Pastors Page
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
A new year is beginning! Thank God, is all I can say. 2010 was a crazy year for me. When I look back on the last year, I am exhausted! I started a new job last Advent, I moved into Spring Valley and into our new house last January. I navigated my first Lent and Easter as a pastor, Mitch and I committed to building a new patio and a new deck onto our house. Then I got cancer and spent the second half of the year balancing my treatment with work and all the rest. After this crazy year I feel like a fog is lifting.
In my family, instead of making New Year’s resolutions on New Year’s Day, we make New Year’s predictions. We all write down 1 or 3 predictions of what is going to happen in the next year. These predictions can range to guesses of which college one of my cousins will pick, to who we think will win a presidential election. We have guessed about proposals and weddings, new babies, who will win the Superbowl. Sometimes we are right and sometimes we are wrong, but much of the fun comes on New Year’s Day when we dig out the envelope full of last year’s predictions and read them out loud, laughing at what we guessed would happen and gasping in surprise when someone was right.
I am pretty sure no one in my family predicted that Mitch and I had the year we did. I certainly never would have guessed it. And that is what life is, full of surprises. It can’t be predicted (at least not very well, if my family’s game is any indication). It can’t be controlled, it can’t be planned. I know that many unexpected things happened in the lives of each of you this last year. Some of those surprises are joy filled, and some are scary. But whatever unexpected turns 2010 has brought you, what we all have in common is our reliance on God to see us through. 1 Peter 5:7 reads, “Cast your burdens upon him, because he cares for you.”
I’ve always hated the saying “God won’t give you more than you can handle”. I hate this saying mostly because I’ve seen so much evidence to the contrary. I think a better saying would be “God won’t give you more than He can handle”. In this upcoming year, as we stand on the edge of more strange and unexpected twists in our lives, let us practice casting our burdens upon God, knowing that his love for us will see us through.
Blessings, Pastor Erin Nelson
Dear Friends,
Whenever I’m sick I like to curl up on the couch and watch one of my favorite movies. A movie so familiar I don’t really have to be well enough to concentrate and can doze off for a few minutes and still jump right back in whatever part I wake up to. Usually I watch either the six hour long BBC version of the movie “Pride and Prejudice” or I watch “The Sound of Music”. However, when I was sick last month, I realized I had lent “Pride and Prejudice” to my friend Anna and I couldn’t find “The Sound of Music” and was too tired to look for it. Instead, I settled for another choice, the always wonderful animated film “Finding Nemo”.
As a former preschool teacher, I take great delight in well done children’s movies. They are easy to follow, always entertaining and the good guy always wins. As I watched the movie once again, I realized that “Finding Nemo” is actually an Easter movie. Two fish, Marlin and Dory, are on an epic journey searching the ocean for Marlin’s missing son, Nemo. Even though their mission seems nearly fruitless and impossible, they continue to search for Nemo. Thing heat up when Dory and Marlin are accidentally swallowed by a whale. Marlin suffers from a loss of hope, despairing that he doesn’t understand how they will ever escape the whale’s belly. Just as Jesus, on the night that he was arrested, begged God to save him, to pass the cup of death to someone else if it is possible, Marlin doesn’t understand how being swallowed by a whale or being put to death on a cross could every bring wholeness. Marlin and Dory eventually take a leap of faith and trust the whale, who spits them out at their destination, allowing them to find Nemo. It’s only after they experience this Jonah like resurrection that they succeed.
In April we spend the first week journeying with Jesus as he grapples with what God is asking him to do. We walk with Jesus as he despairs and fears what is being asked of him on Maundy Thursday. We are with him on Good Friday as Jesus takes that leap of faith and trusts that God knows what is best for him and we rejoice along with the world as disciples on Easter morning and onward when we celebrate Christ’s resurrection and the gift of everlasting life.
I’ve found that in the strangest places we can find Easter stories. If we think on the gift of new life coming out of death we can find Easter celebrations everywhere. In the seventh Harry Potter book, in our gardens as life springs out of formerly barren earth, in a visit to post-Katrina New Orleans, and even in the children’s movie “Finding Nemo”.
I invite you this April to journey with a family of faith throughout Holy Week. I invite you to reflect on and experience the arrest and betrayal, the death and the resurrection of Christ. And throughout the Easter season and even after Easter is over I invite you to encounter the world as a child of the resurrection. Remember the new life and great gifts you have been given and look for reflections of our life in Christ everywhere!
Holy Week Schedule:
Maundy Thursday and First Communion Service: Thursday, April 1st at 7:00pm
Good Friday Service: Friday, April 2nd at 5:30pm
Easter Youth Led Family Service: Sunday, April 4th at 8:30am
Easter Traditional Service: Sunday, April 4th at 10:00am
Blessings,
Pastor Erin Nelson
I just love your writing, Pastor Erin. Easter is such an exciting time of year…Celebrating everlasting life with our Lord, Jesus.
Finding Nemo is one of my all time favorite movies and you have shed a whole new light on the story. You have also given me a reason to sit down with my knitting and watch it again
Deb
I agree with Deb. I love your writing too. I would also like to say I love your singing. I wish you would have sung the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, that our GREAT Packers won! : )
Stacy Burr