Camp Wightman
I’m writing this from Camp Wightman, where really heavy rains have driven us all inside for crafts and games. I hear that the waterfront will still be open later today for swimming. I’m still undecided on whether or not I’ll swim. I’m weighing being cold against bragging rights associated with swimming in the rain!
A few years ago when my daughter was a camper here it was SO HOT the week she came that the kids were in the lake all day to keep cool. What a different experience!
Some things in life we can control and some things we can’t. July weather is clearly one of the things we can’t control. It is a good thing I have some control over my attitude towards the weather!
We have been exploring what it means to be a community of faith in 2026, in a time very different from the eras in which our congregation was founded (1900) and our sanctuary built (1954-55). In every era PMBC has lived through, it hasn’t had control of history, be that the wars of the 20th century, the cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity, or the nation-wide decline in church attendance in the past 50 years. It is a good thing we have some control over our attitudes towards these shifts!
James 1:2-8 reminds us that our calling as people of faith is to remain steadfastly joyful through even the difficult circumstances. Not naively joyful, as if the trials we endure don’t matter, but hopefully joyful because our faithful resilience will ultimately result in our wholeness. Not a wholeness that we produce in ourselves, but the wholeness that our generous and ungrudging God gives to us when we ask in faith!
Perhaps as you look around your life you see things that you wish you hadn’t had to endure, or things that turned out differently than you wanted them to turn out. Some of those undesired realities are outside your scope of control – but they are still a space where God can generously and ungrudgingly work toward your/our wholeness.
So today, let us ask in faith that God would generously work in our lives and faith community so that we might remain steadfastly and joyfully faithful to the life and work God had called us to!
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
PS – I did swim in the rain and it was lovely!
