A Love Letter From a Mountainside

I didn’t expect it. Not at all. I didn’t expect that a bud piercing through dark earth to find the light could bring such joy. Such hope. My sister had said once that that was what got her through the winters, looking for the signs of spring, the snowdrops, the crocuses, the blue bells and later the daffodils… all bravely bursting through the soil to point to the lengthening daylight.

 

After a lifetime lived in the sunshine of Australia and Jamaica, the darkness of my first two winters here in the UK has sometimes felt like an unravelling. A grey weight on shoulders and a smothering. But if snowdrop buds can brave the cold and dark, perhaps I can too.

Lent begins next Wednesday. The word Lent means ‘the lengthening of Days’, after the dark, after the cold, it names the season of light coming in. Where Advent and Christmas are woven into the darkest weeks of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere) Lent, leading up to Easter is threaded into Spring, when new life gradually unfurls in the ever increasing light, bursting forth, declaring to all the earth that the darkest days are done. Lent is a gradual walk towards the warming long-light days of summer through the bursting, budding, flowering life of spring. Oh how ready I am for this light!

And like a love letter, the first day of Lent (Ash Wednesday) lands on Valentines day! And during this Lent season, as a different sort of love letter, I am offering you something new. I am offering you the invitation to explore your own story with God in the stillness of Lent’s lengthening-light days. Instead of my writing carrying you along into His words, I’m inviting you to write your own way into His Kingdom story through a journalling exploration of Jesus’ own life-strengthening words from the mountainside, the Sermon on the Mount.

I have created a printable 40 day journal journey for you woven around Jesus’ ‘Sermon on the Mount’ from the gospel of Matthew, a pathway through Lent leading up to the mountainside where Jesus sits sharing the story of His Kingdom coming on earth as it is in Heaven.

     

Alongside this free printable journal, I have for you some printable scripture cards that follow the same journey through the Sermon on the Mount each day.  You can pin them on your refrigerator, carry them in your pocket, or display them in a treasure box as I have done.

You will also find here some fellowship book marks to use if you are taking this journey alongside other people  (highly recommended!). Its all free and downloadable right here and in our post box.

And every now and then through this Lenten journey (not every day) I’ll be sending you an extra encouragement, some reflections (from myself and others), sometimes a song, a video… all encouraging you as you climb the mountain each day to sit at Jesus’ feet in stillness with Him.

Jewish people viewed their written story, their law as something to be valued, enjoyed and loved… like treasure. Jesus’ Sermon on the mount is His reimagining of the Jewish law with the heartbeat of the Kingdom pulsing through it and he invites us to engage with it, not as a bunch of rules to follow, but as the treasure He intends it to be for us. Treasure to build our lives on.

Treasure given to us on the mountainside.

Are you ready for a new adventure? It begins next Wednesday, like a love letter arriving on Valentines day.

Blessings,

Liz

PS- Your free gifts are here…

Treasure on the Mountainside Journal: Treasure on the Mountainside Journal

Journal Cover: Treasure on the Mountainside Cover

Treasure Scripture Cards: Treasure on the Mountainside Cards

Fellowship Book Marks: Mountainside Fellowship