Turning bad into good...

It's been a couple of week since I have posted...sorry about that. To say that we have been busy is a complete understatement.

The last two posts were regarding friends of ours that had been in accidents. The first was our friend Darin, from California. As of today, he is off the ventilator and they had him sitting in a chair. He has a couple of skin grafting surgeries coming up and will be in the hospital for awhile yet. Please continue praying for him.

The second was our friend Nathan. Nathan was in a very bad motorcycle accident two weeks ago, yesterday. God spared Nathan's life. He has Nathan here for a purpose and I can't wait to see what that purpose is! This guy has been through many surgeries in the past two weeks and has more hardware than anyone I know holding him together right now. He was telling us about his hardware and I was having a hard time envisioning a chain link going through his pelvis to hold it together. A chain link?! It's amazing!! He is tough though and will have to work hard with physical therapy but he is going to be okay. 

Guess who came home though yesterday? That's right...Nathan. He's not doing any moving on his own but he's home! The kids were so excited when I pulled them from school a little early to go visit Nathan. They have been wanting to see their Nay-Nay for two weeks and it has been so hard explaining to them why they can't be at the hospital. I think Ethan was the most excited...although he didn't show it once we arrived at Randy and Janice's. He was a little nervous, not sure what to expect, and Nathan's friend was there. Ethan gets very quiet around people he doesn't know. It was great though to finally be able to take the kids to see their Nathan and to let them see for themselves that Nathan is going to be okay. Please pray for continued pain management and healing for Nathan! His road to recovery is still long.

We have been praising God for the healing that has been happening with both of these guys and the progress that they have made. It's been awesome to see everyone rallying around these families, lifting them up in prayer.

We've had a few other sad situations happen within our church family. We had two very special people go home to be with Jesus...one older gentleman and the other was just 19 years old. We celebrated one life on Monday and the second on Thursday. We were blessed to be able to help with both of these services. And again, our church family rallied around these two families lifting them up in prayer. The pain doesn't stop though with a loss like these. We look forward to having the opportunity to love on these families and to continue praying for them.

God has used each of these situations to really grow our church family. I have never seen so many people just come together and pray for one another. To see people give of their time to help others is awesome.

I've had several people ask over the past couple of weeks how our church family is holding up during this time of what seems to be an attack from the devil. My response was..."God is using these situations to grow us closer and to bring us together to just pray and care for one another. In no way do we feel attacked by the devil." This response shocked a few people but in no way do I feel like these situations are an attack. I love my church family and these past few weeks have made that love grow deeper.

Last Sunday was a hard service because that is when we learned of the passing of the 19-year old but it was so amazing to listening to everyone just worshiping our Lord and Savior in the midst of tears. I think it was probably one of the loudest worship services we've had in awhile. Just lifting our voices up to our Lord and trusting in Him during these times.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow morning. Not because it is Mother's Day but because we get to go and worship our Lord with our amazing church family at Christ Fellowship! Would love to see you there!