April, 2026
Happy Spring Our Savior’s and friends!
This time of year can be most challenging as we have spring fever and want to get outdoors, and yet, the weather keeps us indoors. There is hope that spring and summer will come again as we welcome more and more daylight each day, hear the birds chirping and feel the heat in the sun when it shines!
Hope can be deceiving and yet it is hope in which we cling during times of difficulty, tragedy, the changing of seasons, medical tests, and so much more. And we hope as we long for wholeness.
Is our faith deep and strong to offer us a hope that is also deep and strong and enough? What has this Lenten season shown you, taught you, enlightened you about? We have gone through the stories from the gospel readings: Temptation/Wholeness; Nicodemus/Mystery; The woman at the well/Relationship; Man born blind/Community; Lazarus/Authenticity. All stories that bring us an element of wholeness.
How do we find hope and wholeness in the midst of pain and suffering, whether it be personal, communal or worldly? Where do we turn for such hope and assurance? How do we find wholeness in the midst of feeling broken?
We turn to the Lord. We cling to the promises of God who named us and claimed us before we were even born. We find respite and repair in the one who knows suffering more than anyone of us ever can or will.
As our Lenten journey has come to an end, we are reminded as we approach Holy week that while the world grows dim as Jesus is hung on the cross left to die…. We know as Easter people that death does not have the last word. We know as Easter people that the light of the world is our hope and assurance, and resurrection and salvation are real!
As you prepare your hearts and minds and imaginations for Holy Week and look with hope toward Easter, may you be blessed with assurance, with grace, with love that is real and known from our God, who is the true hope of all hope, in a world that feels quite broken right now.
Peace this Holy Week and hope to you in the Eastertide! See you in church!
Pastor Liz
GREETINGS ~
March is a few days away and you know what that means? Well, yes Lent. Yes, soup suppers and midweek worship. Yes, spring is almost here….
But I am talking about March madness! March madness is all about basketball! The NCAA college men’s and women’s tournaments take over much of the month as well as High School state tournaments both hockey and basketball!
I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a sports family and home. All my siblings and I played sports and evenings were often spent in the gym or on the field.
I want to share with you my basketball story. I was never a starter, a top athlete or high scorer, but I loved basketball. I worked hard; I just didn’t have the natural ability like some do. When I was a junior in high school, I had just turned 17 in September. The basketball season was going to start mid-November and I had spent the summer working on my basketball skills. I could be found in the driveway every day in the summer shooting, dribbling and working to gain a spot “off the bench” my junior year.
It was the Wednesday of MEA week in October and I started to experience some weakness on my right side. I was having trouble picking up a textbook from my locker. In gym class my knee kept giving out and I kept dropping my hockey stick. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but just chalked it up to me being clumsy. By the last hour of the school day, I was in the school office and when I went to shift my weight from my left side to my right side, I fell to the floor. I was now concerned that something wasn’t quite right.
I went to volleyball practice (I was the manager) and talked to the coach, who recognized that my parents needed to be notified immediately and I needed to get to the clinic or hospital. The next several days were somewhat of a blur from there.
I was hospitalized that afternoon in the Virginia hospital. By that time, I had lost all control and mobility of my right side. I could not get my leg, toes, arms, hands or anything on the right side to move. They had no idea what was going on. They observed me through the night and at the time (this was 33 years ago) the Virginia hospital did not have an MRI machine; it came as a mobile MRI in a semi-truck. My parents were not comfortable with that set up, so they had me discharged and had the hospital call ahead to Duluth and my parents drove me themselves down to Duluth for an MRI.
It was one MRI (45 minutes long) then they had to inject dye and I had another MRI. That two hours I was kind of out of it, unaware of what might be happening. Afterall, I was only 17 years old.
I do remember sitting on my hospital bed wondering if I was ever going to be “normal” again (whatever “normal” was for a 17-year-old in the 90’s). I remember wondering if any of my friends would still want to be friends with me. It was a very scary time for me.
Finally, the doctor came to my parents and I to tell us that I, at the age of 17, had a stroke. It was unusual. It was shocking. It was scary. A stroke??? It turns out that there was a small blood clot in my brain, but the clot didn’t block the entire vein, it allowed blood to trickle by it slowly. This explained why I didn’t have any numbness or tingling and only lost all control and mobility of my right side.
I spent a couple more nights in the hospital before going home. I would have to start physical and occupational therapy right away. I had to walk with a cane. I experienced severe headaches and migraines. It was a devasting experience and at the same time it was an experience that taught me so much about life, about priorities, about perseverance. I grew up really fast that year!
I lost some friends, but we all know they really weren’t friends in the first place. I discovered who my real friends were. I was teased in school because I walked with a limp and a cane. I was different. I would forever be changed by the stroke I experienced in October of 1993.
Basketball season was starting one month after my stroke. I was still learning how to walk, let alone how to run. I had to write and do all my homework with my left hand because I still couldn’t hold a pencil with my right. I had lost everything I had worked so hard to gain over the summer when basketball season came mid-November I wasn’t sure I would ever get off the bench now.
