April 22, 2022

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:35)

Thinking about country music legend George Jones today. Here’s a NYT description of his music. “All the pleasures of a down-home Saturday night couldn’t free him from private pain. His up-tempo songs had undercurrents of solitude, and the ballads that became his specialty were suffused with stoic desolation.”

A 1999 drunken car crash was the long-awaited turning point for Jones. “In his final decades something unexpected happened: call it surrender. Jones more or less put his addictions aside, and his marriage to his fourth wife, Nancy Sepulvedo, was his longest and most nurturing. He’d gone from being a pariah in Nashville to a mascot who got respect.”

No matter what you are dealing with, surrender is always the right move.

“Almighty Father, who gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification: Give us grace so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” (Friday in Easter Week – BCP)