The Now Pages

TheBridgePortland
BridgeSpeak
The Bridge includes singing, dancing, drumming, painting, writing, lauging, crying, praying, learning, teaching, and even just listening. We try to open ourselves up to full creativity, full giving of ourselves in worship to God, and see what God speaks back to us as individuals. People are not only allowed, but encouraged to worship in whatever way they want.

You deserve to be loved because you exist. And that love has to come without a price tag!
homePDX
Speak
God and I don’t have the sort of relationship like a Thomas Kinkade painting, where he is walking me through the meadow of life and I see glimpses of him everywhere, nor is it like the forth of July and the fireworks are His voice. Most of the time God has to talk to me like I am a child in a preschool class; they sit on the mat, the teacher holds up a picture of something, like a cat and the child knows what a cat is, the teacher makes consequences very clear and the child gets punished. So God knows I need to be led by the hand and He also knows that unless He makes it very clear what he is doing in my life and my community I will miss it because I am a preschooler and I get distracted.


JessicaRoyeSpeaks
She yells my name like a mother would and gives my advice even when I don’t necessarily want it. She tells me every week that she is praying I have lots of babies. This would usually irritate me, but because it’s her I encourage it. I feel like is some way she gets a small, very miniscule part of the motherhood that was taken from her. Recently she found the phone number for her daughter and began calling her, now every Sunday she will take my cell phone and talk to her daughter on the phone. I don’t know what they talk about, I can’t understand a word of it, I every time it happens I stand back a listen. I listen and feel overjoyed and sad all at the same time.



Even in the midst of great pain, Lord,
I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
Or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow men pray for ease:
“Comfort us; shield us from sorrow.”
I pray for whatever you send me,
and I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
greater than all the world’s riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
for I know that even now you are here.



Blessed are the man and the woman
who have grown beyond their greed
and have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions.
But they delight in the way things are
and keep their hearts open, day and night.
They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,
which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not fall or wither.
Everything they do will succeed.



GreenRibon