Rev MaryGean Cope

Tag: love

  • The Heart of Prayer (Isaiah 44)

    My first wedding anniversary was spent on a youth retreat. Me in a cabin with the girls, my husband in a cabin with the guys. That’s what it is in the church—the whole thing is woven together with everyone else’s life.

    So when Rachel and Spencer Driver told us this is their first wedding anniversary, I gave them a gift of paper. Because first anniversaries are paper. And because they’re already part of us now, which means their anniversaries get woven in too.

    They’re our new director of student and family ministry. Rachel’s the one we’re paying. Spencer is also dedicated to ministry but—and I want to be clear about this—Rachel is the one we’re paying. They’re moving into the house across the street and they’ve already started showing up in ways big and small.

    And that’s what the church is, isn’t it. People showing up. Committing their lives to something together. Making it matter that we’re here.

    There’s a lot happening right now. There’s always a lot happening. People getting surgery, people recovering, people grieving, people celebrating. That’s the life of a congregation—all of that all at once.

    What holds it together is showing up. Showing up to pray for each other. Showing up to celebrate with each other. Showing up to grieve with each other. Showing up even when it’s inconvenient.

    Rachel and Spencer showed up. Now they’re part of us. And we show up for them too. That’s the deal. That’s how this works.

    Welcome them if you haven’t met them yet. Pray for them. They’re going to need it, because ministry is hard and they’re smart enough to know that. But they’re doing it anyway.

    That’s what I’m holding onto these days. People still saying yes to the hard thing. Still showing up. Still choosing to make their lives matter for something bigger than themselves.

    It’s not much. But it’s everything.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Power of Love

    The Power of Love

    Christ has conquered death. He lived life fully and showed us how to do the same. He suffered like we suffer, resisted temptation like we resist it, loved like we’re called to love. And then he died. And then he rose.

    And that changes everything.

    Not because we get a free pass now. Not because our lives suddenly get easy. But because death isn’t the last word anymore. Because evil isn’t the final answer. Because God’s faithfulness is deeper and stronger than everything that wants to crush us.

    This is the promise of Easter. Not that we won’t suffer. Jesus suffered. But that suffering doesn’t have the power to destroy what matters. That love is stronger than death. That faithfulness lasts beyond the grave.

    When you’re facing something hard—when you’re sick, when you’re grieving, when you’re facing loss—you need that promise. You need to know that this isn’t all there is. That God hasn’t abandoned you. That even in the darkest part, even in death itself, God’s love is at work.

    And here’s the thing: Jesus showed us that. He didn’t explain it from a distance. He came and lived it and died it and rose from it. He met us in the place where we’re most afraid. And he came out the other side.

    That’s the hope we cling to. Not everything working out fine. But God being faithful through everything. That’s enough. That has to be enough, because anything less wouldn’t be real hope. It would just be wishful thinking.

    Easter is fifty days long in the church calendar. We don’t pack it up and leave. We keep asking what it means that Christ rose. We keep letting it change how we live. Because if death doesn’t have the last word, then how we live right now actually matters.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 102)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 102)

    We had some kids come forward to commit their lives to Christ, and one of them was our UPS delivery guy. DJ Light. You know him. Probably didn’t know he was wrestling with that until he was ready.

    And I looked at these young people and I thought about what we’re doing here. This church has made a difference in the lives of a lot of young people over the years. A lot. And that matters. It matters right now and it’s going to matter for the rest of their lives.

    When kids are growing up, they’re looking for something real. They’re not looking for adults to be perfect. They’re looking for us to be honest. To actually mean what we say. To show up when it’s inconvenient. To keep showing up.

    These three young people made a choice. They said yes to Jesus. Not because they’re perfect, not because they’ve got it all figured out, but because they saw something here worth saying yes to. And that’s the miracle. Not that they’re suddenly fixed. But that they’re willing to give their lives to something bigger than themselves.

    If you know these kids, love them. Pray for them. That’s not just nice sentiment. That’s them needing to feel that they’re part of something. Because they are. They’re part of the body of Christ, and they’re going to need us to remind them of that when things get hard.

    This is why the church exists. Not to run programs. Not to fill seats. But to help young people see that there’s a God who loves them, and that their lives can mean something. That it’s worth the risk to say yes.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer

    The Heart of Prayer

    I want to talk about my grandmother. She had a condition called tic douloureux—it’s a nerve condition in your face that causes excruciating pain. Not the kind that kills you, just the kind that feels like it’s killing you. She lived with that for thirty years, from her early sixties all the way to ninety.

