Live til it hurts.

This morning, while checking my phone, I received a notification on one of my social media pages. The notification was from a couple serving God in Asia that Misty and I are close to. The notification was from a picture of their beautiful daughter lying in a hospital bed. Her platelets had dropped extremely low and the doctors were unsure why. They need her platelet levels to come up to where they could test her for some very serious diseases. After calling Misty to tell her, I immediately started praying. Now I'm not an overly emotional guy, it's just not in my DNA. But I felt my self becoming choked up at the thought of this family that we love so much going through a serious situation like this. I was a little surprised by it but then I thought that it made complete sense for me to feel that way. Our family and this family have "done life together." We've celebrated weddings, mourned deaths, and rejoiced at the births of children together. We view their kids as our niece and nephew. We love this little girl and her brother as much as we do our own biological nieces. We have no physical blood relations yet our hearts hurt when theirs do. The reason our hearts hurt is because of our love for them that is rooted in our common relationship with Christ. So technically we are related by blood, the blood of Christ.

This mornings events caused me to reflect on why I responded the way I did. It was because Misty and I had poured ourselves into this family and they had done the same. One hope that we have for enduring the difficulties of this life is to rely on those people around us that we are "doing life" with. They are the ones that we can call and will stop what they're doing to help us. They are the ones who have celebrated with us and cried with us. We need to be pouring ourselves into the lives of the people we worship with. We need to have a group to fellowship with. This group can draw strength from each other. They can support each other in the difficult times and rejoice together in the great times. Church is the best place to find a network of support. But just sitting in the pews on a Sunday won't give you the connection you need. I encourage you to get involved in a small group, life group or Sunday School class where you can grow as a believer, develop your faith and build relationships for life. Then you need to live until it hurts. That means getting involved in the lives of each other in a way that when they hurt, you hurt. When they celebrate, you celebrate. God built man for community not solitude. We thrive physically and spiritually in community. So get in there and start to live until it hurts.

Please be in prayer for this missionary family that we know. At this time they don't know what has caused the drop in platelets but our friends are asking for the doctors to have wisdom to figure it out. Thank you for your prayers.

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