Sunday, January 27, 2008 Worship Set

I don't know what's gotten into me lately but I have been grooving to hymns. Perhaps it was the discussion with my parents requesting that I mix in some traditional hymns with the contemporary music or one of the members acknowledging that she really appreciated our rendition of Jesus Paid It All. Nonetheless, I busted another one out this week for our offering.

Here was our worship set for last weekend:

Call to worship:

• One Way (Hillsong United)
  

Worship:

• Glorious God (New Life Worship)
• Almighty God (Tim Hughes)
• Consuming Fire (Tim Hughes)
  

Offering:

• I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous) arranged by Chris Tomlin
  

Sunday, January 20, 2008 Worship Set

I will admit that the first service felt awkward for some reason today. I can't put my finger on it exactly but it felt like the church was watching a concert instead of worshipping with us. Some of the songs we played today were a little heavy on guitar solos but nonetheless I believe the Holy Spirit can lead a guitar solo.

The other funny thing about our set is that it was 100% New Life Worship meets Desperation Band. I guess I had a thing for New Life Church today for some reason.

Here's our worship set...

Call to worship:

• Glorious God (New Life Worship)

Worship:

• Endlessly (Desperation Band)
• This Is Our God (New Life Worship)
• Here In Your Presence (New Life Worship)

Offering:

• Maker of Heaven (Desperation Band)
  

Blog Accountability and Worship Sets

In my last post I mentioned my New Year's resolutions which were to...what were they again? Oh yeah...live healthier spiritually, physically and emotionally and...blog/journal more.

I was thinking about combining the two thoughts into one by keeping track of my progress online, creating accountability of sorts.

My biggest focal points for living a healthier spiritual life would be my disciplines of reading God's word and praying.

Living a healthy physical life would entail that I would watch my diet, exercise regularly, and get enough rest.

And honestly, I think hitting the first two goals results in being emotionally healthy.

In thinking about these goals recently, I think it would help me to track my progress online and show my growth...so that's what I am going to do. If I didn't hit the mark, then I will admit it. I'm not going to exercise every day and there will be times when I stay up past my bedtime. But I think over time I will grow closer to achieving these goals.

Lastly, I thought I might start posting our setlists out on my blog in case any worship leaders stumble across it and are looking for new songs to check out. I know I'd benefit from posts like that so I am going try it myself.

New Year's Resolutions

Do you make New Year's resolutions? I don't really officially write them down but I am cognizant of them in my head.

Now that I am nearing my mid-30s, my health is one of my biggest concerns. I really would like to exercise more and eat a healthier diet. It was more or less confirmed tonight as I listened to a podcast on our way back from Minnesota and as I shifted uncomfortably in my seat from not feeling well. My back is out of whack and I feel like I am coming down with an ulcer or something, honestly. I was stressed out from driving in crazy winds and drifting snow. So as I reflected on how I was feeling and after watching one of the best movies over the weekend called "The Great Debaters," I hereby solemnly resolve to:

1. ...live healthier spiritually, physically and emotionally.
2. ...blog/journal more.

That's about it. Anything above that would make my resolutions too complicated. =)

Here's to 2008!

The Drummer...Girl

I would venture to say that I am a little stressed about Christmas since it's less than 2 weeks ago. I know I have a lot to accomplish before now and then but it seems like when that happens I procrastinate and become more apathetic.

I am wigging out about putting together my first-ever Christmas Eve service, and of course I feel like it's going to be very monumental. One of the biggest challenges I've had so far this year is finding a drummer to sit in with us for our worship service. All four of my drummers have commitments so I asked a long list of drummers from our sister church, which is much, much bigger. I think at the weekend I was 0-10 which is easy for me to relate to considering I am a Minnesota Timberwolves and Iowa State Cyclones fan.