    And I watched her have these attacks. Just wracked with pain, her face going through it. Finally found a doctor, found some medicine that helped. But one time when I was down at her house, she said something that broke my heart. She wondered what she’d done that God was punishing her for.

    And I said, “No. You know better than that.” Because that’s what we’d been taught. That’s what the world taught us back then. If something’s wrong with you, you did something to deserve it. If you’re sick, it’s your fault.

    Psalm 38 is raw. It’s a person detailing every way they’re falling apart. Arrows have pierced me. Nothing in my body isn’t broken. My wounds reek. It’s graphic. It’s real pain. And woven all through it is this terrible awareness that people think it’s his own fault.

    Those who were near me now stay far away. Those who want me dead lay traps. People muttering lies all day long. So here’s a person who’s devastated physically, and then everyone’s gathering like buzzards, looking for an opening, convinced he brought this on himself.

    We do that, don’t we. When somebody’s down—sick, in crisis, struggling—something in us wants to figure out what they did to get there. Not so we can help. So we can make sure we don’t do it. So we can be safer. And people back away. They stop visiting. They assume the person can’t respond anyway, so why bother. And isolation piles on top of misery.

    But the psalm ends different. Waiting for God. Come quickly and help me. It’s not pretty resolution. It’s just—I’m still here. I’m still reaching. And I’m still waiting for God to show up.

    That’s the thing we miss sometimes. When somebody’s in it, they don’t need our judgment. They need our presence. They need to know that even when they can’t respond, they’re not abandoned. That’s where God is in the middle of this—not as the one punishing, but as the one refusing to leave.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalms 6)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalms 6)

    You know that old country song? “I’ve got tears in my ears from lying on my bed crying over you.” That’s what Psalm 6 is. A person wringing out the couch every night, sick and desperate, calling out to God.

    This is one of the penitential psalms—those raw prayers where people are falling apart. The psalmist starts: please Lord, don’t punish me when you’re angry. Don’t discipline me when you’re furious. And all I thought was, yeah, that’s actually good parenting advice. Don’t punish when you’re mad. Because then it’s your anger coming out, not real discipline. It’s just harm. And this person, whoever wrote Psalm 6, they’re already suffering. They don’t need wrath on top of it.

    The thing that struck me is how thoroughly they’re falling apart. Have mercy on me because I’m frail. My bones are shaking. My whole body is completely terrified. We like to think we’re strong, don’t we? We think we’re invincible. But the truth is we’re all frail. Sometimes it just takes getting sick to realize it.

    And here’s what got me—the psalmist is sick, and not only that, but other people are piling on. There’s this blame floating around: if you’re sick, it’s your fault. You sinned, you didn’t pray hard enough, you didn’t believe strongly enough. We knew this back then. Even today you get drifts of it, that spiritual blame. And when you’re already down, people coming at you with that—it just does more damage.

    But then the psalmist says something that stopped me. “But you, Lord.” Just like that. Not “but I hope” or “but I think maybe.” It’s a statement of confidence in the middle of everything falling apart. But you, Lord. How long will this last? Come back to me. Deliver me for the sake of your faithful love. Not because I’ve earned it—the psalmist knows better than that. But because you are faithful. Because you love me.

    That’s the whole thing, isn’t it. When we’re completely undone, that’s when we need to remember God’s steadfast, stubborn love. Not our strength. Not our righteousness. Just God showing up.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Power of Love

    The Power of Love

    Something shifted for me this week. I was sitting with someone who’s dealing with a genuinely terrible situation. Bad health news. Uncertain future. And instead of offering comfort or advice or theological platitudes, I just sat there. We both just sat there.

    And it hit me that’s what faith is, a lot of the time. Not having answers. Not being able to fix it. Just showing up. Just staying present when everything in you wants to run.

    That’s what the cross is, I think. That’s why Jesus went through with it. Not because he was earning something. Not because God needed payment. But because the only way to show humanity that God is actually committed to us is to die with us. To sit in that worst darkness and say: I’m here too.

    We live in a culture that’s obsessed with fixing everything. Taking control. Managing outcomes. And the cross is the ultimate sign that you can’t. You can’t control suffering. You can’t fix death. You can’t engineer your way to love.

    All you can do is be present. All you can do is choose to love people in their mess instead of waiting for them to clean up their act. All you can do is show up.

    For someone out there, that’s revolutionary. Because you’ve spent your whole life being told you’re not good enough. You have to achieve. You have to perform. You have to become different. And here’s Jesus saying: No. I’m enough. My love is enough. Your presence matters. You matter.

    Just as you are. Especially as you are. All that broken, messy, still-figuring-it-out version of you. That’s the one I came for.

