July 10, 2019

Three Priests and a Truck

Well, it was more like, “Two pastors, a priest, and a truck,” but that's too long for a tag line.

Monday I put out a request to the congregation asking if anyone was available to help a parishioner make a short move on Tuesday. I knew this was extremely short notice, but you never know what will happen when you ask. Unfortunately nobody was able to help.

So yesterday morning, on even shorter notice, I put out a text request to a local clergy group I'm part of. Texts flew back and forth, a phone call was made, and we were able to pull together a total of three clergy guys and a truck. We made two trips, and probably another few trips will be required to finish it. At 5 pm on Tuesday I still wasn't sure if we were going to get this done.

Spending my day moving a parishioner wasn't on my list of things to do when I got into the office yesterday. Spending my day moving a parishioner today is probably not on my list of things to do, but we'll see how it turns out.

Sometimes we are hit with the unexpected. Sometimes we are asked to do things not on our schedule. Sometimes we are asked to provide neighborly assistance when we have other things on our schedule.

And all the time it's those little things that are big to somebody else where God steps in and is present.

“The Lord be with you,” we say. Let us also remember that, for the Lord to be with you, I need to be with you. For the Lord to be with me, you need to be with me.

We are all in this together, and, hopefully, none of us will have to face any unexpected surprises on our own.

Blessings,