Hello Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Psalm 127; 3-5 states…Children are a blessing from God.
Well the weekend is almost completed, it’s now Sunday night and the weekend has been emotionally and spiritually draining. I have been a table leader and training two new team members (that have never been on an epiphany table) to a group of young boys. Some were gang members and a few were gang leaders who just arrived at the prison.
A few knew the bible well and would quote scripture to impress the others and the next thing you would hear was profanity and what they did on the street to others. I was also asked to give a three part forgiveness talk (someone backed off the team) which brought back memories of my mother who passed when I was a younger man. My most spiritual moment was at the forgiveness cross in the chapel, when all 36 Stars (name we call the boys), 31 Epiphany team volunteers, JCOS (Prison guards) and Gainesville's state school Chaplin.
We all wrote down the names of those that we needed to forgive, and those who we asked to forgive us and nailed the papers to the cross. Tonight we took the names off (not our burden we put on the cross) but we took off another person’s burden as Christ did ours. We prayed… dropped the list in water and watched it dissolve away like our sin in Christ.
Thank you for all of your prayers…IHH, David Ricks