Every weekend I struggle what to say when it comes to the offering. We want first-time visitors to feel welcome and we don't want them to think we're after their money. After all, I think besides us Christians being major hypocrites the second reason for not attending church would be that there's this perception that we're after their money so we can build a big 'ol building. So this weekend, I looked at Christmas songs and zeroed in on the "Drummer Boy" which is a story about a musician that has nothing to bring to Jesus except the gift of music. So I shared the lyrics of this song with the church before offering and then tactfully (I am far from that) asked if anyone in the church wanted to bring their percussion gift before Jesus this year for Christmas since we needed a drummer.

God provides. After the service, I found my drummer and I am totally excited about HER playing for us. First of all, I love the fact that our drummer is a young lady since it seems like this is a male dominated role. Secondly, I love the fact that our drummer is a freshman in high school. And thirdly, it's our lead guitarist's daughter so I know it will make the night all that more special.

Pray for Colorado

My heart is broken over what happened in Colorado over a short period of time. Some young adults were gunned down at a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) and then a few hours later some folks from New Life Church were gunned down in their parking lot. Thankfully a security officer at the church was able to respond quickly...otherwise it could have been much worse.

YWAM really hits home for me because I have some friends of mine who are missionaries with YWAM...stationed in Jamaica but currently serving in China.

And New Life Church Worship and The Desperation Band are probably two of my favorite worship teams. That church has already gone through so much in such a short period of time.

Because YWAM and New Life Church have given so much (even to me personally), I think we need to give back in prayer and support of these ministries.

Last week as I was reading from Exodus 17, I was thinking that if we approach the cross with a humble and worshipful heart, we can overcome anything. The great thing about these verses is that Moses wasn’t alone…Aaron and Hur stood by his side and lifted him up when he was drained…when he had nothing more to give. (see below)

Exodus 17:8-13

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands."

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

Stand strong, New Life Church and YWAM. We will be at your side, lifting your hands so that you may overcome this tragedy. We’re praying for you.

Jesus, please send your grace, love and compassion to this ministries and the communities of Colorado Springs and Denver.

God provides

Our humble little worship team has been borrowing space from Kingdom House of Prayer the last 9 months. They have been so generous and gracious to us in loaning us the space on Wednesday nights to allow us to practice and fellowship as a team. While us practicing there on Wednesday nights doesn't necessarily fit into their vision for 24/7 worship and prayer, I was happy that we had opportunities to volunteer down there for various events.

KHOP recently revamped their schedule and is pushing more towards that 24/7 worship and prayer model. Unfortunately for us it meant that we needed to start looking for a new practice space. We've been down this road before and truthfully I kind of like the adventure of it all. In fact, I had been spouting off to a fellow member of our ministry to have some fun and faith when it comes to overcoming these obstacles. Little did I know I would be facing that same challenge myself.

So I put out some calls to some of the churches we partnered with over the summer at Ankeny's annual Summerfest. We had played a half-hour set with three other churches during the peak of summer at the Ankeny band shell. So I figured I would call them up and see if they would be willing to loan us some practice space since we're technically nomads...a church without its own space.

The United Methodist Church responded and within a week's time, we had a new home.

While the space and the media equipment isn't ideal, God provided nonetheless. It allows us to get together during the weekday to practice and fellowship, to prepare for the weekend's worship services. It's located in Ankeny so I don't have to worry about the band traveling too far from home. And honestly it's nice to partner with a church in the area...to share the same vision of reaching the community of Ankeny, which only 30% attends church. Hopefully it will be the start of a great friendship between churches.

Grace Like Rain

This weekend's sermon topic was about "Grace" and our worship team played "Grace Like Rain" by Todd Agnew as our offering song. The song mixes the traditional hymn "Amazing Grace" with a powerful chorus written by Agnew.

Provided our worship team didn't practice this week (that's another story) they hit a home run during this song. The Holy Spirit was upon the team and it turned out to be a very moving song to play.

I listened to Pastor Mike's sermon about grace and one comment he made that really struck a chord with me was, "God liberally give us grace." Now before all the legalistic theologians respond to this post, let me clarify that he was saying that no matter where you were in life, God's grace is still good enough for you. You could be a murderer, a rapist, a slanderer, or whatever.

