Welcome Back

After many months of Sunday Zoom meetings, it’s great to be back at the church building where we can worship along side of each other. I’m grateful for computer programs like Zoom – and we may have to use it again – but nothing works better than a physical meeting.

Let’s not forget that Covid-19 still rages all around us. The medical people are warning us about the strength of the third wave. Many restrictions remain in place. Some families among us long to travel and visit relatives in the United States, but that isn’t possible. Some people are suffering from poor mental health due to confinement. It’s been over a year of restrictions, cautions, and masks. It seems endless. We are impatient as we wait for things to improve.

I want to turn our attention to a little flower that is blooming in my back yard. Wild crocuses must be he first flower that blooms in early spring. In some places in Canada, they will push right up through the melting snow. The one in my yard waits until a good patch of grass is snow-free before it opens up. These flowers amaze me because they spring up immediately after our typically long, brutal winter. Likewise, spring birds have invaded my neighbourhood. Cardinals and Robins start their loud chorus early in the morning (who can sleep?!).  Nature doesn’t seem to care about the pandemic. Life surges all around us after many months of freezing temperatures.

My point in all this? If flowers and birds can emerge after a whole season of horrible weather, we can overcome our lengthy season of pandemic hardships too. Nature knows how to do it. We should too.

Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:25-26? (And what good is a bulletin article without a scripture?) “For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat or what you shall drink; Nor for your body as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body then clothing? Look at the birds of the air that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?”

Our first in-house church assembly yesterday proves it. Welcome back!

– Tim Johnson