Prairie Pastoral

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

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July 27, 2022 | 1 Comment

As We Wait…

Minnie was a sweet lady I would visit at her home south of town. Frustrated with her lack of progress in physical therapy after a fall, she’d ball up her fist, scrunch up her face, and say in a stage whisper, 

“I want patience, and I want it now.”

Oh, Minnie, we are with you.

When will I get a break? When will it be my turn? When will it get easier? When? There are no easy answers to these questions.

I’ve read whole books about patience. I pray for it all the time. I know the answers I’m supposed to give to others and myself. “It’s all God’s timing,” or “Trust God. He will provide.” My answers are true, but they’re not necessarily what I want to hear when the good news is slow to come. [Read more…]

Discipleship, Parenting, Patience, Time, Trust Tagged: frustration, Patience, Teenagers, When?


March 11, 2021 | Leave a Comment

My quest for a personal retreat day

The mythologist Joseph Campbell described the quest as the hero’s journey out from the ordinary to a place of adventure with the hope of magical rewards. It sounds fabulous. Until it’s not.

I’m currently on a quest for a personal retreat day. It’s not nearly so heroic as what Capbell described. Magical rewards? No, I just want to find a place where I can spend the day away with Jesus for prayer and journaling. A place without ping pong. Ping pong? [Read more…]

Frustration, Jesus Christ, Small town Tagged: frustration, Joseph Campbell, personal retreat, silence, solitude


September 29, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Frustration

(Adapted from a sermon preached September 6, 2020.)

Remember the movie Bruce Almighty, about the man whom God allows to be God just for a while? There’s a scene, early in the movie, in which Bruce is done, just done. He’s tired of his mediocre job, his mediocre apartment, his mediocre life, and he blames his mediocrity on God.

“God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but He’d rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”

Bruce may have not been altogether wrong. Bear with me. 

This is a meditation on frustration. [Read more…]

Fear, Hope, Jesus Christ, Prayer, Suffering, Trust, Uncategorized Tagged: frustration, pandemic, prayer, Romans 8


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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