away. That’s because even our shortcomings have potential to him. God takes all of us and wraps his love around us. He takes our weaknesses in his hands and says “come. Take your place in the very centre of my love”. How we live this out has so much to do with our lives as Christians. Because our most powerful witness is to live out the peace that we have in God.  The most powerful way to share God’s love is to simply trust him with all that we are dealing with in life, and to receive the peace that he longs to give us. It doesn’t mean that as Christians we are called to be perfect and to not grieve or not feel sad or upset. What it means is that we are called to be a people who experience everything that humanity experiences, but that we endure it with hope. We experience it knowing that Jesus’ death on the cross has conquered the powers of darkness and suffering, and that the love that is so powerful that not even death could contain it is offered to us as well.  That’s the heart of our mission as God’s people: to live God’s love, to live hopefully, to live peacefully, in a way that makes these gifts of grace that we receive from God visible.  Now, I know some people are a bit nervous about the foot massage that is offered today, but please don’t feel nervous. The purpose of the foot massage is that it is an expression of the grace we receive so freely from God. God takes us in his arms, cradling those parts of us that we are ashamed of and embarrassed about, and says “do not fear. I am with you. You are my precious daughter. And I was with you when that thing in your life happened to give you that big bruise on your heart. I was there when you were so hurt that your soul took a whopping. Here, let me heal it.” You can have a hand massage as well. But if you prefer to not have either, you are not refusing grace. It is simply here for the offering. Your feet are beautiful, because they announce peace.So today, rest in God’s presence.  He loves you, and he has called you here. Let him tell you of that love through the prayer stations, through the beauty of this place, through the prayer exercises, and through the readings from Scripture. May you be blessed today as you seek to know and live God’s love for you.