I can't remember if I've blogged about our daughter's dramatic tendencies...but here's the latest episode with her! She is having major seperation anxiety issues with me, so when I took her to the church nursery, before I even set her on the floor next to me while I signed her in, she was already crying and clinging to my leg. So I decided to climb over the gate with her and get her settled in. She just kept fussing and getting into my lap. One of the nursery staff told me she'd be good once I left, and I totally agree, been there-done that. So I stepped over the gate and she at this point had stood up and was about to let out a major wail--was VERY red. I started to walk away and then realized she wasn't making a sound. I whirled around to tell them to blow on her--I knew she was holding her breath--and before I could get the words out, I watched my 15 month old tip backwards, without even bending her legs, passing out. I lept over the gate and was blowing in her face, but she was so close to passing out, that I just kept blowing and she let out a cry, then started fainting again. I kept blowing and picked her up but she just kept going limp, so then I really panicked, fearing that she'd have a seizure since kids can have one under these circumstances, and I know seizures cause brain damage. I was in full panic mode at this point. A woman ran over to calm me down and have me lay Makenna down who at this point was awake and now crying.
I decided to call 911 when I saw the bump on the back of her head was red. She was fine for all outward appearances, but I wanted her checked out of course. The first responders with the fire station cleared her safe for me to drive her to the ER, so I cancelled the ambulance and chose to drive her to Dell Children's.
There are so many layers of spiritual warfare around this whole thing that I probably won't ever identify all of them, nor the redeeming grace of God in all of this. Makenna had a CT scan done and checked out fine. Apparently, the doctor didn't see a CT as necessary BUT since she fell on linoleum, that changes the whole situation. Linoleum is worse than concrete and even worse than falling out of a two-story window, so if your child ever falls and hits his head on linoleum and has a bump, GO to the ER. It has no shock-absorbency and doctors in the ER get alarmed when that was what a child fell on.
Anyway, about the warfare. We had a guest with us who needed this worship service. We had another friend whose two boys were with us and the older boy is one of Kyle's best friends. This was their first visit. And here we all were outside with the firetruck. And our friend with the two boys was already leaving when David felt moved by the Spirit to 'chase her down' and let her know that they were going back into church while I took Makenna in. In fact, David wanted us to bypass the 911 call and drive her to the ER ourselves. If we had done so, we would ALL have left and neither of our guests would have been in church. But I insisted on the 911 call and because I obeyed that still voice inside me, they all were back in church where God desired them to be.
To further all of this...I had just told my friend that morning how I woke up totally disoriented about what day it was. I was so confused and when I realized it was Sunday, I was overjoyed. And the forces of evil sought to destroy the morning and take ALL of us out of God's presence. But God triumphed over that.
He later showed how He works when I found myself in conversation with a woman at the ER who confessed she hadn't been to church in months and needed to return with her kids, but she was anxious about leaving her 2 year old in the nursery due to the same issues Makenna is having. I was able to minister to her and reassure her that children do well once Mom is out of eyesight and get engaged in the nursery and do better once they've been going consistently. I was asked by the CT technician where we go to church and she had the chance to listen to me sing songs about Jesus to Makenna while she was in the CT scan.
God just works all these things out and my goodness, He is so big. I talked with our Children's Minister who was absent yesterday. How things can go awry when Satan sees that a ministry leader is not around at church. While it is no reason for a churckworker NOT to be gone from an event, he sure takes advantage of that absence. How much more we must be on our guard and on the offense for his strikes. To further this is that when I began to panic, a woman I didn't even know was on the floor with me, her arms on my back, rubbing my back and calming me down, talking to me. I was terrified Makenna was going to have a seizure. She ministered to me and through that, we bonded. I need to know who she is now. I want to know her. And if our CM had been at church, she probably would've been in the hall when all this happened and would've been the one calming me, rather than a member of the Body of Christ being moved by the Spirt to step in and minister to a sister in need. How GREAT is that????
To top it off...I have been convicted this week multiple times of my need to be transparent again in our small grou in order to take our group into a deep encounter with God every time we meet. I had found myself becoming less 'real' and moving into that churchworker mode where you pretend like you have it all together. I did that for over five years and it is NOT how God wants his children to live. He wants authenticity, relevance, and REALNESS. Well, how much more REAL could I be than sobbing on the floor, clutching my 15 month old little girl, while people watch and a woman I do not know is kneeling beside me, holding both of us. I just don't think there's much more transparency than that. And you have to understand that a moment like that makes me feel super vulnerable and is just not the facade I wore in ministry for the teams that I led, which is why some of them found me emotion-less at times and out of touch with them. It was because I was. I was pretending to have it altogether and pretending so much that I had lost the ability to be relevant and real and to show my complete vulnerability, which would have taken my team to spiritual levels that we never saw because of my own fakeness, which essentially, is just plain ol' sinful.
I thought over the scripture earlier this weekend about where we're called to confess our sins to each other. I always have read that in regard to 'getting right with God' again through confession and restoring the broken relationship we create every day that we sin. I now am starting to think it is so much more than that. Jesus totally knows that when there is not only confession of sin, but also confession of the matters of the
heart, the innermost feelings and longings and pains, well, that is where depth in Him comes from and that is where the Body ministers to each other and helps take each other into a realness with their Maker that is only found when we're fully transparent and fully authentic with ourselves and each other. Jesus knew it then when he inspired Paul to write that command regarding confession. He wasn't just talking about sin. He was talking about people being real with each other about everything. His heart's desire is for us to be in deep fellowship with each other and to experience Him deeply
with each other. He knows that transparency inspires others to 'go there' and
that is when the Body of Christ is just doing what He most wants it to do!
Whew--that was long...I suppose with my lack of blogging over the last month, I just made up for it!
