We are looking forward to warmly greeting you and wishing you “Happy Sabbath” – a welcome greeting of hope, peace, and blessing; a prayer that the Lord be with you; a reminder to thank God for this holy day meant for praise and rest that was set aside each week. We pray that you will indeed be blessed this day, and will continue to let the love of God fill your hearts and minds this coming week.

We also look forward to warmly welcoming you to the Bronte Church. We truly hope that you will be blessed, inspired, and charged with hope and gladness when you leave this place today. Have you ever thought about where such positive feelings come from? Maybe a family member or a friend did something special for us; the mere belief that we were that special to them, for them to do that, would cause a heightened response. Perhaps it was a memory we contemplated on that brought a smile to our face; experiences that we once lived had the effect of a happy mood. It could have even been that someone we didn’t know performed a “random act of kindness”; a stranger did the unexpected, creating a feeling of cheerfulness, reminding us that there are truly good people in the world. But what happens when we don’t always feel so blessed, inspired, or charged? We can’t be expected to feel gladness 24/7; we are all entitled to “bad days”, and these can bring us down quite a bit! What we need to remember in such trying times is that God is in control. God has everything – including our lives – in His hands. Things may not go according to our desired timelines, but everything is in God’s perfect schedule… we just need to be patient and wait for Him. If you’re reading this, and these sound like the “same old sayings” you’ve been hearing all the time, we encourage you to stay strong and keep the faith. Just try your best, then step back and let God guide the course of your life. When you do everything that you can do and you just can’t do any more, God will take over and He’ll do everything you can’t do. Paul puts it best in 2 Corinthians, “…I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” It is during these times of hopelessness that we should let God lead our way, so we can truly see the hopefulness that life will offer. Then, once we do feel better, we should use that positivity to bless, inspire, and charge others, for by encouraging them, we only reiterate and reinforce our own self-optimism. In any case, whatever we’re feeling, if we just let go and let God, we should be pleased, knowing we’re on the best path possible.