    That’s the gospel. That’s enough.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Power of Love (Philippians 414)

    The Power of Love (Philippians 414)

    February is when everyone’s New Year’s resolution crashes. The gym gets empty again. The journal sits blank. And we start with the shame. “I can’t even keep one resolution.” “I’m undisciplined.” “Why do I always fail?”

    But what if the problem isn’t you? What if it’s that we’re trying to accomplish transformation through sheer willpower, and willpower isn’t actually how human beings change?

    I’ve been reading about how change actually works. And it’s never “I decided to change and then I did.” It’s way messier. It’s community. It’s naming patterns. It’s being honest about what you actually want versus what you think you should want. It’s sometimes failing spectacularly and then trying again.

    The theological word for this is grace, but we’ve made it so thin. We treat grace like a one-time get-out-of-jail card. “I messed up, Jesus forgave me, moving on.” But that’s not what grace is. Grace is God’s power working with you over time. Not erasing your struggle. Accompanying you through it.

    So here’s what I’d offer for whatever you’re failing at right now: stop trying harder. Get honest about what’s actually stopping you. Talk to someone about it. Stop pretending you should be able to do this alone. Because transformation is never a solo project. It’s always community. It’s always encountering the God who doesn’t love you for getting it right, but loves you exactly where you’re getting it wrong.

    That’ll change you far more than willpower ever could.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 62)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 62)

    You ever notice how quickly we move on from hard things? We’re trained for it. Someone goes through something terrible, and after a few weeks we expect them to be back to normal. Back to functioning. Back to acting like everything’s fine.

    I watched someone this week navigate that transition—from crisis to “I guess this is just my life now.” And it struck me how much spiritual work happens in that middle space. Not the dramatic crisis that gets prayers and flowers. But the slow, hard work of deciding whether you’re going to let this break you or change you.

    Scripture’s actually full of people in that space. Waiting. Not getting immediate answers. Just having to decide, day after day, whether they trust God in the middle of the liminal. The in-between.

    I think we’ve missed something as churches. We’re great at crisis ministry. We show up for the emergency. But we’re terrible at the slow, grinding work of transformation. That’s where most of Christian life actually is, though. Not the dramatic moment. The thousands of small moments where you choose faith over despair, humility over bitterness, hope over exhaustion.

    That’s the real witness. That’s the real song. Not when everything’s resolved. But when you’re still standing, still trusting, still showing up to church, and you’re not sure you have any faith left. That’s where God works.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 139)

    The Heart of Prayer (Psalm 139)

    I’ve been thinking about the word “sing” this week. You know, not in the surface way—like, “we should all feel better if we sing.” But the deeper thing. What it means to raise your voice when things don’t feel worth singing about.

    There’s a passage I keep coming back to, about singing in dark places. Not singing to make the darkness go away. But singing anyway. And I think that’s the real discipline of faith. Not having good feelings. Not figuring it out. But choosing to raise your voice—to the church, to God, to yourself—when the natural thing is to stay silent.

    We have people in this congregation right now who are in genuine pain. Surgery. Loss. Family stuff that’s messier than anyone wants to admit. And the church’s first instinct is usually to fix it or comfort it. But what if the real gift is permission to sing the lament? To say—without sugarcoating—”This is hard. This is real. And I’m going to say that out loud anyway.”

    That takes more faith than the cheerful singing, honestly. Because you’re not pretending. You’re just taking your actual life and offering it to God and saying: I’m still here. I’m still trusting. Even when it sounds more like a cry than a song.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Gift of Forgiveness (Jeremiah 31)

    The Gift of Forgiveness (Jeremiah 31)

    January. Post-holiday collapse. Which is when I’m most likely to sit down and actually think about something beyond logistics and Christmas decorations.

    I was thinking about New Year’s resolutions, and you know what? They’re mostly about becoming someone different. Better. Less flawed. We want to be the version of ourselves we’d actually be okay with. And there’s something true in that. God does call us to transformation. But we’ve got it backwards somehow.

    We think transformation means becoming someone else. Becoming someone who wouldn’t struggle with the same stuff. Someone who’d already have it figured out. But Scripture keeps pointing to something different. It’s not about becoming a different person. It’s about following Jesus more truly in the body you’re actually in.

    That sounds smaller than we want. But I think it’s bigger. Because it means you don’t have to escape yourself to be redeemed. You just have to start saying yes to God in the middle of who you actually are. With your actual failures and your actual patterns and your actual mess.

    That’s the good news nobody wants to hear on January 7th. You don’t get to start over. You get to start here. True. And somehow that’s actually more hope than the fantasy version we keep reaching for.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope