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Pastor's Ponderings
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who
was and who is to come, the Almighty."
– Revelation 1:8
As we, in Ankeny, begin to get ready for the first day of school later this month, I can’t help but remember a particular first day of school experience. I was already feeling a bit superfluous anyway. It was Toviel’s first day of pre-school. I had taken him in ready to tell the teachers…somebody…anybody his life’s story: what he liked, what he didn’t like, what he was good at, how he interacted with people, everything. “All you need to do is sign him in,” I was told.
So, I signed him in.
There we stood, Toviel and I, in the middle of the classroom, between the block corner and the dress-up area, the games and the train tracks and trucks, the puzzles and the paint station, when he looked up at me and said, “Can you go outside now, daddy?”
I will never forget his first day of school! Nor will I forget the first breaths of either of my boys, their first steps, their first words. We are good at noticing firsts.
I still remember my first job, my first car, the first time I met my wife, our first house, even my first visit to Ankeny, IA.
We aren’t always so good at noticing lasts. Certainly there are some that we notice and can mark because they are scheduled to be so. Some of us will experience those kinds of lasts this year – scheduled lasts: last day of work before retirement, last payment on the mortgage, and last year of school.
But, what about things that we don’t know are lasts? For example, when was the last time you held your child’s or grandchild’s hand to cross the street or sat in your parents’ lap? I picked Elian up the other evening to take him to bed, and it occurred to me that the last time I do that is coming quickly – if that wasn’t it!
Do you remember the last time you saw one of your friends from college, whom now you know you will not see again? Did you know it was the last time then?
One of my favorite children’s books is a very simple board book called “Where is God?” It is one that even though I have probably read it to my children for the last time, I still go back and read because it’s message is simple but is one of the most important affirmations of my faith: “Where is God? God is in the beginning…Where is God? God is in the end…Where is God? God is in the way people come together…Where is God? God is in the world…Where is God? God is everywhere. God is wherever we look.”
God is present in the firsts and in the lasts and in everything in between. God holds us in life and in death and in all our moments. Whatever firsts or lasts or in-betweens you may experience this year, know that God is with you, that God holds you, and most importantly that God loves you!
Shalom,
Pastor Owen
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