Mike Paschall . com

I’m on a writing sabbatical for the summer, but this one just kinda showed up.  -mdp-

“If you are slack in the day of distress, your strength is limited.”  Proverbs 24:10, NAS

It’s been a couple of days since the birth of my third grandchild.   Daughter #2 knows how to get‘er done.  Hospital by 7:30am, water broken, Pitocin drip by 8:30am, Epidural at 9:00am, pushing by 12:15pm, crying baby 15 minutes later.  The girl did the same thing with twins on her first go-a-round.  It was like clockwork!  So we do the traditional thing and stand at the thick-glass, watching the nursery aids pull and yank on the new kid for bath time.   All the fingers and toes are in place along with a nice head of dark hair to compliment that beautifully smooth skin.  Most newborns look like miniature, pink, old people.  Our guy is a beauty.  So it’s high fives all around, lots of tears and hugs among the family.  God surely outdid himself this time.  It was quite the show of how our new prince needed to make his entry!  Time to ice the Champagne and toast our little man.  Party on… until she showed up.

“We hear a clicking noise.  We want to keep him in the nursery and have him checked out by one of the specialist.  It could be nothing or it could be a problem.  We need to find out.”  She was uncertain and uncomfortable and we all knew it.  A potential heart issue wasn’t on anyone’s radar.  Every molecule of festive air was sucked out of that room in about 10 seconds.  Fear barged in like he owned the joint!  As quickly as our hearts had leapt when we heard Lewis belch out his first declaration of life, so did our heart sink in that sobering moment.  Grabbing my sobbing daughter’s hand as she shook in her kneeling husband’s chest was almost too much to bear.  All I had, all that any of us had was, “we need to pray!”  I choked out some thing, a few words… not sure what, but it didn’t really matter.  We just needed Him to know that we needed Him.  It wasn’t bold nor grandiose.  Honestly, it was nothing more than the collective groan of our utter distress and fear.

Our story turned out positive.  No issues for our little man and he’s home and doing well.  But, I thought about this passage for a countless number of times in the past 48 hours.  This little incident scared the hell into us.  My family is full of strong and faith-filled warriors, but fear absolutely cold-cocked us for a moment!  Fortunately, we recovered enough to inch closer to Him.  In hindsight, maybe we all should consider the possibility that our prayers, for those who can’t pray for themselves, might be one of the loveliest things that brothers and sisters in Christ do for each other!  People get stuck in pain, stuck in fear and shut down to faith.  I see this differently than I used too.  Religious piousness would make “prayer” or the Bible a fix all to our every problem.  It’s not the ritual we need, but the connection with HIM!  If it’s with prayer… so be it!  So here is the lesson:  flex your strength or someone else’s!  But, do something.  Pray!

-MDP-

Besides the fact that we love what we do, see the world, disciple hungry hearts and watch amazing transformations on a regular basis, every now and then we’ll get a reminder about the real stuff that goes down in TWR community that just makes us smile.  The following was waiting in my email inbox this morning:

Mike,
Last night was freakin sweet.  Karaline, girl who grew up catholic and feels like she really received assurance of salvation this week asked if she could be baptized last night.  We didn’t have anywhere to do it necessarily, but we decided we were going to make it happen.  We found a park on our little map that looked like it had 2 ponds, so the whole squad went there last night at 9pm.  I have never seen somebody so excited to get baptized.  She was giddy and jumping around the whole way there.  She was so excited to share with the squad what God is doing in her life.

So here comes the crazy part.  Besides the fact that we were in a park at about 9:30pm going into a pond that we probably shouldn’t have, it had concrete sides and I have no idea how deep it was.  I had to have Jamos lower me down and hold onto me, and Jeff had to lower Karaline so that I could grab onto her and baptize her.  It was epic.  Most incredible baptism I’ve ever been a part of.  Tomorrow or something I’ll send you pictures.  It was such a huge celebration time for the squad, and the Spirit was just flowing.  It was just awesome!

Thanks for coming down here.  Your presence was huge and it benefited our squad so much.  Love you man!
Bill 

See… you’re smiling… I’m smiling!  For those of you who have our back, pray for us, give us money or send support, thank you for your tangible love!  We feel it every day and it’s not a small thing to us!  Patti and I are so grateful and honored by everything you send our way!  You are crazy good to us! xoxo

-MDP-