For Such A Time as This June 10, 2020 – Tim Speicher

To the Good Folk of the Palmyra Church of the Brethren,

Reopening Update

As restrictions ease and businesses and churches begin to reopen, some are asking questions about our church.  Our Reopening the Church Task Team has meet twice in the last three weeks, with a third meeting scheduled for this week.  Our highest priority is the safety of all.  There is much to consider and accomplish toward this goal.  The task team is finalizing a questionnaire to the congregation to get your thoughts, feelings, and input.  I anticipate this questionnaire will be posted digitally and snail mailed out later this week.  Please continue to hold this process, one another and all persons impacted by COVID-19 in care, thought and prayer.

Joys and Concerns

If you have a joy or concern you would like us to share and pray about, please call, text or email it to me.  If you would like it included in our Sunday Worship sharing and prayer time, please share it with me that week by Friday morning.

Pray for

·   Steve Hoffer and his family as they mourn the death of Steve’s father, Mel Hoffer, last evening.

Thank You: 

To all who call others to check in on them and share our emails and devotions.

Today’s Devotion:

I am thankful to Tim Speicher for providing today’s devotion.  If you wish to respond to Tim directly, his email address is pastorspeicher@gmail.com.

Shalom, Dennis

Scripture - Psalm 23:4 

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger because you are with me.  Your rod and your staff—they protect me.  (CEB)

Thoughts

A magnet on our refrigerator declares a wonderful thought credited to Vivian Greene:

                LIFE ISN’T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS.

                IT’S ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN...

The believer does not stop on the middle of the dark valley and hope for something better.  One keeps on walking through it!  Maybe we can’t dance a happy dance like Charlie Brown’s dog, Snoopy, but a little foot shuffle or a finger snap can lighten our moment.

In the midst of today’s dark valley where the development of a vaccine is still incredibly a distant anticipation, there is another phenomenon that perhaps hasn’t been officially named: The remarkable abundance of good news being reported. Masked volunteers deliver or hand out food supplies.  Bread-making is on the rise (pun intended!).  Musical gifts are enjoyed through social media or from front lawns and balconies.  Choirs and bands collaborate through Zoom (I have yet to understand how that is accomplished).  Cars and emergency vehicles parade through specific neighborhoods to honor students, elderly, and the sick.  Community residents join in well-timed rituals to applaud the front-line workers fighting Covid-19.

Some may remember a song from Anne Murray in the day when Bryant Gumble was anchor of the Today Show.  “We sure could use a little good news today.”  As dated as the reference is, this was a time people complained that media news was always bad.  Well, despite the tough news we read and hear, the percentage of good news has increased more than any other time!  Something to notice and add to our dancing in the rain.

Prayer

Our God, We pray with the words of Rev. Martin Rinkhart written at the conclusion of his thirty years of ministry that coincided with the Thirty Years War, culminating with a severe plague that left him as the only surviving pastor in his city by 1637. Conducting as many as 50 funerals a day, he officiated over 4,000 funerals that year, including his wife.

Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices;
who from our mothers' arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

Amen.