. . . the fog of what if . . .

Every day this week as I've gone out for my daily walks, I've had a hard time finding joy. The dandelions are still popping up here and there, the leaves of the trees have unfurled, so the signs of life are all around. But as the days drag on, I find myself wandering through the fog of what-if, "what if I do this? Things might be better.  What if I change this behavior? Will it be alright?" This is called bargaining and it is apart of the grief cycle. It's important to acknowledge our grief. I am leaving my church in July to another and my personal grief is real. I love my church so much. I'm excited about the next adventure, but change takes time to adjust to.

A lot of us are in this stage and it's a perfectly okay stage to be in. During this time of being apart and now with this added transition in our church family, many of us will be processing the whole thing at different stages. As a church family, it is important to lean into each other and recognize there might not be any satisfactory answers. They will become clearer in the days ahead.

It's during this bargaining stage that we search for meaning, and we long for things to go back to the way they were before. It's becoming clearer that things won't go back to the way it was before. At least not right away. And it probably shouldn't. There is hope in all of this. God is still at work, and we need to hang on to our great comforter, Jesus Christ.

The future is always unknown but Covid has made us more aware of it. Last week in our prayer group, we talked about the fear of the future and I want to share with you what my dear friend Linda Stone had to say the next day:

I was talking with God this morning, I was reminded that I should not and cannot worry about what the future looks like. I’ve never fretted that much about the future until now. As I said in the Upper Zoom (what we call the prayer group), I can feel myself feeling depressed over how I think the world may be different as a result of Covid-19. Keywords in there: “how I think” and “may be different”. I have very little real knowledge and insight into the future.

Jesus tells us in Matthew's Gospel:

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matt 6:34)

And I love the saying “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy” ~Leo Buscaglia

My devotional today from Jesus Always lifts up these words from the Apostle Paul to the Church in Thessalonica:

“But since we belong to the day (We are day people in Christ, Easter people as Angie calls us), 

let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and 

the HOPE OF SALVATION AS A HELMET.” (1 Thessa 5:8)

That whole helmet visual just spoke to me. The hope, and knowledge, of salvation, will get us through. And friends, we do know how this story ultimately ends and it is glorious!

She's right! We are Easter people; we rest in the knowledge that Christ is redeeming the world. It may seem bleak, but everything is intended for God's purposes. We must trust that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, will be with us every step of the way. Even through the changes and our losses, Jesus is making a path in the wilderness that will lead to the transformation of hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. Thank you, Linda, for sharing this!

. . . the dandelions have gone to seed . . .

My daughter and I have been taking walks and playing outside a lot lately. It helps break up the monotony of being sheltered-in-place. As you can imagine, being cooped up with your parents as an only child, as a 5-year-old child, is not that much fun. In fact, we're all a little whiny and our tempers flare from time to time. Today was such a day. My daughter was digging through her Valentine's Day candy looking for the Sour Patch Kids and couldn't find them. Admittedly, I ate them several weeks ago so they weren't there. Bad mom. She's smart, they are delicious!

My guilt, added to her whining, equaled a walk to the 7-11 for a bag of candy. I just didn't want to deal with the crabbiness! Mine or hers.

As we walked, she kept stalling to pluck dandelions that had gone to seed. You remember being a kid - blowing those white fluffs off the stalk is like walking into a fairyland. But the constant stopping irritated me. All I wanted to do was get to the store and the candy, and get home.

But in mid-irritation, I stopped myself and looked up the road to see that the dandelions had gone to seed. Last Friday they had been mostly yellow, adding pops of color to the streetscape. Today they were the eyesore of long, dismal, wiry, empty stalks. I stopped in my tracks; I was astonished. JUST last Friday they were alive and beautiful!

Change happens so quickly.

One week we worshiped together in the sanctuary, the next we were joined through the miracle of bandwidth.

I think if we consciously slowed down and took notice of the world around us, we would see these changes happening more clearly. Springs fade to summer, summer melts to fall, and fall slides into winter. 365 days is not a lot of time if you think about it. All of life happens so quickly - and if we don't slow down, we fail to miss it... worse, we fail to appreciate it. 

Change happens so quickly.

In this time of change, it is important to be aware of our emotions. Sometimes we fail to recognize them; or blow them off. We think we need to be stoic and deny that we might be struggling. God has created us to have a stratum of emotions and feelings. We are meant to experience the fullness of life and these emotions help us do that. While you are navigating the change, be aware of what's happening within you.

Slow down, acknowledge the difficulty. See the dandelions before they go to seed, and absorb the beauty of God's creation.

