The return trip home from the Florida gospel meeting in Jacksonville was great! Praise the Lord for two beautiful ladies confessing their sins before God on the throne. NO DELAYS this time which is an A+! : ) Let me explain what had happened the night after I arrived home from Dulles. Yes, it is a long letter but it poses as an example from the lesson I taught. If you remember the 4 C's during bible study last Sunday: CRISIS, COMMITMENT, CONVERSION, COOPERATION based on the Genesis story about Jacob and his struggle with God and man. And have you heard of the saying, "What goes around, comes around!" In fact, it has happened to us! We had a CRISIS that very morning (Monday, Sept. 20th) just after I arrived from Jacksonville and we had just gotten into bed. 2 1/2 hours later (1:00 a.m.), our middle daughter, Angela, fell out of her bed (top bunk bed) and landed her head on a bookshelf hitting her mouth and knocking out two teeth (adult tooth and baby tooth) and had a big gash around the lower lip and a gash inside in her upper gums. She was excessively bleeding. We woke up alarmed and immediately I had to get dressed, picked her up and took her to the ER. I cannot tell you how many neurons were exploding in my mind, heart was racing to seek the Lord's help and alot of questions such as "Why did this happen? What should I have done to prevent this? and the most popular question we ever ask is, "Why me?"" She had to have stitches, oral surgery, all on the same day! The oral surgery was the WORST for Angela. Though I am profoundly deaf and didn't wear my hearing aid that day, I could hear her scream from the top of her lung for mercy! Tears were flowing down from my eyes as I held her hands in mine. I was praying and praying and praying to God to give Angela strength and comfort! One of our dear friend and a Christian stood by us interpreting for Michelle and me. Michelle was just as upset as I was but angry for this had happened. Indeed, I was angry inside but we poured out our hearts to God into Angela's life.
As the CRISIS was gradually decreasing, we talked to God asking many questions. We even told Him that we are just as committed (COMMITMENT) as we ever are. I am not saying that God caused this CRISIS to get our attention, NO! But God allowed all things to happen so that we can experience the PAIN that leads to change. If you remember during the class, "The greater the pain is, the less we experience the fear of change." Pain enables us to change scenarios, change attitudes. After we returned home, Angela was resting very nicely and recuperating wonderfully! Thanks to the Lord for enabling us to persevere under extreme trials, especially Angela!. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! She was a brave, brave girl and she still is! I just cannot tell you how amazed I am to see Angela's courage to overcome this trial! Then we went straight to her bedroom to see the "scenario" of all that might have happened. We, immediately, began to CHANGE the bedroom! We got rid of the bunk bed (top one) and moved the shelf out of harms way (we just never thought it would come to this!). This reminds me of God changing Jacob's name to Israel. Out with the old and in with the new. The bedroom looks much better, danger-free!
Pain and crisis enables us to look up to our God on the throne! We confessed (CONFESSION) our sins. There's no one like You, God! We are no better than You! You are our Lord and King. To You, we bow down and worship You! To You, we give You our love! We want no better friend than You! One of our member of the Fairfax church said, "Love is PAINFUL!" I must agree with him and this reminds me of God's love for us that it is so PAINFUL that He is willing to give us His Son to be crucified for our sins! Can you imagine God crying as His Son was being crucified on the cross and all bloodied!? We can! It broke our hearts seeing our dear Angela on the table as the doctors worked on her.
Do you think I want to see Angela hurt again? NO WAY! Do you think we would change the bedroom back by putting the bunk bed up and putting Angela back up on there? NO WAY! I made the change to avoid a recurring crisis! This leads to the final word, "COOPERATION". We made the change and we will stick with it. Parallel to this, we know we are all sinners and Jesus died for our sins. Once we learn this good news (through a CRISIS, after a CRISIS or even no CRISIS), we are committed to an eternally-changed-living! We confess that we need God everyday! We must cooperate with God by sticking to that commitment! If we lead ourselves astray and return to our old sin, it is like Angela falling down all over again injuring her mouth! Are we out of our minds to allow such a thing! No way. Just as this Scripture says in 2 Peter 2:21-22 (NIV), "It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." So we cooperated with the fact that we are staying with this change! And Christians cooperated with the fact that they are staying with their change! Pray with me: Lord, thank You for everything in life and thank You for the pain we endure. With this, it helps us keep our life in check with You. We are determined to keep this loving relationship forever! We ask that the next pain we have to endure (great and small) will help us build our Christian character and that we be an example to those in the world. May we continue to give You all the glory! Thank You for being with us. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
In addition to this, please pray for one of the member's friend's friend whose one week old baby is having seizures and is now in NICU. They are devastated about this and need our MUCH NEEDED prayers! The deaf couple's names are Sean and Tracy. Thank you..
Show Jesus,
Mark and Michelle Lowenstein
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