The Empty Store (02/27/2026)

Every time I drive by it, it saddens me that such a prime spot in our small city should remain empty. I question why it went out of business. I question why another business hasn’t swept it up and filled it to the brim with items for us. Potential untapped saddens me.

God writes straight with crooked lines. The image of that empty store, that potential untapped, popped up in my prayer this first week of Lent. And I knew why. I could sense the LORD’s sadness. I realized He was trying to remind me of my own potential and the potential of others He’d woven into our very being, untapped.

We are wonderfully made, as I wrote yesterday in the blog. And within each of us is potential and purpose and our quest in life is to discover both through our discovery of our LORD and His love. We will never truly discover ourselves without looking through the lens of the LORD’s love. And without that piece, we cannot totally comprehend our potential or our purpose.

As we make our Lenten journey, with five full weeks still ahead, let us consider ourselves like that empty store with so much potential invested in us by our creator. Let us seek through prayer, through study, through service to our LORD and one another to grow closer to our LORD, to allow our LORD to fill more of our being, our minds, our hearts, our hours, our days, our space, our lives, our souls. Let us open ourselves to the LORD’s potential and let us prayerfully give ourselves to Him, surrender, if we can, trusting that He loves us and seeks life in abundance for us.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.