I already know today will be a ‘feel good’ Saturday because I’ve run my five miles and there is nothing else on my ‘to do’ list for the day till we head for Mass tonight. 🙂 Granted there is plenty I could do but I am giving myself a ‘feel good’ Saturday….everyone is out of the house so I have THE couch and TV to myself for a few hours.
Just because I’m being lazy doesn’t mean I’m not recognizing the ‘show up’ moments…even on a lazy day God is all around. For instance, the conversation I had with my 5 year old nephew about who the devil is. What is amazing about Ray is that even though he is not at church every Sunday or entrenched in any type of faith he knows who God is.
Click here and watch this short clip for Ray’s explanation of ‘Knowing God’.
When I went to visit my sister a month ago I had taped that little segment because I was impressed with Ray at dinner. We were served our meal and before any one could eat he made sure we blessed the food. I thought possibly that my sister was going back to church because she had been very involved with a Christian church a few years before but she looked at me and said that she was just as baffled as I was because she hadn’t really been instilling this within them.
It just goes to show that God is going to reveal himself to the young and old in a variety of ways – even as a ‘brain storm’. 🙂 It was a joy to explain to him, in the best way a five year old can understand, who the devil is and to focus on the fact that he doesn’t have to worry about the devil because he has God and his angels protecting him and helping him to always ‘do good’. And I encouraged him to keep praying and listening to God and the good things he tells him to do. By the end of the conversation he said, “I don’t like the devil.” I agreed wholeheartedly.
The other thing I wanted to share was an email I received this morning that is a true testament to how LOVE can HEAL. So I will close with the body of the email and please click on the YouTube link after….it is definitely worth watching and will strengthen your ‘feel good’ Saturday.
Inmate Football
There was an unusual high school football game played in
Grapevine, Texas . The game was between Grapevine Faith Academy and the
Gainesville State School . Faith is a Christian school and Gainesville
State School is located within a maximum security correction facility.
Gainesville State School has 14 players. They play every game
on the road. Their record was 0-8. They’ve only scored twice. Their 14
players are teenagers who have been convicted of crimes ranging from drugs
to assault to robbery. Most had families who had disowned them. They wore
outdated, used shoulder pads and helmets. Faith Academy was 7-2. They had
70 players, 11 coaches, and the latest equipment.
Chris Hogan, the head coach at Faith Academy, knew the
Gainesville team would have no fans and it would be no contest, so he
thought, “What if half of our fans and half of our cheerleaders, for one
night only, cheered for the other team?” He sent out an email to the
faithful asking them to do just that. “Here’s the message I want you to
send,” Hogan wrote. “You’re just as valuable as any other person on the
planet.”
Some folks were confused and thought he was nuts. One player
said, “Coach, why are we doing this?” Hogan said, “Imagine you don’t have a
home life, no one to love you, no one pulling for you. Imagine that
everyone pretty much had given up on you. Now, imagine what it would feel
like and mean to you for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.”
The idea took root. On the night of the game, imagine the
surprise of those 14 players when they took the field and there was a banner
the cheerleaders had made for them to crash through. The visitors’ stands
were full. The cheerleaders were leading cheers for them. The fans were
calling them by their names. Isaiah, the quarterback-middle linebacker
said, “I never in my life thought I would hear parents cheering to tackle
and hit their kid. Most of the time, when we come out, people are afraid of
us. You can see it in their eyes, but these people are yelling for us.
They knew our names.”
Faith won the game, and after the game the teams gathered at the
50-yard line to pray. That’s when Isaiah, the teenage convict-quarterback
surprised everybody and asked if he could pray. he prayed, “Lord,
I don’t know what just happened so I don’t know how or who to say thank you
to, but I never knew there were so many people in the world who cared about
us.” On the way back to the bus, under guard, each one of the players was
handed a burger, fries, a coke, candy, a Bible, and an encouraging letter
from the players from Faith Academy …
What an incredible act of Christian witness and kindness and
goodness that was. Proverbs 11:17 says, “Your own soul is nourished when
you are kind.” Proverbs 3:27 says, “Do not withhold good when it is in your
power to act.”
Be kind to someone this week. Be kind to every person you meet.
You might be amazed at what God will do with a simple act of kindness.
Blessings
Shannon