October 8, 2026

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Dear Friends,

When my boys were little, they would sometimes look up at me and ask for a do-over.

Sometimes, it was because something had been just so wonderful—a trip to the park, a visit to their favorite ice cream place. Before we had even finished one good thing, they were already dreaming of doing it all over again. I would hear, “I have an idea, Mommy! Let’s go again, won’t that be fun?” Oh, how I understood that longing to repeat the joy. There are moments you want to scoop up and tuck away for another day.

Other times, their request came with tears. They had made a mistake, and their tender hearts ached with regret. They wished they could go back for a moment and choose differently.

Oh, my sweet boys. I understood that feeling, too.

And, honestly, I still do. Maybe you do, too.

This Sunday, our Exodus reading brings us to a community that has made a terrible mistake. Moses has been up on the mountain so long that the Israelites begin to wonder what has happened to him. They have followed him out of Egypt and into a wilderness where so much is unfamiliar. Now their leader is out of sight, and waiting becomes more than they can bear.

So they ask Aaron to make gods to lead them. They hand over their gold, and he fashions a calf. Soon they worship something their own hands helped create.

I wonder if some of them, afterward, longed for a do-over, too.

The passage doesn’t tell us if they did. But we know that, elsewhere in their journey, they longed for Egypt again. Sometimes fear makes the familiar look inviting, even when it wasn’t good for us. Maybe you know that feeling, too—the wish to go back, to start over, to return to the moment before things felt so tangled.

It’s easy to stand back from the golden calf and wonder what they were thinking. But it takes honesty to remember how hard waiting can be. We pray for direction. We work hard. We try to be faithful. And when the way forward is still unclear, sometimes we reach for anything that feels like it might steady us, even for a moment.

During my sabbatical, I revisited Angela Duckworth’s book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. I kept thinking about what it means to stick with something we love, especially when learning means making mistakes along the way.

In Grit, Angela Duckworth explores how we keep working toward something that matters to us, even when it gets difficult. She draws on psychologist Carol Dweck’s idea of a “growth mindset”—the understanding that we can develop our abilities through practice, guidance, and learning from our mistakes. Our brains keep forming and strengthening connections as we learn. We are still growing!

Think about a child learning to ride a bike. A tumble doesn’t mean that child will never ride. With encouragement, a steady hand, and a little more practice, they learn to balance. The same is true for us, no matter our age. We can learn to listen more carefully, respond more patiently, and try a new way. Mistakes can show us where we need help or what we need to practice. They don’t get to decide who we will become. And for us, as Christians God’s love decides who we become.

That gives me hope. We may not be able to erase yesterday, but we can gather up what we’ve learned and bring it into today, trusting that God is with us in every new beginning.

We can’t rewind a conversation and take back our words. We can’t undo a decision, even when we wish we could. But we can listen. We can say we’re sorry. We can do our best to mend what we can. We can ask for help and try again. Each moment is a new invitation to bring what we’ve learned and let God gently shape us a little more.

In Exodus, the mistake is serious, and God’s anger is real. Moses pleads for the people, reminding God of the promises made to their ancestors. The reading ends with God turning away from the disaster threatened against them. Their story continues. They still have a future in which they can learn to live as God’s people.

That is good news for all of us who are trying to build lives of meaning and purpose—for those tending families, navigating changes, caring for loved ones, and doing the patient, sometimes unseen work of building a church family together. So much of that work happens in ordinary moments, when we pause, ask for help, and try. God sees and blesses every bit of it again.

I think about my little boys, so distraught over something they wished they could undo. Before we could figure out what to do next, they sometimes just needed to be held. They needed to know that one mistake hadn’t changed how much I loved them, not one bit.

I wonder how many of us need that reminder today. I know I do.

You are still God’s beloved. Even with the words you wish you had never said, even with the decision you would make differently now. Even when you are tired and unsure of the way ahead, you can bring all of that to God, and God will meet you with love and mercy.

And from that place of being loved, we can begin again. We can say we’re sorry. We can let ourselves be helped. We can learn a new way. We can keep showing up for the work that matters, trusting that God is shaping us, step by step.

That is the life of grit and grace I hope we can practice together: caring deeply enough to keep going, and trusting God to change us along the way. Some days, our next faithful step will take courage. Other days, it will mean resting and letting someone else care for us. We will need prayer, patience, and each other. And through it all, God’s love will hold us.

My boys asked for do-overs because they could imagine things being better. Even through their tears, they hoped for another chance. I hope and pray we carry a little of that hope with us—the willingness to learn, the courage to try again, and the trust that God still has more to do in us and through us.

We cannot go back to yesterday. But we can bring what we have learned into today. We can keep loving, keep growing, and keep tending the people and places God has entrusted to our care. With grit and grace, we can take the next faithful step, trusting that God is at work, even when we cannot yet see what is growing. Thanks be to God.

And when our own imaginations grow weary, the words from Ephesians that close Evening Prayer in our Book of Common Prayer give us hope enough to begin again.

“Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.”  (Ephesians 3:20–21 – BCP pg. 126)

 

God’s Peace, Love, and Blessings,

Rev. Beth+