A Mid-Week Greeting to You,

Here we are at the end of April, and baseball season is in full shut-down, just like so many other activities we are used to doing in the spring. But I did hear this morning that Major League Baseball is considering various ways to salvage part of a season. It will be interesting to see what happens. Everyone is ‘flying by the seat of their pants’. And that includes us at Terrace Shores. We are continuing our live feed Sunday morning services at 9 a.m., until further notice. We’re thankful that the internet has allowed our church family to continue worshiping together, at a distance.  Even our Forest Lakes District held their semi-annual conference meeting via YouTube this week.
Everyone misses being together, but probably our kids and youth as much as anybody.   Ryan meets online with Jr. Highers at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, and with Sr. highers on Sunday evening. HOWEVER, Sr. highers, please take note that your meeting time on Sunday nights will now be at 7:30 p.m., instead of 6:30 p.m.  You will still find the group at the same site, just an hour later at 7:30 p.m.  If you are a Jr. or Sr. higher and have not been part of this but would like to be, please contact Ryan for the info.

A special THANK YOU to each of you who have been serving the Lord by serving others, or supporting His work in some way during this time. We appreciate you. God is growing His church worldwide, even though it has largely been online rather than in-person these days. Again, please let us know if you are aware of some need we could help with, or any prayer requests that you would like us to share with the prayer chain.

Now, back to baseball. One of my favorite baseball philosophers is Yogi Berra. Besides being a three-time MVP, he was a lifetime .285 hitter, and played in 75 World Series games with a base hit in 71 of them. He took both the New York Yankees and New York Mets to the World Series, as a manager. Yet beyond these outstanding achievements, he has some of the best quotes in the English language. His quotes are humorous because they are nonsensical, yet after this time of COVID-19 seclusion, Yogi Berra’s words seem to somehow make more sense. Let me mention just a few:

1) “You can observe a lot by just watching.” -We’re doing a lot more watching these days.
2) “No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.” -Our Sunday worship services now!
3) “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”  -As this quarantine continues….
4) “The future ain’t what it used to be.” -Wondering if we will ever get back to normal?
5) “Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting.” -There’s a lot we ain’t doing.
6) “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.” -Typical Zoom meeting.
7) “Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.”  -We could use more physical in a lot of areas presently.
8) “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” -Politics today….
9) “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.” -Or anywhere else for that matter.
10)  “It ain’t over till it’s over.” -Ain’t that the truth?!

If there is one thing this world pandemic has shown us, is that we are not ultimately in control of our destiny, except where God allows us to choose. It reminds me of Solomon’s words in Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” If we insist on being in control, these are frustrating days. But if we can commit our path to the Lord and obey Him along the way, we have a pretty good shot at experiencing the peace of God. May that be our experience as we walk through this together, separately (Thanks Yogi)!  And Thank you for reading.

Grace and Peace,

Gary