INDEPENDENCE DAY

Palm Valley Lutheran Church

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INDEPENDENCE DAY

WEEKLY THOUGHTS

July 4, 2023

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Today is one of my favorite days of the whole year. The 4th of July! Independence Day! It's a celebration. It's the birthday of our country. It's a time when we recall the stories of the patriots who took risks and were willing to lay their lives on the line for this incredible experiment called Democracy.

It’s a great day to be thankful - for our nation, for those who came before us and led the way, for an incredible history, and most importantly, for an incredible God.

4TH OF JULY

July 4, 2024 • PASTOR DAVE KOPPEL

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?”