At the second service as we finished Grace Like Rain, we walked out into the lobby of the school and the sky opened up and poured out a beautiful rain over us. All I could think about was God liberally raining down His grace on us.

Have mercy on me a sinner.

New Life Worship

If there's one record that I can't seem to stop listening to, I would have to say it's New Life Worship's My Savior Lives.

When I am in worship leader mode, I try to find new and fresh music that the church would respond to. Most worship CDs I would hard pressed to find 1-2 doable songs we could utilize during a worship service. In this case, I would venture to say that most of the songs I would consider using.

Some of my favorites tunes of this record include:

• My Savior Lives
• Endlessly
• Here in Your Presence
• Your Name
• Promises
• Live to Worship
• This is Our God

We've already played "My Savior Lives" a couple of times and though it's a high arrangement, it has a ton of energy and the church responds.

We also have been jamming to "This Is Our God" and are introducing this song into our regular worship this weekend. Tomorrow night I am using it during a Harp & Bowl worship set so we'll see how it does. I knew this song was a winner when my 5 year-old boys asked me if I would sing it back to them so they could learn the chorus.

"Here In Your Presence" is a beautiful song if you can stick with it. I made my wife listen to the song today and it didn't resonate too well with her because it took too long to build. I tried to reason with her saying that it was structured much like "The Stand" but she has some merit in thinking that. The bridge on "Here In Your Presence" is quite awesome though as they repeat over and over...

"Wonderful. Beautiful. Glorious. Matchless in every way..."

"Your Name" is a song that explodes near the end. There's a part in there where they cry out over and over, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" Even my two year-old picked up on it right away and started yelling it with them.

"Live to Worship" almost sounds like Chris Tomlin wrote it. It just seems to fit his style...similar to "Made to Worship" or "Holy Is the Lord."

And how can you not love "Endlessly?" One of my worshippers on our team said that it's one of our church's anthems.

So go out and buy this CD...you won't be disappointed.

My life as a worship leader

I'm not really sure what I am going to write, but I wanted to write so we'll see where my fingers lead on this keyboard...

Almost a year ago, I received an e-mail from our worship ministry team at Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines, Iowa asking if I would consider helping with worship at our satellite church in Ankeny, Iowa. Because at the time I was going through a season of busyness and purging distractions from my life, I ended up deleting the e-mail. Thankfully my wife was also on the e-mail thread.

Because I felt like I was trying to protect my time spent with my family, I was a little surprised when she cornered me later that week and said, "I think that we should volunteer at NorthBranch Church to get them through the holidays."

The next thing I knew, I volunteered my time to help with their only weekend worship service on Saturdays and a few remaining dates for the Alpha Course. Despite lacking fancy media technology the mother church owned, my transition to NorthBranch was pretty easy. I honestly walked into a great situation with a talented backline that was hungry to worship.

It didn't dawn on me how much the church had grown on me until the last weekends of leading a member told me they should create a permanent name tag for me. I stopped writing my name on the sticky name tag and thought about that for a second but said, "Actually this is my last weekend here leading worship."

Those words really sunk in. At the time, the church had called a pretty dynamic pastor named Scott Rains that really spoke to my heart. Our families were bonded together already and the church simply felt like home. But surely God didn't want us to drive a half hour each way to church. Or maybe He did.

After a couple of conversations over coffee at Java G's and some arm twisting by both Pastor Scott and Pastor Molly, they laid out the offer to come to NorthBranch to develop and grow the worship ministry. I thought they were nuts. Surely God didn't want us to drive a half hour each way to church. Or maybe He did.

God must speak to my wife pretty regularly because later in the week she said, "You're going to take that worship leader role at NorthBranch aren't you? This is something we're going to do aren't we?"

I replied, "We are?" I figured she would think it was nuts to drive a half hour each way to church. She didn't think that way.

"Yeah, I think we should," she said.

