Monthly Archives: March 2021

During this past year with Covid – 19 the most difficult part of my work as a pastor has been being a part of a funeral or memorial service. Claybanks United Methodist Church has lost two dear members of our congregation and a son of one of our congregation’s family. I have been asked by some of our members how and when are we to grieve? My love for all as your pastor is to be a supporting person in the grieving process for family, friends or anyone who grieves with the loss of someone. The restrictions that Covid-19 has placed on pastors and churches have created what I would describe as the most difficult situation in church life and my role as a pastor.

Grief is a healthy emotion, designed to help us deal with loss. One’s level of faith affects the outcome of the grieving process but neither the need to grieve nor the time required to do it can be measured. Spiritual leaders of the church, like everyone else, encounter their share of grief and loss. Friends are lost. Important people in their lives and in the life of the church can never be measured or replaced. Covid-19 has created a separation from family and friends and as pastors our world has changed significantly in how we are able to come beside those who grieve. We as pastors so much want to be with those who grieve in a significant way.

We all need to express our pain and grief in a loss of a family member, a loved one or a friend. We as humans are not meant to suffer in silence, without emotion, but we must grieve in a very meaningful way. In John 11:35 Jesus has come to Lazarus’s grave and it says Jesus began to weep. So, they said, “See how he loved him!” Jesus in his human nature wept at the loss of his friend Lazarus. The son of God knew that sorrow is passing, and that joy is forever, yet it did not prevent him from standing in his grief when that was the emotion that arose in him.

Appropriate grieving involves expressing the pain of loss, not burying it. We are not able, without expressing our loss, to move on or replace the lost with something new. When we grieve together it takes place in community, not just in the solitude of a few. Grief helps the healing and time alone does not heal. God heals.

As your pastor and a member of the Claybanks United Methodist Church Family I know that we have not grieved the way we should have been able to during this past year. It is my promise to you, and to the families that have experienced loss, that we will have, when the time is right and Covid-19 no longer can hold the grip on us, a Memorial Service where we the community of faith can grieve and express our love as we gather round those who have lost loved ones during this past year. When we can gather cannot yet be determined so let us promise each other that in God’s time, we as the community of faith, will gather to celebrate the lives of God’s Saints in a special time and loving way together. 

Pastor Gary

It Is Well With My Soul
“When peace like a river, attended my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll; what ever my lot,
Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.
It is well with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul.”

This past Monday evening at 6 p.m. President Biden along with his wife, Vice-President Harris, along with her husband, led our country in pausing to remember and honor over 500,000 lives and souls lost to Covid-19. It has now been a year since we first started to experience Covid-19 with all of its elements: sickness, death and major disruption to the way we live. To be honest with you, there have been a number of times when I could not have said, “It is well with my soul.” By stopping in the midst of our busy world and reflecting as we did on the lives lost, illness and the lingering effects the Covid 19 has had on us it brought me to that moment to recognize, “When peace like a river attended my way.” The sorrows that I have felt oh, so many times during this past year. “When sorrows like a sea billows roll.” I realized that I so much needed for us to come together as sisters and brothers to express our deep felt losses together as we were able to do that night.

Covid-19 was in its beginning last spring only a few of us experienced knowing someone who had contacted Covid-19 and became ill. Even fewer would know the loss of a loved one or someone they knew. Now after a year many of us have lost count of those who we know that have had experienced Covid-19 health issues. And for many of us counting those we love and who have died of this disease has been an overwhelming experience of loss. “The clouds be rolled back as a scroll; the trumpet shall resound, and the Lord shall descend even so.”

I find it very difficult to respond with honesty sometimes when someone would ask me how I am. I answer fine, okay, how about you? Yet, I truly have a difficult time saying, “It is well with my soul.” I, like most, struggle with the vast amount of illness and death that we have experienced in our families, in our community, our country and around the world. My heart breaks when I hear the losses added each and every day from illness and death. I shed tears of sorrow and anguish over the callousness that at times has become a part of our society and, yes, even for me, I try, along with you, to return to some kind of normalcy.

It is because of my belief in our Lord Jesus Christ that I am comforted. From verse three where it says “Not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.” It is only when I turn my whole being over to our Lord that I recognize that, “The trumpet shall resound and that the Lord shall descend, even so, it is well with my soul.”

I find that my soul is healing when I see us continuing to follow the guidelines and practices protecting the health of everyone. As we continue to receive the vaccine and, at present, as the numbers continue to decline, that my soul and my being becomes uplifted. We will make it. It is my prayer that all will make it.

Thank you, God for sending your Holy Spirit to dwell with us, guide us and comfort us. May we recognize that your Son Jesus Christ knows our humanity, our sickness and our loss and cared so much for us that He is the light of the world and will be with us as we continue to struggle in these days. AMEN

Pastor Gary