Hello Church!
As the days grow shorter and the sun streams through the newly bare trees, we brace ourselves for winter. We have had to do a lot of bracing recently. Bracing for bad news. Bracing against grief. Bracing for a return of higher COVID numbers.
For those of you who are walking through this season unscathed, please do share your wisdom and joy with the rest of us. For those of you who are still missing the normal rhythms of life, yearning to share meals with friends and family, and know painfully that it’s been 20+ months since we had coffee hour after worship (… but who’s counting? Me!), we know that we are strong together.
Conference Minister Rev. Molly Carlson in the opening worship of the Annual Illinois Conference Celebration demonstrated how yarn is made. Given she is a fiber artist, she knows! Single strands of wool are easily broken. After they wound around one another, they are strong.
As a church, we are wound around one another. We are strong because the Holy Spirit binds us together with and through our beautiful differences and diversities. While individually we may be weak, together we can withstand pandemics. And we are… with amazing resilience and grace.
I’m grateful for those of you who have reached out recently to say, I’m not okay. I’m grateful for those of you who are carrying one another through these uncertain and strange days. No one knows what the next months will bring, but God has blessed us with church.
Peace,
Rev. Rebecca