Rev MaryGean Cope

Tag: transformation

  • 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

    The Heart of Prayer

    So Jesus says we’re like sheep, and he’s the shepherd. And if you know anything about sheep, you know they’re not exactly known for their brainpower. Aggressive sheep are dumb. They run off the cliff or into danger because they don’t have the sense to know better. That’s where the shepherd comes in.

    Here’s what I’ve learned about being human: we’re not that different from those sheep. We think we know what we’re doing. We think we can figure it out on our own, handle it ourselves, make all the right decisions. And then we run straight into something that breaks us. We wander off where we shouldn’t be. We follow the wrong crowd because we’re lonely or scared or tired.

    The good news is that Jesus isn’t mad at you for being a sheep. He’s not disappointed in you for needing help. That’s literally the whole point. He’s there to guide you back when you go astray, to protect you when you’re vulnerable, to feed you when you’re hungry. The only thing you actually have to do is follow. Listen. Stay close. Trust that he knows the way better than you do.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer

    The Heart of Prayer

    Here’s what I’m asking you today. If I sat down with you one-on-one and asked about your faith life, your faith story, what would you tell me?

    Where did you first encounter church? Where did you first encounter God? How did you first hear about Jesus?

    Some of us would go all the way back. Some of us came to it later. Either way, there’s power in your story.

    I used to be bothered that I didn’t have a dramatic conversion story. All that pain and brokenness that other people had to go through to find God—I missed out on it. I was sorry about that. But then I realized: I’m glad I didn’t have one of those stories. I’m grateful I was spared that suffering. And that gratitude is its own kind of testimony.

    But here’s the thing. All of us, dramatic conversion story or not, all of us have areas where we need to repent and turn back toward God. All of us need that forgiveness. All of us need that grace. We just maybe express it differently.

    So what I want to know is: how has God shown up in your life? Where has God spoken to you? Where has God given you hope or forgiveness or correction and said, you need to change, or you need to come home to me?

    And here’s the bigger question: who knows your story?

    Do your children? Your grandchildren? Your nieces and nephews? Do they know the story of God’s relationship with you?

    Because I’m going to tell you something. The fastest growing religious preference group in this country is the “nones”—people who don’t claim a faith. And then there are the “dones”—people who were church people and just burned out. Then there are the spiritual-but-not-religious folks.

    They’re all looking for something. They’re spiritual nomads. They want faith. They want meaning. They just don’t see it in the church.

    And you know what would change that? If they knew you. If they knew your story. If they knew that being Christian isn’t about being perfect or better than anyone else. It’s about knowing Jesus. It’s about that love changing you.

    So tell your story. Let people know. Because they’re looking. And they might listen to you when they wouldn’t listen to me.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer

    The Heart of Prayer

    There was a widow—that’s the only detail we need to know. She was a widow and her only son was dead. And she was carrying his body out of the city for burial.

    Jesus saw her and something moved in him. The Gospel says he had compassion. But compassion doesn’t quite cover it. It’s a gut-level, bone-deep recognition of someone’s suffering. Jesus knows the depth of her loss in a way nobody else can. He stops the funeral procession. He touches the stretcher. He tells the young man: get up.

    And the dead man sits up. He speaks. Jesus gives him back to his mother.

    Now, Jesus didn’t do that for everybody. He didn’t resuscitate everyone who’d died. We still live in a world where people die. Where grief is real. Where loss isn’t magically fixed by faith or prayer or anything else.

    But this story isn’t primarily about the miracle. It’s about Jesus seeing one specific person in one specific moment and meeting her there. Not waiting for her to come to him. Not asking what she’d done to deserve this suffering. Not explaining anything. Just stopping. Looking. Acting.

    We do such damage trying to explain suffering. We tell people it was God’s will. We suggest they must have done something to cause it. We come up with all kinds of theories, like Job’s friends, and we’re usually just wrong. What we know is that Jesus met this woman in her pain. And we can do that for people too. Not fix it. Not explain it. Just stop. See them. Be there.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer (Matthew 6)

    The Heart of Prayer (Matthew 6)

    I’ve been thinking about the young people we’ve known through Project Transformation, and what it means to see someone really come alive when they realize they can do something. When they realize they have a gift. Not that they were born with it perfect, but that it can be developed. That they can grow.

    That’s what mentorship is. It’s not telling somebody you’re special. It’s showing them the door and saying, go. Try. Fail. Try again. And I’ll be here.

    What these young people learned wasn’t just about ministry or church. It was about themselves. That they have something to offer. That their voice matters. That God can actually use them. And you know what? Once you know that about yourself, you can’t unknow it. It changes everything. The question becomes, what will I do with this? Where will I go? Who will I become? That’s when following Jesus stops being something your church wants and becomes something you want.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Power of Love

    The Power of Love

    Mother’s Day. I’ve never been great at these kinds of days. You’re supposed to say the right thing, honor the right people, and I always feel like I’m missing somebody. Somebody’s mother showed up on a Friday when her own mother couldn’t. Somebody’s mother is gone. Somebody’s mother did her best and it still wasn’t enough because nobody’s perfect. Somebody’s mother left, and somebody else became the one who showed up.

    What strikes me is that real love—the kind Jesus was talking about—doesn’t require blood. It doesn’t require perfection. It just requires showing up. It requires saying, I see you. I’m here. You matter.

    That’s what we’re really celebrating today. Not the card. Not the flowers. The people who looked at another person and decided to love them anyway.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope