I felt God prompting me to do a follow up blog about interruptions. On Monday, December 13th, I will be flying to Houston for eye surgery on Wednesday. My incredible friends Bobby & Marsha will be picking me up from the airport (the husband & wife to the right of me in the picture). They are interrupting their lives and taking a week off from work to be with me when I needed them the most. How many friends actually do this? And the craziest part is… they want to be around me. To laugh with me. To care for me. To love me. They are truly amazing friends who constantly demonstrate what it means to be Christ-like.
So the picture to the right is what my left eye looked like at it’s worst. It is a miracle that I didn’t lose my eye. Currently it looks great and does not hurt, but there is some scar tissue on the eye which makes it difficult to see. On Tuesday a doctor will be looking at my eye so he can evaluate what needs to be done in the surgery the following day. So… I’m asking you to interrupt your next few mornings to pray for me. Please pray for safe travel. Please pray for the surgery to go well without any complications. Please pray for God to guide the doctor’s hand during surgery. Please pray for a quick and speedy recovery. But more importantly… please pray for a miracle (complete healing).
Over the last week I’ve been processing this message about interruptions and I’ll try to put it into perspective. Looking back on my WR experience, I realized that most of the God sightings (miracles) and deep relationships with locals happened during an interruption. To be honest, miracles rarely happened during our scheduled “ministry” time. It was so easy to become focused on the “ministry” and overlook the van driver (who is angry with the world), the cashier at the store (who lost a loved one), the man on the bus (who lost his faith), the security guy at the airport (who doesn’t know Christ), etc. It is so easy to be distracted with the tasks at hand, that a person can miss the people right in front of them (including family & friends). So my plea to you is… please make a conscious effort to be open to interruptions. But don’t stop there. Be looking for opportunities to be interrupted because it just might change your life and the life of somebody else.
I’ll leave you with two quick stories from my time on the World Race. There was a girl on my squad named Birkleigh Foreman who lives each day with this mentality (looking for and embracing those interruptions in her life). The first story takes place in Africa during a bus ride where she gets lost. She ends up getting help from a local guy, who interrupts his day to help her. Little does he know the interruption was for him and from God. She has countless stories from our trip because she “got it.” Click here to read the full story. My hope is that everyone reading this blog will be challenged, then look for opportunities to be interrupted (divine appointments).
I could go on and on about stories from Birkleigh, but I’ll leave you with one more. It is another story about her openness to interruptions in her daily life. This story takes place in Africa during a very long travel day to Asia. Click here to read the full story. In the midst of hurrying through the airport and mounting frustrations, Birkleigh sets everything aside and leads this security guy to the Lord. I admire her for embracing those God appointed interruptions in her life and for her BOLDNESS to do something about it.
