Thanksgiving Fire

A house fire is a devastating thing in so many ways. I remember watching as my brother's house was nearly completely gutted by a fire. It was like watching your life go up in flames. From that time on, everything is dated by the fire. "Yeah that was before the fire when...." Though everyone was fine, there were so many life memories that weren't. Trophies, pictures, musical instruments(I kno that hurts Greg to think about it), and a house.

Today my family and I were traveling across the Tennessee River to my mom and dad's to share an evening with them and my brother's family. We passed by a neighborhood where a family lives from Creekside. They are Steve and Paula Elkins. Their son and his family were in the house asleep. Their son Will came in and woke the mother up and was wanting to go home. When Andy, Will's father awoke, he heard the smoke alarms begin to go off. When he opened the door where the alarm was sounding, the fire was already out of hand. They all got out of the house without injury and called 911. The fire fighters were able to put out the fire, but not without great damage and loss. I don't at this time know what the extent of the damage is.

They had good insurance and the house will be built back and eventually things will return to normal for them, but I am asking all of you to pray for them. They are people of such faith and I know that God will bring them through this. More than anything, they are thankful that none of their kids or grandkids were hurt. Praise God for that!

"Open"

Sunday night was a wonderful time together with a few of our people at Creekside. We have begun on the third Sunday evening of each month a time of worship and fellowship that is great. We did not really call it anything at the beginning (October). We just announced that if any of our adults wanted to come together for a time of open worship and fellowship we were meeting. The number is small, which for this particular thing is a good thing. We now call it simply "OPEN." That is what it is---a time to be open with God and one another.

During this gathering, we open the floor to anyone who would like to talk, pray, share, sing, praise---you get the picture. Last night it was like pulling teeth to get the sharing started. Usually, once it gets started, it is a really good thing. I had given up hope of getting anything started and had even asked one of our shepherds to lead a prayer thinking this was going to end the night. After this prayer one of our young adults shared an experience he had at a charismatic church in the past.

To give you the really short version, his story led him to tell of the preacher at this church nearly touching his head and he fell backwards not knowing what had happened. He shared about being skeptical about this kind of thing in the past and had settled in his mind that nothing would happen to him if he just requested prayer. He said that he felt "led" by God to go forward and then this happened to him. This kind of story told to predominantly "c of c" people in our area usually yields bad fruit, if not immediately, soon afterward.

The really good part of this whole blog comes next. I was so impressed with our people's response to him. They shared so many encouraging things. No one tried to explain to him how an experience like this could not have come from God or that is was all emotionalism. I really appreciate one statement that was made. Someone said, "Who am I to limit what God can do?" He also said that he knew people who, if someone raised the dead, they would claim that he wasn't really dead to start with.

No matter how one feels about another's story, I hope that I can learn through this that I don't have to be the judge of other people's experiences. I also do not want to ever be guilty again of limiting what God can do in this world! That is a freeing thought and feeling.