I started my full-time unpaid position at the beginning of the year and I haven't looked back. Honestly I've been surprised that I haven't burned out or grown bored. Quite the opposite has happened. I seem more engaged with worship and my role. It actually agonizes me when we're on vacation and I have to miss church. I miss seeing the people, hearing the message, following the Holy Spirit in worship.

I'm glad my wife listens to God and is obedient to Him. It's been an incredible journey so far NorthBranch Church...I can't wait to see where God leads us from here.

Invisible Children: The Proof 2006

Tonight my wife came home from Immersion in a mess. Justin showed the Invisible Children video at the church service and it broke her heart into a million pieces. She echoes what was said tonight, "Something must be done. It's time to move."

Thanks for taking a risk and showing the video tonight.

Broken Leg

Every time I hurt one of my kids by accident, I can't help but feel what God felt like when He watched his Son hang on a cross. He must have wanted to switch places with Jesus at the drop of a hat. If God has fingernails, I'm sure he was biting them...or He was pacing in heaven while He tried to overcome the terrible butterflies in His stomach.

Yeah, that was me on Friday night. We drove to my sister's house and Logan crumpled on the trampoline as he and I jumped together. I knew immediately it wasn't good. And several hours later, the doctors at the ER confirmed that he has a buckled fracture of the tibia.

As I mowed the lawn tonight, I thought about how I wished I could rewind time and do that night over again...how I wish I could trade places with him. I thought about all of the things I would consider doing to trade places with him. I stopped short of sawing off my arm (yeah, I think weird things) because I wanted both of my arms to be able to hug my kids.

Anyway, if you could keep Logan in your prayers I would appreciate it.

Missed Appointment?

We just spent the week on vacation primarily visiting my in-laws in Nashville. It was very relaxing and worth the long drive to Tennessee.

While we were there, my father-in-law lined up an appointment for me to meet with a small business owner who was interested in having me develop a website for his business. We left at 9:30 and drove the half-hour to his office and chatted along the way. I got to see parts of the city and countryside that I've never seen before on the way down.

When we arrived, we found the door unlocked, a candle burning and a puppy roaming the office freely. There wasn't a sign of "Mike" anywhere. My father-in-law gave him a call and it turned out that he blew us off to check out some potential business.

I more or less laughed in disbelief and chalked it up to the way people do things in the south. And I thought about how I just wasted an hour in the car for a missed appointment.

However on the way back to my in-laws' house, we passed a cemetery along the road. For a split second, my eyes fell upon three people holding hands and praying. It was one of the most moving and beautiful images I had seen all week. A sudden sense of peace fell over me and I smiled thinking how God didn't want me to meet with Mike but to see this image of his children praying to him.

The Big Dream Gathering

So one of my friends, Mitch Matthews from "Do You Q", organized this awesome event back in May called The Big Gathering. It was a way of connecting a few hundred people in Des Moines to chase after their dreams. Mitch is a dreamer but he also chases after his dreams. I think so many of us have let too many people tell us that our dreams are silly or can't be accomplished...and unfortunately we've listened to them. Mitch is working to help people overcome those fears and has been an incredible encourager and resource provider.

If you visit the site BigDreamGathering.com you'll read and hear dreams as complicated as starting a new business to as simple as riding a roller coaster for the first time. It's a beautiful thing!

This week, Brad Jorgensen, edited and posted my video out on the site. My dream is to design, develop and distribute Christian parody t-shirts. I think the Christian body needs to NOT take itself so seriously and these shirts are the perfect way to communicate that message. Furthermore, they are great conversation starters. So here's my dream...I guess it's time to start chasing after it.

Rocky Mountain National Park

We just got back from a wonderful vacation to Colorado to visit Rocky Mountain National Park and to partake in our 2nd family reunion. Since we were going to such a scenic area of the US, I thought I would surprise the boys by tossing in their digital cameras that their grandfather bought for them this year at Christmas. They honestly haven't received that much use so I thought they would find it enjoyable to snap a few photos of the mountains.

