morethanSunday

I am flabbergasted.

Thanks to Katie and Felicia for commenting and for all the others that have swung by and haven’t commented but have taken away something.  We all have stories and let’s use them to give the glory to God.

There’s one thing last night that I saw but didn’t mention last time around.  While the paramedics and fire fighters were attending to those injured on scene, Tim Neufeld came around and made sure that everyone was alright, making himself available to whoever needed it.  He asked my friend Rebecca if she was alright, and she was her usual self despite the chaos around her.  She bit her lip in pain, winced, smiled and said she was perfectly fine.  Gabe and I were by Rebecca looking after her.  We both looked into his face and could see a brokeness that leaked through.  Gabe asked if he was alright.  His eyes were red, and he bit his lip and it looked like he fought hard to fight back the tears.  One of his family members came around and took him away in a loving embrace.

I just watched the news report from ctv about what happened yesterday and am in complete shock and awe at how big and how good God is.  From where I was, when I saw the lighting and speaker rig come down, I seriously feared that the hulking mass of both rig and speaker would come straight down on someone.  After watching the newscast, I’m convinced that either the conditions were accidentally perfect or something absolutely divine happened last night (I’m leaning more heavily on the latter).  It was the rig that held pews from tumbling into the hole and onto people.  Whenever I retell the story of what I saw, there’s a visceral pining in me that comes out to say that it could have been worse; I couldn’t explain how but I knew it could have.  I thought it was just me pragmatically trying to justify the good of the situation but God comes around, bonks me on the head and says, “hey big guy, I have this on lock.”

Young people testified in front of a camera broadcasting to the whole city that their God was a God that loves people.  They testified that speakers fell perfectly beside them and not on them.  Dominique, one of my friends that fell through the floor, and experienced this too.  A big monitor landed right beside her and that was too perfect not to be divine.  The rig holding the speakers and lights dodged (no… the semantics are wrong, it’s too random, chance-filled) missed the hole that people fell through and as a result, bones were broken instead of lives taken away.  Now, don’t misquote me to say that I’m downplaying the fact that some were severely injured.  My heart breaks for my brothers and sisters are experiencing pain, both physical and emotional right now, especially for them that know that unknown young lady that was in the hospital yesterday who might not be able to walk again.

Katie mentioned that she’s still praying and we shouldn’t stop that.  We are witnesses, like Felicia said, and witnesses testify the truth.  Let’s love on the people that were hurt and meet their need.  Let’s be Christ-like Christians.

Blessings to all of you.

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