CAPA Corner: Words of Encouragement from the Central Area Pastors Association

    October is my favorite month and it only has a little to do with the fact that my birthday is in October. It’s just a great month: football on all levels, the World Series, and most of all the weather!  One can pretty much count on mornings being in the low sixties and sometimes in the upper fifties.  The afternoons are mostly in the upper seventies or low eighties.  Fronts come through and then the sky is that beautiful, clear “October blue”.  It is a reminder that the seasons are changing (summer is over!) and that the beautiful rhythm of life that God has planned is indeed continuing.  To me that is very peace-giving.  It is something I can count on.  When God created, there was a plan for life.

    I was poignantly reminded of this recently by my younger son who is the pastor of a church in another part of Baton Rouge.  My husband, his father, recently died and he had taken a moment at the end of the service to thank his congregation for their prayers and support during the time of his father’s illness and death.  In his remarks he said (something to the effect of) “There is resurrection in death.  My wife, Alina, and I have been reminded of that as we are expecting a baby in April.”  The rhythm of life; it’s part of God’s plan.  Light follows darkness. Seasons follow one another.  There is joy even in times of sadness.  And in the end resurrection follows death.  It is God’s plan for life.

Rev. Marie Williams
Blackwater United Methodist