When we busted out the cameras in Winter Park, Colorado I was a little surprised at how many photos the boys were taking...especially of random things. Then I started getting a little annoyed. We tried to coach them that a camera wasn't a toy and that they should focus on taking pictures of meaningful things. But they kept snapping away.

I guess I failed to realize that what was meaningful to them is different than it is to us. They snapped photos of the jungle gym in the town square in Winter Park. Caleb lined up all of his Star Wars and Superhero action figures and took photos of them.

Last night when I was uploading their photos to our computer, I came across the most breathtaking photo of the Colorado sky. No, I didn't take it. I guess I should learn from my kids...

Parenting and Faith

My twin sons turned 5 in April, and it seems like they grew up overnight. My wife and I were chatting about how it feels like God pushes fast forward on your life the minute that you have children. As we reflected about how quickly the past 5 years flew by, I said to her that I didn't have one regret. I am thankful that we are parents that haven't allowed time to pass us by while we were distracted with our own lives. I am thankful that during that short 5 years, I was very active in their lives and they in mine. I hope that continues until death takes me.

This summer it seems that my twin sons are in learning mode. Perhaps it's naturally happening because in the fall they will embark upon grade school as kindergarteners. But activity after activity I find that I am teaching them a new skill.

The fondest memory of this summer is probably teaching the boys how to ride their bikes. Granted, we're still in the process of developing these skills so by no means have they (or even I) mastered anything. But it's an amazing metaphor for parenting and faith.

A few weeks ago, we decided it was time to take off the training wheels on their Trek Jet 20s. What's interesting about this story is that I am NOT handy with tools. I struggled in the garage for what seemed like hours before accepting defeat. Frustrated, we left one bike in the garage to be fine-tuned by my father at a later time, while we drove to a local church that backs to a park.

Once there, we got the boys dressed from head to toe in protective gear - state-of-the-art helmets, elbow pads and knee pads just in case they should (gasp) crash. We started on the grass on a gradual slope and I ran with them 100 feet at a time yelling "Pedal! Pedal! Hold on tight! Keep it straight! Look ahead!" and panting up a storm. Did I mention it was in the upper 80s / lower 90s that day? Eventually we moved to a baseball diamond and this is where the metaphor begins.

As a parent I learned that eventually I had to let go of the bike. That's not the easiest thing in the world when you consider that up until this point, your role as a parent is to nurture and protect your children - not let them fall over on their bikes and skin up their knees. But this was the point in their development when I needed to learn to let go as a parent and my kids needed to learn how to fall on their own & pick themselves back up again.

But there's so much freedom and joy in letting go. I can't tell you how proud I was at my little boys furiously pedaling down the grassy hill or the open parking lot. When I learned to let go and see the fruit of my labor, it was a beautiful moment to watch them glide around on their bicycles.

I think God must smile at us riding our bicycles of life around down here. He must smile when we fall off our bicycles and pick ourselves up again. And I'm sure it pains Him to let go of our bicycles and watch us crash at periodic times of our lives (or in my case all of the time). But He's there to help us back up when we crash.

One of the best moments of this particular day was that each time I'd try to get my sons psyched up to tackle their bikes, we would pray for courage and protection. One of my kids took a pretty good spill; the kind where you hold your breath and wait to see if he's okay. I ran over to him to assist and he turned to me and said, "I think Jesus helped catch my fall."

Of all the lessons he learned that day, I think that must have been the most important. Now if we could only teach them how to swim...

Taking Time to Worship

Last week I spent three days in Chicago at the Willow Creek Arts Conference. I had flown in on business from LA Tuesday night and had barely given the conference much thought. My overall impression was that I was coming to get filled up and have one of those Christian mountain-top experiences. While it was VERY rewarding, quite the opposite happened.

