"Take heart; get up, he is calling you," those crowding around Jesus told blind Bartimaeus that day in Jericho. As you picture that scene in your mind's eye, can you begin to let it morph into becoming you that is longing for an encounter with Jesus? Sit with that image for a bit, and be encouraged by those who recognize that the Beloved is calling you to come into the Divine Presence. Is that too far out for you even to imagine? If so, take heart.

The Holy One longs for us, each and all, to hear with the ears of our hearts, to recognize that God's love is always reaching out to us right where we are, no matter what we are doing, and working from deep within to bring us to wholeness and holiness, transforming us into the imago dei we were created to be. God uses our everyday life experiences to reach us when we are ready to hear, to accept, to receive. We can take heart that the Beloved will not let us any of us slip from God's enfolding embrace of steadfast love and mercy.

As we look around us in the world today, we see so much pain and distrust, so much apparent evil in every corner, it can be easy for us to become discouraged, disillusioned, disheartened. Yet we know somewhere in our deepest being that God, beneath it all, is at work in ways we can't begin to see with our eyes or understand with our minds, and take heart. May we get up when we hear the Beloved calling us and walk henceforth out of the darkness of despair into the light of God's love.