It’s only been a couple of weeks, and I already miss all of you so much. My heart aches to be with you, to hear your voices and your laughter, to have our hugs and our conversations while enjoying coffee. I really miss our worshipping together, the singing, the prayers and our being together worshipping our God.

I’m so thankful for the Facebook live so we may worship together even when we are apart. I’m so thankful for Zoom meetings with staff and small groups. I’m so thankful for phone calls, text messages and all of the other ways we can stay connected through technology. This is my goal, to stay connected with as many of you as I can. I will try through e-mails to connect with the teams I oversee. I will also be doing a video and posting that to First Lutheran’s Facebook page.

This feels to me like being in the wilderness just like the Israelites for 40 years. I’m thankful it only will be a couple of months. I’m hoping for 40 days, and then we will be together again, sharing the goodness of God. The joy of being together will outweigh the wilderness we are going through now. Praise be to God, who is with us in our walk no matter where that walk is.