BRING IT ON!

Hello everyone! Well, yesterday was Sunday and that means church. When we were first married and Sunday would come around, my husband Justin would always say to me on Saturday before bed, "Tomorrow is church! Yay!" So yesterday was supposed to be the day that my friend Nate came to our church with his family. I had been looking forward to it all week! I had a dream in the middle of the night though that Nate called me and told me that he wasn't coming to church and we had a little "tiff" about it over the phone. Then I wake up in real life and go to church. I walk into our Sunday School room with my husband and there lies a note over the back of a chair stating: "Wendy & Justin, Nate's mother called me this morning and told me that Nate had a seizure and will not be making it to church this morning. He is okay, but he is exhausted and needs his rest." I thought, "Whoa! That is weird!" and was very sad that Nate wouldn't be in the late worship service with his family. So, then we went to late worship after Sunday School and Nate was there. Well, not physically, but this is what I mean. We had a guest preacher who preached on John Chapter 5. Go ahead, look it up. "Here a great number of disabled people used to lie---the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, 'Do you want to get well?' 'Sir,' the invalid replied, 'I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred...' Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.' At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked." When I heard these verses, tears welled up in my eyes because this preacher began to indirectly tell Nate's story without Nate even being there. He said, "This man had come to the end of himself." It warmed my heart to know that Satan had tried to keep Nate from our church yesterday, but he made a way in anyway. Well, after church I knew that I had to tell Nate about the service and I did. We had a birthday/thank you/life celebration dinner for him last night and Nate's mother told me, "I told Nate that Satan is attacking him because he doesn't want Nate to be close to God. " and you know what Nate told her? He said, "Well, you can just tell Satan to BRING IT ON!" Hahahaha! Then later he said, "Mom, I'm serious, I'm not afraid of him, he can just BRING IT ON!" and I found myself wishing that I had the same confidence. Then I realized, I guess I really do...I just haven't used it yet. O me of little faith.