Z-Notes 3/18/21

Greetings, Third Church Friends!

We call our family the TTZ Team. My wife, Patricia Tillou, didn’t drift down the alphabet when we married. Hyphenating our names for the kids seemed like a nasty trick, so we created a tag for them: Tillmaand. Thus, the TTZ Team. We are currently living through an agonizing week, though for a good reason. It’s Match Day for medical students on Friday. Our daughter, Emily (left), will learn where she will spend the next few years of her life studying and practicing neurology. Not the biggest matter on the world’s agenda…but pretty major for us!

We often ask some version of the question, Did you ever imagine life would turn out the way it did? Heck, no!! Not in my wildest dreams! A corollary to that query would be, If you had known then what you know now, would you have done it? Simply can’t be answered. My life has been an incredibly unexpected journey, with mostly marvelous outcomes…and a few of the other kind. I am still alive, healthy, the TTZ Team is excelling, and God still seems to think I am useful in the work I do—which I never imagined doing for a day, much less forty years. I know for sure that I don’t float on this amazement boat alone.

So off we go. Spring is on the way. One of the reasons for enduring the North Coast winters becomes apparent in the beauty of the coming season. The Flour City became the Flower City, and soon June will be busting out all over. (Sorry, great musicals never stray far from my conscious thoughts.) Have we ever been so excited about getting the patio furniture out as we are this year?!? I think not. Hope is scenting the atmosphere, and are we so ready to breathe it in!

I get to sit in the pew with you all this week and listen to another of Ernest Krug’s well-crafted and inspiring sermons. True confession: I have a hard time listening to many preachers. Not Ernest. He is a master wordsmith. I’m looking forward to Sunday. I hope you are, too.

Blessings! Pastor Zomermaand
pastorz@thirdpresbyterian.org
Office: 585-271-6513, ext. 105; Cell: 618-606-1053 (after hours; emergencies)