NOTE: Below are reflections from Pop's son-in-law Patrick Paradzinski on August 16, 2010, after the family took a trip to the beach together, stopping in Pop's hometown of Denton, NC, on the way home.
Thanks for a great week, as I get back into the work week a couple things stand out among the hundred to share. These come from reflecting upon sitting in Pop's home church yesterday and trying to examine what was being said to me. And I do think changes were made by Him to speak to me and I include you in "me". Yesterday's message in that service was clear from beginning to end - the song titles read "Come That We Love the Lord", "Great is Thy Faithfulness", "The Doxology", "I Can Only Imagine", "Blest Be The Tie That Binds", and "Breathe on Me Breathe of God" I did not pay much attention to the songs as a group until this morning but what a testimony in them if nothing else just from the titles - apparently Margaret Harris knew Pop and us better than she thought. Scratching the surface a bit further - the message was supposed to spring from the Scripture Reading Psalm 119: 97-105:
97 Oh, how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
98 You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies;
For they are ever with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.
100 I understand more than the ancients,
Because I keep Your precepts.
101 I have restrained my feet from every evil way,
That I may keep Your word.
102 I have not departed from Your judgments,
For You Yourself have taught me.
103 How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104 Through Your precepts I get understanding;
Therefore I hate every false way.
An interesting portion of Biblical text to be sure, juxtapose that upon what our Lord spoke to us about through Pop throughout our lives and very poignantly in our last days with him here.
As I read that passage in preparation for the message I was excited to hear what the man before us would say about those verses. Then it was announced the message was to change and be taken from the parable of the Sower, a great Gideon sending message no doubt. Pop spent some time with Gideons as I recall so that seemed to fit well, as did the message being delivered from a Denton-ite whose faith was shaped and formed in Denton. I have heard many different "takes" if you will on that parable, and often wondered what type of soil I am, and I have pondered that seed of God being planted but I never thought that I was the Sower. It has never been pressed for me to share my story in broadcasting the seed of God. Then I thought how many stories do I have? Which seed might work best in these types of soil mentioned in the parable? I have been affirmed that best story for me is the Pop story. Many of us have begun this broadcasting already through, song, slide, poem, web and your words at Pop's other home church as you stood for him at his memorial celebration. This story is a means of dealing with missing Pop, thanking him even. What if this story was used in broadcasting the seed, what if we cultivate that story further to be broadcast for Him who brought us here for His glory? This past year has been difficult to say least, but it has also been so glorious that it has to be shared if we are to be in service of Him and pay homage to one of His messengers in Pop. I feel encouraged to couple this parable with another, the one in which servants are entrusted with the master's treasure, some servants risk much yet grow his treasure, while one buries it for safe keeping - who was the master pleased with upon his return? What treasure of His do I have and recognize? Part of that treasure lies in that Pop story/seed. How do I sow His treasure?
