Today's passage is Nehemiah 8:2-18.
Ezra stands on a platform and reads the Law to the people for six hours a day for seven days. The Levites help them understand it.
At first the people grieve, but Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites say the day is sacred to the Lord and everyone is to celebrate and enjoy food and share with others because the joy of the Lord is their strength.
They make booths for the festival, which hasn't been done since the time of Joshua. On the eighth day there was an assembly.
Today I will go to worship with my daughter Erika and her husband, who have recovered their worship, and with my grandson who will be baptized this summer.
Because my daughter has recovered her worship, God is recovering her life.
He has given her a focus. She is 35 and will go to college at last to become a chef.
I am paying. I thought I sent the money to the college but it went to my daughter's bank account by mistake.
I worried she would spend the money instead of paying the college.
But she kept her focus and paid the college, praise God! That was a blessing to me.
My daughter and I talked about the time when my first wife was dying of her alcoholism.
We talked about my denial, we talked about my daughter running away.
We shared our sins from that time with each other.
We apologized to each other.
We thanked each other for the helpful things we did at that time.
We praised God for his forgiveness because we were so full of anger in those days, so full of grieving at our unhappy lives.
After worship today I will go to visit my sister who is trapped in her prison of unforgiveness, anger and fear.
She will not forgive anyone who she thinks has done her wrong.
She hates my parents, especially my mother, for making me the favorite child.
Although she believes in God, my sister does not go to worship because she doesn't want people controlling her life, she says.
She has no spiritual community to listen to her, encourage her, help her.
She will not go to a mental clinic for counseling because she's afraid the counselor will tell everyone about her problems.
My prayer and my hope is that I can bring God's heart with me to my visit to my sister.
I pray I can have a loving acceptance of her and not be judgmental.
I pray I can bring the joy of the Lord.
I pray for the discernment to know when and what to share of my story with her.
I pray I can live in a booth during my visit to her.
