I hope this Sunday Morning Update finds you healthy and whole.  For the second week in a row, it seems like half of our church family was out this week with colds, flus, injuries, or the like (though I know that a couple of families were off traveling as well).  Apparently, February is a dangerous time of the year.  But by the time you’re reading this, it may very well be March, so let’s not dwell on that...

This has been one of those weeks where it seems like everyone’s either getting sick, injured, or sick and injured.  One family actually had two members independently drop dumbbells on themselves on two unrelated occasions over the past week -- so read into that what you will...

This week is always a little special, so let me wish all of you a very Happy Valentine’s Day!  Yes, I know that not everyone enjoys Valentine’s Day, since it reminds some people that they have no “significant other” or that their relationships aren’t what they’d like them to be -- but that may be missing the original point of the day...

Welcome to February!  Suddenly, it’s snowing again, so for those of us who like that, it’s great to be back in wintertime again... though for those of us who don’t like that, it’s hard to be back in wintertime again...

I hope that this Update finds you healthy and joyful wherever you are today.  I know that we still have a handful of our FCCers out with the flu or other physical issues, but it was nice to see a fairly full house this week, as the majority of our church family hale and healthy...

After having been out last week with a sudden and rather nasty bout of the flu, it was (on so many levels) so nice to be healthy enough to be able to re-join everyone in worship this week!

It was great to be back with the church family after having to cancel our services (including our annual New Year’s Eve Family Game Night) the weekend before due to painfully cold temperatures.  Then again, I can’t say that being stuck at home with my wife and children particularly felt like much of a hardship to me -- it’s kind of the best birthday present that I could’ve asked for...

Before I forget, let me say that I hope everyone reading this had a very Merry Christmas!  I have to confess that Alex and I were actively praying for a white Christmas, so for those of you who don’t like snow, feel free to be angry with us.  But the rest of us are blissfully happy to have been able to look out and finally see the lovely dusting of snow everywhere...

We’ve had such a nice Advent season so far this year.  And in and amongst all of that, the weather even got warm enough this week for the workmen to come and finish the work on our shed.  Life is good...

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas around here.  Not much snow yet (we were supposed to get something today, but... nope), but the temperatures have sure dropped, and the wind is whipping everything around enough that the workmen couldn’t work on our roof today like they’d planned.  On the plus side, we got our Christmas tree, so there’s that....

We’re launching into the Christmas season with wild abandon here at First Covenant Church!  Thank you to everyone who stayed afterwards on the 26th to help us decorate the building -- it looks beautiful!  And yes, I’m aware that there are some FCCers who will want to keep the decorations up until Easter, but we all just need to be willing to enjoy them while they last...

Okay, before I forget to comment, I hope that last week, you had a very Happy Thanksgiving!  We had the blessing of being able to spend a chunk of quality time with our extended family this past week, though Megan and I both caught colds at the end of the week that curtailed that a bit (and our recently-purchased van caught a cold as well -- ask me about that sometime).  But we all have so much to be thankful for that it’s hard to dwell on the hiccups in life...

What a sweet Sunday morning worship service we had this week! First off, it was sweet for me because I was able to dedicate little Addison Diemer to the Lord on Sunday, and that’s always one of my favorite pastoral duties.  It was, however, not so sweet for Addison, who pretty much screamed through the whole thing...

So yes, on Sunday, I wore my tattoos proudly.  I’m sure someone’s put pictures up on Facebook somewhere...

There’s a bunch of old British poems that go something like this:

            Remember, remember

            The fifth of November,

            The Gunpowder Treason and plot.

            I know of no reason

            Why the Gunpowder Treason

            Should ever be forgot...