Memories and Blessings

On this Father’s Day weekend, you are invited to reflect on the memories that you have, and the blessings that they are. Includes a reading from Philippians chapter 1.

Transcript

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Hey friends, so it has been a little while since I have been on the podcast, and I apologize about that. I ended up getting pretty sick, but I'm starting to feel better, which is a good thing. I wanted to come on today and share with you a little bit about memories. I've been um thinking with it being Father's Day weekend, kind of remembering some good memories that I had with my dad. Um and then also I got a text message that a congregation that I was involved with on my internship is going to have a service of holy closure next weekend. And I started thinking about my memories from on internship and um wrote a letter to share with them and and all of those things. But I got to thinking about memories and how we all have them, and sometimes they're really good, and sometimes they're kind of hard, and and the mix that is those big holidays that come up and remind us of those things. Um, and I'll talk about that a little bit more. But first I wanted to share with you from Philippians chapter one, Paul and Timothy um writing to you saying, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God for every remembrance of you, always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. And these verses came to mind because I was thinking about this congregation, um, First Lutheran Church in Buell that is closing, and all the amazing years of ministry um that have happened in that place, and how I was blessed to be with them for two years, as their what was called then a vicar or an intern, um, and got to learn how to pastor there. And it was so much fun and so many good memories, and ask me sometime about wearing high heels in the pulpit and why I don't do it. Um, it all is because of them. Uh, but anyway, um, I'm wondering today what your memories are that you're thinking of, whether it's memories of your father because it's Father's Day weekend, or just the memories of loved ones who you're missing right now because it's summer and people are with families a lot and things are happening, or maybe it's memories of a place you've gone that is no longer there or you can't get to for whatever reason. But I wonder if instead of focusing sometimes on the hard things, if we would focus on the good things and spend some time thinking about things we remember about our loved ones that have passed away, or remembering things about the places where we can't go anymore, and thanking God for the blessings that happened when we were there. So, my challenge to you this week, um, as you're out doing your prairie walking, um, is to have some time to think about those things, to reflect on the goodness that God our Father gives to you in whatever that looks like, and to reflect on the memories that you've been blessed with, that you can look back even on the hard days and smile and give thanks for. So let's pray together before we go. Gracious God, we thank you for the good memories you've blessed us with. I personally thank you for my dad and for First Lutheran and Buell and all the ministry that happened there. But we also, Lord, just thank you for all the ways that you bless us and we so, so often take for granted. Help us, God, to slow down and to remember all the ways that you were at work within us throughout our lives. Bless us with good memories and bring us to places where you create good memories over and over again. In your heavenly name we pray. Amen. Have a great week, dear ones. Keep walking. Bye.