I'm sure by now you have all heard about the shooting in Colorado Springs. You hear about these things happening and it seems unreal. It seems like it's only happening in 3rd world countries. Not here. Not in the 'land of the free and home of the brave'. YEAH RIGHT! Why not here? Are we free? Are we brave?
These times have me thinking. Thinking that I want to be sure that all my family and all my friends know Jesus. Not just know Him, but have a love affair with Him. Sometimes I think God uses stuff like this to give us (me) a little wake up call. The REALLY weird thing is that Sunday night - I had no idea about Colorado - we were singing our final show and these 2 guys walked into the sanctuary about 1/3 of the way thru. Now, since we had so much of the "community" in our halls these guys just didn't look like "frequent" church-goers. Now, don't go gettin' huffy with me, I AM NOT judging anyone by their appearance, but it was the first time I'd ever seen an actual mohawk in my church. Ok, enough of that. You hopefully get where I'm coming from.
Anyway, as they came in I began to pray that the Lord would make them stay for the whole show and would move in their hearts if they weren't already His. IMMEDIATELY after that the Holy Spirit prompted me to pray for the safety of our church. Now, again, DON'T GO GETTIN' HUFFY! I'm in no way implying that I was afraid of these guys - I'm just telling you what the Spirit told me to do. So I did. I prayed for the safety of our entire campus. I prayed for God to thwart any plans the evil one had to shake our security. I just prayed. (all this while singing - yes, I'm a multi-tasker) When I looked back for mohawk-man and his side kick I couldn't find them. Weird. Don't have a clue if they stayed or left and I think God didn't want me to know. He just wanted me to trust Him to take care of them and of me!
So, today my heart is heavy for the folks at New Life. That church has been thru a lot in the last few years! Nothing worse than the press dragging your past into the real issue! BUGS ME!! Anyway, just pray for them. Here's an even more bizarre twist on the whole thing. The pastor, Brady Boyd and his wife Pam used to live in Dallas, before they came to New Life. Pam led a Bible Study every Tues morning for over a year which my best friend in the whole world, Kelley, attended! Kelley tells me that Pam would ask her whenever they got in touch about my sister and her kids because she was praying for them during their difficult times. So, I email Pam today to tell her who I was and to tell her I was praying for her and she immediately remembers my story and instead of telling about their tragedy begins to ask about Regina, Rachel and J.R. AMAZING! God wants His family to know, love and encourage each other! That's what we're here for!
So I ask that you all lift up the Boyd's and lift up the New Life family as they deal with this horrific tragedy! Thanks.
PS. Pray for Jennifer Hamrick too. Tony and Joleen Hyatt's daughter. She attends that church but had decided to stay home since there was so much snow and Matt had just left the week before for Iraq. Pray for Matt's safety and his swift return. You can read their story at www.matthamrick.com
Roasted potatoes with Italian greens
8 years ago
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There's been a time or two that I've felt afraid at church......and I go to a little bitty church out in the sticks. One time was when this guy from the community came in obviously drunk, sat down in a pew and started making comments toward the pastor during the sermon. I started praying and a lot of other people were praying. It actually ended with us reaching out to this guy. He was only 18 or 19 years old and his mother had passed away at a really young age the week before. He was having a really hard time dealing with it. You never know how something is going to end. Thankfully, God does.
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