. . . the things we can do . . .

to save a life:

. . . and so we wait . . .

Today we wait.

Too often in our culture we rush headlong from Friday to Sunday. I'm guilty of it. Dye the eggs, go see Grandpa, make sure we have the right dresses. (To be honest, I've been wearing the same Easter dresses the past 5 years - shopping isn't all that fun).

But this year, we wait. The gospels tell us very little about what happened on the Sabbath day. In a rush Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, in the Gospel of John, prepared his body and laid him in a tomb in a garden.

There is nothing after that. The story skips to Sunday morning where Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty.

What happened on that Saturday while Jesus laid in the tomb? We can speculate. Perhaps our glorious and almighty God of the cosmos wept. Perhaps God spent time in reflection of what had happened. Perhaps time and space slowed down. Perhaps heaven came to a standstill. Perhaps.

Matthew doesn't tell us much more. Pilate had guards positioned in front of the tomb to make sure his body wasn't stolen.

There are times to slow down - to stop - to wonder - to ponder in our hearts. This is the day the church has no answers.

Maybe we aren't supposed to have all the answers... so we wait.

We wait until Easter morning.

. . . entering into holy week . . .

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the day that kicks off Holy Week. During this season of the year, people who have in some way been loosely attached to the church begin to point their hearts toward corporate worship. I believe there is something in all of us that directs us toward the worship of God. You see this when our sanctuaries and worship spaces fill up on the high holy days of Easter and Christmas. Churches put their best efforts forward with the intention of attracting people back the following weeks. Personally, I think the reason many don't return is that people crave relationships and sometimes our efforts don't demonstrate that relationships do exist in our churches. We're not just all about the "Sunday show!" It's not right or wrong, it's just how it is! It's not that our guests don't love God, it's that maybe they need something more, maybe something a little more connected and real. 

One of the interesting things about not being able to worship together in our sanctuaries is that we are ironically seeing more of that.  When I see your comments and reactions on Zoom or Facebook, I can tell that the effort to be in worship has increased and your engagement is off the charts! I think it's a great time to be a pastor! We crave community and in our virtual sanctuaries, we have been able to really understand that church is not about a building, it is about people. Together we are Christ's holy bride.  

When I think about our small communities at home connected through bandwidth, I can't help but think how this mirrors the early church. In the early church, people met in their homes for worship and the breaking of bread.  We may not be gathered in one space as community, but we are gathered through the miracle of bandwidth! 

We are entering into Holy Week differently this year, but know this:

God is always with us. 

This Sunday, be sure to Wave Your Palm Branch (or whatever branch you could get, paper, pine tree branch, oak tree, etc), and post it on your social media platforms. Check out this event for all the details. 

On Thursday we will celebrate Maundy Thursday. Holy Thursday is the night of Holy Week when we remember Jesus’ gathering with his disciples to observe Passover.  The Gospels tell us that they shared a meal, talked, and prayed and that Jesus did a new thing— by washing their feet he invited his followers to love the world in a new way.
Join us via Zoom at 7 PM as we share together meals from our homes and join in what we call a Love Feast for Maundy Thursday.

On Friday, April 10^th, we will participate in a Good Friday experience. This service will also be held on our Facebook page beginning at 6:30 pm.  During this experience, we will reflect on Jesus’ journey to the cross.

All week starting on the 5th we will have a church-wide Easter Egg Hunt with all three campuses. The instructions are below! 

EASTER!

We will worship and give thanks to God NEXT Sunday as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ! It's going to be different, but it's going to be altogether wonderful!

Have a great weekend, and see you on Sunday!

Blessings,

Pastor Angie  

Easter Egg Hunt We are still having an Easter Egg hunt!!  But, it will look a little different.  The Children’s Ministry team has come up with a great opportunity to get the entire church, and our neighborhood communities involved in some Easter excitement! It’s something we can do for the kids and it’s a way EVERYONE can play along and it will be so much more fun if we all participate!   Display a paper drawing of an Easter egg or use our template HERE. Make sure and put it someplace visible from the road or sidewalk. Just tape it to your window or door, or even put them in windows all over the house, have fun with it!  Make sure you include #WCEaster somewhere on your Egg  We would also love if you would take a picture and post to social media to spread the word.   Invite friends and neighbors to participate.  Let's get this thing spread all around our communities, how cool would it be for this to be the biggest Easter Egg hunt our community has ever seen!   This will all be happening during Holy Week, the week before Easter, April 5th through the 12th!

"I rejoiced with those who said to me,
    “Let’s go to the Lord’s house!” Psalm 122:1