For a Moment Like This

Hey Sacred Place Family,

Happy Fourth—though I’ll admit I say that with a complicated heart this year, and maybe you do too. This is the collision I’ve been sitting with all week: the country marks its 250th today, and tomorrow we close Found Family with the finale of Esther’s story—a story about living under an empire that has decided some people are expendable. I’m not going to pretend those two things sit easily together, and I’m not going to preach you a flag. But I don’t think it’s an accident that this is the text in front of us right now.

Esther has survived this long by keeping quiet about who she is. Tomorrow the story asks whether she can keep doing that—and there’s a line in this chapter that has been following me around all week, one I want to sit inside with you rather than hand over in an email.

It feels right to end five weeks on chosen family here: with someone who has to decide whether her own safety is worth more than her people’s. Come find out how it lands.

We gather tomorrow at 11:00 AM Pacific, in the room and online. Coffee beforehand. Come close out the series with us—and bring someone who could use a story about refusing to disappear.

Grace and peace, Pastor Matthew