In my recent devoyion email from Zondervan, I am blessed by this new insight from the root word of Shaddai, . I quoted below to share with you. 

"In Sunday School, I was taught that El means God and Shaddai means Almighty. But the title means more than "All-powerful One." The first time God promises to make Abraham fruitful he identifies himself as El Shaddai. Job, a contemporary of Abram, says it is the breath of El Shaddai that gives him life. Isaac blesses Jacob with El Shaddai's blessing to make him fruitful. When Israel blesses Joseph he chooses a blessing of El Shaddai.

Interestingly, in a Hebrew lexicon, Shaddai comes from the root shad which means "female breast, or of woman, or of mother." One of the core names of God is rooted in a womanly activity. God is revealing that he can be accurately called one who nurses, who makes fruitful, who sustains. God is like a mother, like a woman. As El Shaddai sustains all aspects of life, he does it with all-mighty energy: cultivating the blessings, cultivating the curses, cultivating fertility and cultivating people. God is like mothers, but mothers are also like God. Mothers cultivate life like El Shaddai."

Mother's love is one of the great gift God has given for mankind!

今天灵修中读到梅顿 Thomas Merton 的一段话让我对教会生活,个人的敬虔诚生命,对爱有更深的领悟.愿摘录下来与大家共勉.

The religious life exists and thrives not in buildings or dead things or flowers or beasts but in the soul. And there it exists not as a "good feeling" but as a constant purpose, now as humility, now as courage, now as self-denial, now as justice, but always in a strong knot and hope, and all of these are nothing but aspects of one constant deep desire, charity, love.

教会生活,个人敬虔生活不是凭"感觉"走,而是对爱的一种坚持!