God really stirred my heart during the conference. The first day I felt a shifting in the spiritual world as I took in the great worship and messages from various speakers. It left me confused because I desperately wanted to hear God's voice. In hindsight, God was speaking but He just wasn't sharing any insights with my current struggles. But he was saying, "Hey Erik. We really need to hang out more."

During my first breakout session on Wednesday morning, one of Willow Creek's worship leaders (Helena McNeil) lead a workshop on "Being a Worshipper." I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to get much out of this and wasn't actually even planning on attending except that the "Building a Worship Ministry" workshop was already booked. I trusted God had a plan for me attending.

I was immediately intrigued as she was from Australia (a place I would love to move to someday) and has twins (as do I). Helena is an angel. She has the anointing of God over her so as her talk unfolded, I hung on ever word from her passionate heart. It was as if she and Misty Edwards were carved from the same DNA...there's just something special about them. Godly. Holy. Anointed.

Disappointed there wouldn't be any Q & A time, Helena turned to the piano and left some time at the end of the workshop to worship. And God began moving throughout the room...I mean seriously moving. I got hit pretty hard and began crying as I sang my guts out to the Lord.

The night before, my pastor asked me if I was able to worship while leading worship. I pondered his question and said, "You know I think I do. Although sometimes I am thinking about what's next and where I am in a song."

But God spoke to me during this session. He said, "You've been so busy leading people to worship you've forgotten how to worship and how to be lead in worship."

He was right.

I was crying, along with everyone else in the room.

Our voices and hearts were lifted high. It was a beautiful moment in time to hear 200-300 other worship leaders crying out to God in a unified voice. It was heavenly and I thank God for that pinprick of what heaven might be like.

The Stand

A few weeks ago, our Hope NorthBranch worship team was leading worship prior to the message. I was excited about the set as the church had initially responded well to "The Stand" by United Hillsong as our communion song and this was the first time I was integrating it into our main worship time.

Since I am huge Tim Hughes fan, I had worked "Almighty God" before "The Stand" as it would make for an easy transition since they were in the same key.

While we were practicing the week before, I posed the question to the worship team, "What do you think about asking the church to sit during 'The Stand' and ask them to stand during the building of the bridge?" Everyone nodded in agreement.

So when Sunday rolled around, I instructed the church to sit at the beginning of the song. When we hit the bridge, I could feel the Holy Spirit pulsing through my body and I said a simple prayer. The very last thing I cried out was, "Won't you stand with Jesus today?"

As I opened my eyes I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The church was standing, worshipping their guts out, and half of them had their arms raised in worship.

My eyes welled with tears, my voice started to break, and I almost lost it. I closed my eyes to fight back weeping before the church. I do wonder if I should have allowed it to happen instead...if I had stiff-armed the Holy Spirit at the time by closing my eyes and focusing back on the song.

But we're pretty good at that, aren't we? Shutting down the Holy Spirit when God says "Go!" I don't want to suppress the Holy Spirit any more.

Mission 61 Event

From the Thomaslift.com website:

Please join us to experience the God-inspired drawings, paintings, and mixed media of artist, William Butler. Isaiah 61 is the foundational Scripture for Thomas Lift and is the motivation for the Mission 61 Exhibit.

This exhibit is for one night only, and the date is Thursday, June 7, 2007. The exhibit will be at the Great Frame-Up located in the West Glen Town Center at 5515 Mills Civic Parkway-Suite 150 in West Des Moines.

This is a free event, and the exhibit begins at 5pm and ends at 9pm. At 7pm that evening, we will have a brief presentation on Mission 61. Although we would love to have you attend the entire evening, you are welcome to come and go as your schedule requires. Refreshments will be served.

Thomas Lift is a God-centered, mission-based company, and 10% of the total purchase price received for the art pieces at this event will be given directly to bless the orphaned & poor in Jamaica. The remaining 90% of the funds will be used to begin Thomas Lift operations and Mission 61 in Jamaica.

We look forward to seeing you at the exhibit on Thursday, June 7, at the Great Frame-Up. God bless you!

