Sadness, Fireworks, and Breakfast Food?

Greetings Rock Creek Family and Friends,

“It’s Independence day again, the fireworks display again was, very disappointing…Marchin’ bands stumblin’, we all mumbled the words, ‘Of thee I sing’…”

Thus croons Michael Kroll in a wistful ballad that captures in lyric and mood, the too true reality that things that have gone awry deep within a community and soul.

Or try this:

“Life is full of disappointment. Oh, and I am full of life. Standing here without illusion, you know I almost had a wife…I see couples who seem normal, I wonder how they got that way, are they blind or kinda stupid….or are they having a good day…”

John Gorka baritone bellowed those melancholy words.

And of course, Ron Swanson, the libertarian with the formidable mustache and admirer of all meats, once consoled a weeping Leslie Knope, with this reassurance and fortification against all the stinging forces of dismay that assault us, even in the land of the free:

“There has never been a sadness that cannot be cured by breakfast food.”

We have our defenses and remedies to be sure when dealing with distress. I wish mine weren’t so sympathetic to Ron’s.

But on this Friday that preludes a long weekend, I wanted to share something worth gladdening us all a bit.

Good News!
After last Sunday, the end of our fiscal year as a congregation, we as a congregation gave, for the 2015-2106 budget year, more than a RCF congregation has ever given towards the annual budget in a year and once again met, even slightly exceeded, our largest budget ever.

This after having planted a church and sent away families and integral parts of our congregation to go to Trenton a little over two years ago!

A real cause for celebration and gratitude. And for recalling our Lord’s gracious, constant responsiveness to his people and the his world.

And the gratitude itself is a reminder that Christ’s people are those who spy out and inventory God’s grace even sometimes behind a vale of tears, or while rummaging through heaps of disappointment.

I am grateful to be one of you all. Honored that Christ has breathed us into existence. Excited that He furnishes and resources us with all manner of gifts to help alter the landscape of sadness, disillusionment, and darkness that folks all around us regularly encounter.

We have Christ in us, the hope of glory, a firework display to dazzle as we continue to risk, to give, to move toward the lonely, to donate ourselves as our Savior did for the true independence of the world.

Thank you for trusting Christ, for sharing what he’s entrusted to you for the benefit of others, and for linking arms as we fight to push back the darkness with his life in and through us with a remedy more potent even than waffles, french toast, or bacon..

See you on Sunday,
Pastor Eric