Our Thursday devotion was prepared by Deb Ruhrdanz, a member of Christ UMC and a member of our Church Trustees.
Scripture: Philippians 4:13
“I can do all this through him who gives me strength”
Reflection
When I graduated from college, nursing jobs were hard to come by. It was a hard decision to decide where I wanted to move in order to have a job. No matter where I moved, it would being away from what was familiar and away from the people I loved. I ended up taking a job 2 hours from my folks and 2 hours from this really neat guy I had just met. There were many days and nights where I felt very isolated and lonely. My mom had made a counted cross stitch sampler with the following:
In those times, I would hear my mom’s and God’s voice reading this to me. It still to this day gives me comfort when I feel a little out of sorts.
Prayer
Dear Lord. I know that you are always by my side and giving me the direction I need to find the comfort to quiet my restless soul. Thank you for always being there in troubling times. Amen.
Important Announcements
1. Volunteer Help Appreciated. If you are interested in volunteering to help during the coronavirus, please email us at ChristUMCHelps@gmail.com, or call Richard at 402-617-0355. We especially need help just making phone calls to church members to touch base with them in order to maintain our bonds of support and community at Christ United Methodist Church and ConnectioN Point. We also have occasional requests for volunteers to run errands, such as going to grocery story, the pharmacy, or the post office for church members who are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus.
2. Worship Service this Weekend. This coming Sunday, April 5th is Palm Sunday. However, due to the coronavirus, we will not have regular worship services at Christ United Methodist Church and ConnectioN Point. Instead, we will have a streaming worship service via Facebook Live at 11 am. https://www.facebook.com/christumclinc/
The streaming worship service will include music, prayer, and a short homily. If you miss the service on Sunday morning, you can access it later on Facebook as well as our church webpages, https://www.christumclinc.org for Christ United Methodist and https://www.connectionpointlnk.org/ for ConnectioN Point. Our Facebook page is open to everyone, so we encourage you to invite friends who may not have access to church services during this time of social isolation to join us for worship. Of course, they can also access the recorded services online at our web sites listed above.
3. Make and wave your own palms this Palm Sunday. If you're like me, one of my favorite Sundays of the year is Palm Sunday, when the children parade in with their palm branches while the rest of us wave ours high in the air as we sing "Hosanna!" Not getting to do that with my Christ UMC family is one thing that I'm grieving in the midst of our situation, but I think we've found something that will help us continue this tradition in a virtual way.
Click this link and you'll be taken to a palm branch coloring page from Illustrated Ministry. Print one out for everyone that will join you in person for this Sunday's worship, color them, and cut them out. Then, on Sunday during live worship on Facebook at 11 am, in the comment section post a picture of yourselves waving those palm branches! This way we can get the sense of being together to wave our many palm branches. If you don't have a printer, maybe you could draw your own palm branch!