God lives in nursing homes

This weekend my wife convinced me that it would be a good idea to drive to Washington, Iowa to visit her 90something year-old grandmother. I can't say that I was overly thirlled to give up a Saturday to go, but at the same token I knew it would make my wife and Grandma Daisy happy. We later learned through my wife's father that they were moving Daisy into a nursing home that week so our timing was perfect.

After loading up with coffee and some doughnuts, we set off in the rain through rural Iowa en route to small town America. Our kids were preoccupied with a movie on my laptop most of the way while my wife and I spent most of the 2 hours chatting, which was a blessing - truly.

When we arrived in Washington, the rain was relentless so it looked like we were bound to be indoors most of the weekend. We entered through the smokey main entrance and found her "apartment" at the end of the hallway. We were greeted by an elderly couple from the local Baptist church that had come to visit with Daisy. They quickly grabbed their belongings, handed us a Christian tract, and headed for the door.

I understood why they left so soon. Daisy's hearing had digressed so much we found ourselves yelling at an uncomfortable level to communicate. She offered to turn the TV on for the kids, but the volume was at such an obscene level I quickly turned it off. She later explained that the gentleman next to her apartment moved his bed to the other side of the room because of the volume of the TV. Thankfully my wife's father had ordered some hearing aids that hadn't arrived quite yet.

Daisy explained that because of her hearing she primarily reads to pass the time. I struggled to understand life without being able to hear or much less communicate. My heart started to crack in realizing how lonely this must be for her.

She wanted us to take her to lunch, but unfortunately it's next to impossible to get a wheelchair bound grandmother into a SUV. So the boys and I headed out to McDonald's to get lunch for everyone. Thankfully they had a playground to help burn off some energy.

We ate lunch in silence. I think my wife was thankful because the conversation was already awkward enough and to throw having to yell on top of it made it miserable for everyone.

We offered to take Daisy over to her old cottage to gather any belongings she needed so we pushed her the 2 blocks in the sunshine. Her cottage was a mess and she was very troubled by the way it looked. While it seemed she was able to let go of most of her belongings, her heart was wounded because she took pride in her home. Now this was being taken from her.

"This is really hard to see my house in shambles" she said to me after sitting in her bedroom quietly for 10 minutes.

I didn't know what to say. I yelled, "I'm sorry. This must be very difficult for you."

She watched my littlest playing with some plastic balls that rang from the tiny bells inside. They were toys her cat used to paw around the living room before it was taken to the local animal shelter.

"They won't let me have my cat at my apartment so she's at the Human Society now," she said grabbing a stuffed kitten toy as memory. "He can take those balls if he wants them. I don't need them anymore."

My wife suggested having us go to a nearby park to pass time, to move Daisy from a depressing setting, and to allow my wife to clean a bit. The boys and I wheeled her back down the street, eyeing the dark approching clouds as we slowly walked towards the daycare. Daisy had wanted us to go to the park across town and again we had to shoot down the idea because of our vehicle.

My heart broke even more.

By the time we arrived at the playground and got everyone situated, large rain drops poured onto us. Thankfully a staff member at the nursing home wheeled Daisy to safety as I scooped up the boys and ran. He was a kind gentleman that offered the boys some M&Ms. He later returned with a bowl filled to the brim with candy. Three boys and a gradmother scooped handfuls of the multi-color sweets into their mouths. And we finally enjoyed a moment together.

We didn't stay too much longer as we had plans later that evening we needed to attend to. But as I walked the hallways and met eyes with the lonely, I realized that we as Christians are missing out on a great opportunity to befriend the friendless. God granted me this epiphany earilier in the year when we visited my wife's other grandmother in the nursing home. I really, really enjoyed myself as we conversed with each other and the other residents. Most of these people are at the last stage of their lives and all they want is friendship so that they don't feel alone. The staff at these places are jaded and not compassionate, unlike our Maker. But as my eyes locked with the eyes of the elderly, I found peace and serenity. I found hope to be made new again. I found the face of Jesus.