A first time for everything
How many firsts have you experienced in your life?
First meal, first step, first day of school, first date. How many firsts?
As a pastor I can still remember my first funeral. The woman’s name was Virginia and I visited her repeatedly in the hospital throughout my final year of seminary. She had cancer. I ended up receiving my first call to be pastor of her congregation, Messiah Lutheran Church, Wolcottville, Indiana.
Virginia was called home to glory the morning of my ordination/installation on June 12, 1994. She was a dear women whom I recall fondly and whom I still miss even though its been nearly fourteen years since her death.
My first wedding was about a year latter and the groom was Virginia’s widower, Richard. He married a widow from Messiah, Pat. I recall that we had fun when I preached on the Lord’s Genesis chapter 1 blessing to be fruitful and multiply. Both Richard and Pat were in their late 60’s, both had been blessed with marriages of over 40 years and each had a number of adult children. Still the Lord’s promise stood that through their marriage He would produce the fruit of faith in Jesus Christ for them and for others.
Certainly there have been other firsts for me in the pastoral ministry. First sermon, first baptism, first confirmation class (One girl, I wonder where she is today? In my prayers at least though she may not know it,) first Lent/Holy Week/Easter, the list is almost endless.
Oddly enough though despite my years of service at Messiah and then Trinity, Sheboygan, and now at Grace, St. Pete today marks yet another first for me. Today marks my first post in a blog!
Wow, that’s something that I thought I’d never write when I was attending seminary, took my first step, went on my first date or started my first job out of college back in the late 70’s.
As Louie Armstrong sings, “It’s a wonderful world.”
I hope and pray that the words written here in exploring that world will serve to bring glory and praise to the God who has created and loved even the not so wonderful parts of it so much that He redeemed it by the sending of His Son.
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