I still went out for basketball. I loved the game. My friends played. The coaches were very protective of me and my head. But I still worked as hard as I could. I began to walk and run again without limping, with full strength. I wasn’t fast, but I could run. I showed up for every single practice. I sat on the bench for every single game. I would get in now and then, but the coaches really were very cautious and protective.
It was early to mid-December, it was a home game, and we were playing Tower-Soudan. This was going to be my first game of the season because I finally got cleared by the doctor. The coach calls me from the bench. I check in and on the next whistle I get to the enter the game. To my surprise, the enter gymnasium rises to their feet and applauds as I entered the game. MIB and Tower-Soudan – the enter gym! Clapping for me. I am sure that at the time I really couldn’t comprehend the accomplishment, the mountain I had just climbed in two months, but they sure did.
You all may remember Jason Goulet and the football injury that left him paralyzed that same fall. Jason and I had PT and OT together. Tower-Soudan fans knew as they had been rallying around one of their own athletes that year too. It was no wonder why they were standing and cheering as well!
Back to the game. When we got the ball, it was passed to me, I took the shot, made it and once again the crowd stands and cheers.
I was so excited to be playing basketball again! I didn’t care if I was a “bench warmer”. I had recovered from a stroke at the age of 17 and the basketball court, the bench, my coaches and teammates had my back, they loved me, they pushed and protected me. I needed them at that time, and I know they needed me!
I always wanted to be a basketball coach. My experience on the bench gave me the opportunity to see the game in a different way. To see all positions, to see the whole court, to observe the other team. I learned how to analyze the game and not just play one position. In a lot of ways, it was a gift!
I coach basketball because I love the sport. I coach basketball because I want young girls to know they are loved, seen, and cared for no matter what their skill level is. I coach basketball because I care about our youth. Not because I was a star player and want to live vicariously through my team. Not because I have something to prove. Not because my team goes to state every year (we have never been to state). I coach because God has given me the skills, the understanding, the compassion and the love for the game. I coach because God has called me to the game as an extension of the ministry I offer our communities as a pastor.
My girls know that I am a pastor first and foremost. They know that I am a Christian. They know that I pray for them. They know…. And so does the community…. And so does the school…..
When I was called here to Our Savior’s and it was written in my call papers that Our Savior’s supports my call as a basketball coach and would not expect me to stop coaching, that you as a call committee, on behalf of the congregation, recognized basketball as an extension of ministry and as one way I care for myself during the long winter months. Thank you, Our Savior’s! What a gift!
I coach basketball to keep active, as a form of self-care, to inspire and encourage girls, to be a positive and healthy role model and to shine God’s light into sometimes very dark places in the lives of my players both on and off the court. It is a gift to me, to them!
Thanks for hearing my story. It was life changing for me and I can only hope that my coaching can also be life changing to my girls as well.
Jesus promises that wherever two or three are gathered he is there with us! Even on the court, in the huddle and on those bus rides! Thanks be to God!
Pastor Liz
Aka: CoachRev
Mid-winter greetings Our Savior’s and friends,
How are you? Mid-winter always seems like a good time to check in with loved ones and friends. Though it may appear on the outside there are smiles all around, in the bleak midwinter there is often struggle. Struggle with less day light. Struggle with energy. Struggle with the cold temps and not being able to get outside and breath in that fresh air. Struggle with the state of the world. So much…
Winter can feel heavy for those of us that are here in God’s great north woods, unless you are an avid skier, snowmobiler, ice fisher person. The winter does offer a lot of great outdoor activities when the temps stay above zero!
But the point here, is how are you doing? Where are you at in terms of grief, joy, life, discipleship? What does your soul long for? We can get caught up in the everyday busyness of life and forget to check in with each other and ourselves.
As we enter into the second month of 2026, it will be filled with red and pink, hearts and chocolate as February 14th is Valentines Day. So, while the world around us consumes and buys into this secular “holiday” why don’t we buy into this notion of love and spend the month loving on each other? Who knew February 17th is National Random Acts of Kindness Day! Let’s make it an entire month!
Checking in with friends, church family, loved ones. Send a letter, a card, an email just to say, “hey I’m thinking of you.” Why not make February a month of random acts of kindness and love?
I challenge you to do something kind for someone each day this month with no strings attached and no need to receive anything in return. Because the reality is your heart will be filled with joy by the end of February.
February 18th is Ash Wednesday, a day we come together and accept the invitation into the discipline of Lent. The day we are reminded that we are but dust, and to dust we will one day return. A day we pause to worship, pray, confess and come together as followers of Jesus and bring with us all that weighs us down so that during the season of Lent we can begin to unpack our heavy hearts, clear out our cluttered minds and prepare our imaginations to be ready to receive the Good News on Easter morning that Christ is alive! Alive for you and for me, and for the world!
Beloved family, let us love one another in a time such as this where division, hatred, lies, twists, deception, name calling, and so much heaviness is consuming our souls, our hearts and our minds! Let us love one another as God first loved us! May it be so!
Pastor Liz
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