Big Day

It was a big day here yesterday! Saturday morning Brian was at church at 6 to speak to 150 men at church about passivity. Like, getting off your butt and telling people about Jesus. Serving at church. Leading your family. Talking to a guy about his LIFE, not his golf swing.

no, that's not Brian in the picture. It's a 6'8" black guy.

Brian showed a clip from "Saving Private Ryan" where two WW2 soldiers are checking an abandoned building for Nazis. One of the men enters a room and encounters the enemy. The Nazi slowly and agonizingly plunges a knife into the man's chest (and I mean SLOWLY. It's horrifically disturbing to watch. And listen to.) Meanwhile, the other "good guy" soldier hears what is happening and stays outside the room. He's paralyzed with fear. He's shaking and emotional and can't bring himself to walk in and help his friend.

The Nazi finishes the first guy off and walks out, passing the coward in the hallway. Scared to death, the good soldier watches as the Nazi throws him a glance and simply walks on out of the building.

The coward was not even worth dealing with. He was no threat to the enemy.

It's an emotionally painful scene to watch on many levels. The gore of the death is a given. The fear of the friend is a given. But the anger you feel rising inside because he refused to get off his butt and simply walk into the room is unexpected. All he had to do was make a noise. Yell. Shoot off a round to make the Nazi think there were others. The Nazi would have been outnumbered 2 to 1, but the guy just sat.

The final emotion you feel after watching the scene is guilt......we're him. We have excuse after excuse for not serving, sharing Jesus, striking up a conversation with a stranger in the checkout line, volunteering, getting deep with a friend, praying with someone over the phone, reading a Bible story to our kids, etc. The enemy has a hold on our world and we're watching it happen.

Brian and a couple friends then had a fun "auction-style" sign up for 125 upcoming opportunities. Everything from buying a gallon of paint to give the sanctuary a fresh coat to putting in manhours of painting at church and in the community. Setting up for Easter. Being part of a community team to help an elderly couple make their home wheelchair-friendly, etc.

ALL 125 SPOTS GOT TAKEN. FAST. BY MEN. When does THAT happen?

It was a powerful morning and a dozen guys came up to me later in the day at the church basketball games to tell me how deep the morning was and what a great job Brian did. Yay God!

Fast forward to dinnertime. We had 19 people for dinner who had never been to our house before. We've done 2 short small-group stints with them and decided it was time to play together! We had a great time, and Brian and I announced the new book we would be doing: CRAZY LOVE by Francis Chan. It goes with the guys' morning perfectly, teaching us how to love Jesus and others in extreme ways. Getting uncomfortable. Being sacrificial.

We're so excited about this book!

Just as everyone was putting on their coats, Zach wanted to show how he can climb up the outside of the staircase that leads to the bedrooms. He does it all the time, it was no big deal, until his foot got stuck in the bannister and he fell about 6 feet.

His cry was loud, but it was different.

We instantly knew something was wrong. He yelled "it hurts on the INSIDE! It feels like I broke it!" Sure enough, we knew an arm that looked like a question mark wasn't quite normal.

The group said "go! We'll stay with your kids!" Brian and I ran out the door and left the other 3 with people they didn't know.

At the hospital Z fell asleep, due to the adrenaline rush the nurse said. He actually only cried hard immediately when it happened. After that, it was an occasional whimper when it got bumped.

Diagnosis: both forearm bones are broken. Sent home with a splint (to give swelling a chance to go down) Ortho follow up on Monday to find out if they need to re-set it. Gross. Then a cast.

When we got home, our house was all picked up, kids were tucked in and one lady was resting on our couch. She'd sent her own family/kids to ride home with someone else and helped to calm down an especially emotional Leah. Thank goodness for new friends!!

I'm thankful for many things today:

fast medical help in the U.S. kids in Haiti don't have that.

Baby vicodin

people with big, fast thinking hearts

excitement of things happening/changing in hearts of our church

getting to know our small group while eating

a strong 5 year old

a big God who is helping Brian perform at Rush Hour right now despite a long long day

prayers and more prayers

the challenge to get up and stop cowering in the corner

Poor Leah said "if Zach broke his arm while he's child of the week, what's gonna happen to me when I'm child of the week this week?"