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| My Excuse to Miss Church Last Sunday |
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What a morning! Anything and everything that could go wrong was going wrong! What did I do to deserve all of this? (said in Job's sincerest of cries...)
1:20 Then Job got up, and after parting his clothing and cutting off his hair, he went down on his face to the earth, and gave worship, and said,
Yup, the events of Sunday morning were gonna make me miss church! And I was gonna have a VERY good excuse too!
I was invited to visit the Calvary Community Church (C3) in Columbia, Maryland that morning. Afterwards, we were heading to Mike and Laura's home for an afternoon cookout. I was really looking forward to the opportunity to meet some of my MyChurch.org friends. Pastor Mark, Cathy and others would be at C3 and Pastor Dan, Mary Ann, Sue and their gangs would be at the cookout. Sunday was going to be an awesome day!
I got up extra early that morning so I could complete my "3 hour ritual" of getting myself ready and out the door. Then it started...
My drawers were the WRONG size and when I pulled them up I thought I was gonna die! Now this may be trivial for some but I used a lot of energy getting them back off. They were worse than pantyhose (I think). Then I found another pair. Of course, they too were the wrong size! Aarrrgggghhhhh! These drawers were supposed to have been "trashed" a long time ago! On the third try, success! At least I didn't stike out getting my drawers on that morning...
Then comes the "insulin routine" for my diabetes. Wouldn't you know it? I've one needle left so now I will not be able to give myself a shot at noon for my lunchtime "bolus." My blood sugar will go sky high without that shot creating the possibility of going into "sugar shock" at the home of Mike and Laura. Just great...
By now, with a few other things going wrong, my wife and I are a little behind schedule getting out the door. We are going to be late for church! My wife got me in the Jeep, loaded the wheelchair in the rear and off we go. We start backing out of the driveway and thump, thump! What was that?
The Jeep had just run over the cushion to my wheelchair (lists at $480) and my backpack that contains my camera among other important things I medically need when away from home. And note, the $480 cushion is just the cushion! The entire manual wheelchair listed at around $4,000!
That's it! I couldn't take it anymore. I break down in tears as my wife hands me the items we left leaning against the Jeep and forgot to put in the back. What a disaster!
At that point, I have a great excuse for not making it to church that morning...
Then my mind wanders back to the book of Job...
42:10 And the Lord made up to Job for all his losses, after he had made prayer for his friends: and all Job had before was increased by the Lord twice as much.
And then the miracles started to happen...
The $480 wheelchair cushion had a WIDE tire track across it yet there was no damage the the aluminum frame and special cushion materials. Next, I open the backpack with all of my essential items for the day. I pulled the camera out of the case and immediately noticed that the battery compartment door was hanging open and the camera body and lens had separated. The camera must have also gotten squeezed by the weight of the Jeep for all of that to pop loose! What a sinking feeling that thought was! Then I notice that nothing appears to be broken. I close the battery compartment door and screw back on the lens to the camera body. Snap a picture and voila; this camera still works.
PRAISE GOD!
That sneaky little serpent tried to derail a great day for me but failed.
What an awesome God we serve ! ! !
The miracles kept happening for the rest of the day. My wife received a confirmation on a touchy issue that she was struggling with the prior week from Pastor Mark's sermon that morning. More miracles continued to happen that day; unknown to my new friends that were blessing us more than they could have ever imagined.
Of course time flies when you are having fun and my wife then realizes late in the afternoon that I still did not have any needles for my insulin shot and the pharmacy was going to close before we could get there. Well you guessed it, we made the trip from Mike and Laura's home back down to Severn in a miraculous time span and arrived at the pharmacy with 5 minutes to spare. Since becomming ill a few years back, I have not been able to drive so my wife was the driver and I never looked at the speedometer. I'm positive that she was going the speed limit and God froze time while we "casually" made our way down the road to the pharmacy.
We finally get home about 6:30 PM Sunday evening. After the fabulous meal that Mike and Laura prepared for us coupled with some of the world's best deserts from Mary Ann and my wife, all without my insulin shots to keep my blood sugars down, I expected my sugars to be in the 400range; not good... As it turns out, I was in the low 200's; which is an excelent number for a diabetic in my situation. Not to mention that was yet another miracle. Nothing to worry about and Jesus healed me from the possibility of going into diabetic shock. TYJ!
What a day of miracles! And to think; I had a great excuse to miss church and the cookout as much as I had wanted to go. And I reflect...
If I had let my setbacks of the morning keep me away from church and the cookout; it was I that would have missed out and let the devil win another battle. But it was not meant to be. My wife and I would persevere,
10:36 For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised. 10:37 "For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and shall not tarry; 10:38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." 10:39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls.
God would bless us for our determination and...
To God, ALL the Glory ! ! !
Dave |
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| To add a comment to "My Excuse to Miss Church Last Sunday" |
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| June 11, 2007 |
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Wow! So glad everything went well Dave.. so this is confirmation that the C3 folks are actually real people??!! :) Where are the pictures? What a terrific verse from Hebrews, made especially powerful in the context of your blog: "..we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls." Amen! |
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| June 11, 2007 |
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Pastor Dave, I'm so glad you and your wife did not let that nasty old serpant stop you from joining your C3 family!!! We were SO blessed by your visit!!!
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| June 11, 2007 |
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I agree yesterday was a blast! Fun, fun, fun! And Mike has a very large pool and enough room for more large dinner parties! The kids had so much fun in the pool. There was my babysitter :)
I have a few pictures, but I took them with my cell phone and I am a terrible photographer. MaryAnn may have some better ones. She was using a digital camera. So this is all I have to offer..... I had already posted the first picture on Mike's Dinner Blog.
 MaryAnn, Pastor Dave, Steve, Mike and Pastor Dan on the side.
 Mike
 Pastor Dave and Laura (aka Lucy) |
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| June 11, 2007 |
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| It was great meeting you, Dave. I look forward to spending more time getting to know you better. |
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| June 11, 2007 |
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I had one more thought here...You didn't miss church, you were with us :) And you didn't even miss CCC!
Oh No...I am going to get it again!!!
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| June 11, 2007 |
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Dave & Theresa, I feel like we've known you guys for years! What a great day Sunday was! You are certainly welcome for the meal, but I just wanna say "thank you" for gracing us by accepting the invitation. We adore you and hope to see ya'll again! ~mike (n laura) |
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| June 12, 2007 |
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| What a great story! Thanks for sharing it! There have been many times I would have missed something...church, bible study or some other church function if I would have given in to the problems that occured. Sometimes I do give in, especially if I am sick, but when I don't give in, I am blessed beyond measure. God Bless you Dave. |
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| June 12, 2007 |
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| Wow those burgers look good !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| June 12, 2007 |
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One more thing........................
You can now smash the serpent with the WhompIt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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