I turn to the Psalms. I have said for years that every emotion we have experienced and every feeling we have felt, a writer in the Psalms has expressed it. This makes the Psalms the most powerful of prayer resources because it relates emotionally to all that we can possibly experience.
That premise has been tested for me by these last two weeks. In 35 years of ministry, I have never experienced in a church the number of deaths that we have suffered in such a short period of time; the toll on our church family and staff has been significant.
Some have been expected; some have not. All have given us abundant reason to grieve and pray as families and as a church family. As the apostle Paul says of the Body, when one part hurts, all hurt (1 Corinthians 12:26). We are all hurting for these we have loved and lost in just the last two weeks:
Pansy Wilson
Greg McClendon
Shirley Schell
Carole Robertson
Rollie Cooper
Frances Lyell
Dixie Clem
Nicole Idlett
As I have said to several of these families, "Words fail," so I turn to the Psalmists:
“I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him, and be radiant;
so your faces shall never be ashamed.
The poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,
and was saved from every trouble.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.”
We love you and will walk with you – now and in the weeks and months ahead. As we say in one of our creeds, "In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God."
Holding you in my heart and prayers,
