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This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

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June 29, 2016 | Leave a Comment

Fear and a pink paper flower

Below is the text of the message from Psalm 46. I shared it in worship on May 29. Some folks have asked for it–

I did not understand what the words really meant. As a little girl, the words struck me as frightening, some of them even violent. And, yet, these were the very same words that gave me great comfort and courage.

You see, I spent the first 12 years of my life in a house filled with fear. My mother’s own life was not going as planned, and (we know now) she was suffering from significant clinical depression. In the absence of a diagnosis, she gave her depression another name. She called it “spirits.”

“There are spirits in our house,” she would whisper, with her eyes small and intense. “Spirits.”

[Read more…]

Fear, Psalms, Trust Tagged: Arizona, childhood, fear, possession movies, Psalm 46


September 1, 2015 | Leave a Comment

A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

I arrived at my 7 a.m. meeting, wearing my sweater inside out. The wifi was down at church. The printer was jammed. The school nurse called; my daughter came home sick. The church credit card denied. The only person with the combination to the safe where we keep the church’s other card is out of town. The network at the college denied my password. The projector bulb in the lecture hall is burned out. A mosquito bit the back of my leg in three places in the time it took for me to read three verses of the Book of Isaiah where I was turning to try to get my bearings again.

It was terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Or not.

[Read more…]

Praise, Psalms, Suffering Tagged: Bad days, mosquitoes, Psalm 18, Reinhold Niebuhr


July 25, 2015 | Leave a Comment

Refuge in the storm

“Protect me, O God, for in You I take refuge.  I say to the Lord, You are my God; I have no good apart from You.” (Ps 16)

Two weeks ago, on a mission trip with our church youth to the Navajo Nation in Arizona, our group got caught in a rain storm. We were on I-40, just east of Gallup, New Mexico, when the heavens opened up.

storm car [Read more…]

Psalms, Uncategorized Tagged: mission trip, Psalm 16, rainstorms, refuge


This is the day that
the Lord has made;
let us rejoice
and be glad in it.

– Psalm 118:24
Rev. Dr. MJ Romano

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Bible Verse of the Day

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Romans 5:19
DailyVerses.net
LaJunta Presbyterian Church

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