Author: Jon Swanson

Social media chaplain. Author of "This is Hard: What I say when loved ones die." Writer of 300wordsaday.com and thisishard.substack.com. Helping people help others in hard times, particularly in grief.
by Jon Swanson

A prayer for the fifth Sunday of Easter.

God- A chosen people. That’s what Peter calls your people. That’s what Peter calls us. A chosen people. A royal priesthood. A holy nation.God’s special possession. The people of God. As we come to you, that’s who we are. But here’s the thing. As we come to you, we feel adrift. Inadequate. Neglected.If you see […]

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by Jon Swanson

Sometimes you know what you need to do.

A few months ago, we bought a new shower curtain. We had changed the color of the bathroom, and seafoam green didn’t fit anymore. We found the new one at Walmart. It came with new hooks for the curtain and the liner, metal ones, bent into a “s” shape. I installed them and cleaned and […]

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by Jon Swanson

Radical new wine

Rich Dixon is thinking about new ways to think: +++ I’m thinking about this short parable. “Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” […]

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by Jon Swanson

Sometimes yes.

You may have heard the formula: “Sometimes God says ‘Yes’, sometimes ‘no’, sometimes ‘wait.” It’s a way to talk about our sense that God doesn’t respond to prayer in the ways we want. As we’re reading through Mark, we find stories where Jesus says none of those things. He asks a question. He introduces a […]

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by Jon Swanson

Help my unbelief.

A man brings his son to Jesus for rescue, only to discover that Jesus and the closest three disciples are gone. The son is speechless, as he has been for years. An evil spirit has tried to kill the son. The nine disciples can’t help the boy. When Jesus returns from the mountain, after sorting […]

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