4TH OF JULY

Palm Valley Lutheran Church

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4TH OF JULY

July 4, 2024 • PASTOR DAVE KOPPEL

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TRAGEDY

June 19, 2024 • Pastor D

Last Saturday night, there was a mass shooting in Round Rock. Those words don’t even belong in the same sentence. Mass shooting. Round Rock. It just sounds wrong. This is not a big urban center. This is our home. This is where our kids go to school. This is where we go to the park, go swimming, and have festivals to celebrate our diversity and the beauty and wonder of our city. It’s where we go for the 4th of July fireworks…and, in days gone by, for the cardboard boat regatta. Mass shooting. Round Rock. The words just don’t go together. Two dead. Fourteen hospitalized. Mass shooting. The words are jarring. We don’t know all the details. We don’t even know if the shooter was from Round Rock. But now there is a tear in the fabric of our city. It will be mended because, well, this is Round Rock…but there will be a scar.

SLIPPING GEARS

October 3, 2023

Not too long ago, I got my bicycle overhauled but something didn't feel right, and once in a while the chain came clean off! It wasn't until recently that I had it figured out; that I found the actual problem. Turns out one of the links was bent. So why do I tell you this? Well, it's like a lot of life. Often all it takes is one person to pull things off course, to keep things from working as smoothly as they might. So today let's stop and ask ourselves, “Am I a bent link in a chain?”

MY DUCK!

September 26, 2023

A mother and her toddler daughter went to visit a friend. When they arrived, the two mothers greeted each other with hugs, and they set the little girl down next to the little boy who had been playing with a toy duck. The little girl immediately grabbed the duck and said, “My duck!” As you can imagine, that didn't go over very well with the little boy. I won't go into the details of the duck being snatched back and forth or the ensuing tears that flowed, but I will say that the little girl kept repeating, “My duck! My duck!” We all want what we don't have. A part of us will always be crying out, “My duck!”