By Regina Girten, Pastor of Outreach

In Pastor Jacob's powerful Easter message he said, “Easter morning is actually about someone experiencing grief. Sadness. And Jesus meets that grief with the knowledge he knows our names and his ability to still say it, because he’s alive!”

When we serve our community and world, we provide a moment for someone who is experiencing some sort of trial to hear God speak their name. We step into a holy moment with one of God's children to say, "I see you. I know you." We meet people where they are.

If you are like me, you've experienced a lot of moments in this season where you have needed to hear God speak your name. Needed to truly hear, "You are brave. You are strong. You are known. You are loved." These moments provide the opportunity for us all to be shaped and molded for the greater good of God's Kingdom.

What would it look like for us to learn from the disciples' grief this Easter season? What did they do when they came out of their locked rooms? What will the people of Providence Church do? We do not know what that will look like. But perhaps it looks like revival. Perhaps it looks like us shouting the good news far and wide that Jesus conquered sin and death and yes, even coronavirus!

So, where are you going to hear Jesus call your name in all of this? Sit in those places often so you can be shaped and molded into who God is guiding you to be on the other side.

The picture you see is where I go to hear Jesus say my name. It's a little bench behind the church on the corner of the street where I live. On a socially distant walk, I felt led to explore the church on the corner. When I rounded the corner to the back of the property I chuckled out loud. Just days before a friend of mine was praying for me and said she saw me sitting on a stone bench beneath a tree in full bloom and my soul was at peace. It did not take much to hear God saying my name in this moment! If you have not found "your bench" yet be on the lookout. God is guiding you, no matter your story, to find a bench. To sit and listen to your Creator say your name over and over and over again.

Take heart, Jesus is alive. He's shouting our names. Let's listen close so we can get to work saying the names of our brothers and sisters far and wide in the years to come.