Back from the dead...with a bit more "Belief".

I love how I can wake up with a plan, a course of action, an agenda for the day- and within hours, everything can change with a single phone call. Even yesterday, I got a text from one of my girls wanting to spend the evening together, and it was such a perfect opportunity to love on her and catch up after Winter Break. It doesn't seem like much, but for the last couple of months I literally have been dreading the phone so this week's awesome phone calls made me jump for joy!
For weeks, every time my cell buzzes, I flinch- just bracing for impact. I keep expecting another call from an angry family member, a frustrated parent, a depressed teen, or even just a reminder that I forgot something I was suppose to do. I know, what a Debbie Downer I am. I keep turning the worries over to the Lord, but then the sad text or call comes in and the anxiety starts all over again.

Well, Thursday changed my mind! I got a message from a friend to call back ASAP, and it was SO GOOD! Let me start at the beginning-
Sunday morning, New Years Day, we got to church early because my boy was playing drums and I always like to sit close if I can and make faces at him. As we were waiting for church to start, an elderly gentleman behind us literally stopped breathing, and didn't have a pulse. No joke. Long story short, one of our pastors helped me carry him out and we had to preform CPR and attempt to resuscitate him while we waited for the ambulance. It was so sad for me to have to work on this guy with his friends watching, because I know how traumatic chest compressions look to a bystander, and the whole setting was just wrong. If people cry and freak out in the ER when you do CPR, imagine watching the same thing in your Sunday School classroom.

We finally got a very weak pulse, but not a perfusing rate, and very ineffective breathing, so in all honesty, I didn't have much hope. The paramedics arrived, and although they took him to the hospital, I waited all week to hear that he had passed. Then Friday morning. Woohoo! My friend had called to let me know that this sweet man had come out of his coma and was alert, oriented and totally recovering! Seriously, I could not have been more surprised or excited.
I had spent the last couple of weeks worrying about everything- and I felt like the whole crazy Sunday morning miracle was like God saying "Hello! Why do you doubt my strength and my goodness to you? You don't know what to do to help your husband grieve over his loss? I got it. You don't have the money for the Uganda Mission Trip? Trust me. You think your kids are going to grow up and end up homeless or on welfare because of stupid choices? Let me deal with them. You want to be a better person and have more faith? Let me show you how it's done, beloved."

Oh, What a God we have! I just still am reeling at how awesome our God is and how much He wants to teach us and show us a new way of living. I was hanging out in Exodus and reading about Moses and I just kept remembering how often I think, "Lord, I have been trying for like TWO WEEKS...why am I not perfect yet?" And yet here I see Moses, who was 80 before he was ready to go back to Egypt to help free his people, and then still spent another 40 years wandering around the desert trying to figure life out before God finally said, "That'll do" and took him home at the age of 120. So why on earth should I feel I have to have it all together now?
Such a great week of God Stops, and reminders that God is on His throne...and thank God I am not! His ways are wonderful, His timing is perfect and the laughter and joy He brings to our days is priceless. Oh, thank you Lord for helping me "BELIEVE" better and bigger of You, and bringing us back from the dead- sometimes both spiritually AND physically! I can't wait to be perfected by you, Father. But in the meantime, keep changing me and teaching me...make me look more like you. <3
"Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed." 1 Corinthians 15:51-52

(Pictures are just for fun- back in 2006. Reminds me how much things are always changing, and how much we continue to grow. ♥ )