Pastors' Weekly Message: From Pastor Pat

This past Sunday a flurry of activity across the apartment complex caught my eye. The bevy of first responders in itself was not unusual, so I turned from the window and went back to what I was doing expecting this incident to be over shortly. Sadly, it was not. When the fire truck and EMTs departed and the ambulance left empty, but the police remained, I knew what that meant. It meant someone had passed away. 

Until that moment I had selfishly believed I had experienced the worst weekend ever. My grocery delivery brought a few moldy surprises, an unexpected delivery had been swiped from my doorstep, and I confess I was wallowing in a deep pool of self pity. But in the moment that I recognized someone had passed away, nothing I had experienced was important.

Life is fragile. Every day potentially holds both joys and sorrows, opportunities to find fault, basis for disagreements. We tend to add an extra measure of importance to those things that don’t go our way. But it is only in the moment we are confronted with the finiteness of life, that we realize what is truly important.

In the gospel of John, chapter 10 verse 10, we are reminded that Jesus came to give us life more abundant. Abundance is not about "more" but "fullness." It is life lived to its exponential best. So let us not be distracted by those things which will cause us to forget that life is far too precious to dismiss or diminish, to waste focusing on moldy tomatoes or soggy lettuce.

I don’t know who passed away. It is my prayer that their family is comforted during their time of loss. But for those of us left behind, let us be reminded to appreciate life, to live life, to embrace life and to value life. 

-- Pastor Pat 
pallen@stpaulsk.org