Dear Saint James’ Church Family and Friends:
With this Kneemail, I want to share with you that my thoughts and prayer for your spiritual, emotional and physical well-being continue. I have spoken to approximately one hundred fifty households and I have about ten to fifteen more calls to make as of this writing – April 21, 2020, 5:30 PM. If you have not heard from me, please contact me at rdaly@saintjamestxk.org, because I either don’t have your correct contact information, or I have no contact information.
I am happy to hear your voices and I am grateful for all of your positive feedback and sentiments. My primary pastoral concern in making all of these calls is to let you know that you are love and cared for by Almighty God. Further, I want to let you know that I am continuing my prayers for each of you. May the Lord Jesus bestow upon you every good gift which enable you feel His loving presence in your daily life.
To be able to see and know the presence of God in the very midst of trouble is a mighty thing to be grasped. Our feelings and emotions may and will get the best of us as we pass through this time of significant concern for our health and safety. Yet, I encourage you to keep your focus on Jesus Christ. Many non-believers, whom I know, feel that Christians should be most pitied because the only time we turn to God is when we want His help. Certainly, in many cases, that is a true statement, but God does not see our calling out to Him as tiresome, childish, shallow, or pathetic.
It is hard for us to imagine and believe that no matter when, or how, our God is always happy to hear from us.
We all know that person, or even that one child of ours, who when they call, we look at the caller ID and think, “What do they want now! They only call when they need something.” Our eyes look at the ringing phone and think, “Should I pick it up, or let it go to voicemail?” Then before we can make a decision, the phone stops ringing and a sense of relief comes over us in that we didn’t have to make a decision!
It is not like that with our heavenly Father. God will not mute us, or send a reply text, “I’ll call you later.”
My friends, we are not a bother to our Lord God, who never minds hearing from us under any circumstance. We project on to God our own human weariness with difficulties and distresses. Our God, who was contend to suffer in the God/Man Jesus Christ upon the Cross, does not see it as any form of suffering or inconvenience when we turn to Him, for whatever reason. Bring your fears and hopes, troubles and joys, petitions and thanksgivings to Him. In speaking with God, we are able to loosen the burdens we bare and share the happiness we have found.
Finally, I want to let you know that I have no new information as to any timeline when we will be back in our beloved church. I ask you to keep Bishop Sumner in your prayers and that the Lord will see fit to restore us to our physical corporate life as the Holy Church sooner than later. Please keep me in your prayers, too, that I may grow further in knowledge and love of God’s Providence.
In our blessed Lord,
The Rev'd Richard R. Daly, SSC,
Interim Parish Priest
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