Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Things you probably won't see...

Before I moved to Riga, Latvia, I spent most of my life in Southern California. Today as I went through the day I thought of several things that you probably won't see in So Cal in the middle of June. You probably won't see a forth straight day of heavy rain. You probably won't see an explosion of green, as plants rush to take advantage of the short summer. You probably won't see fog from your breath as you leave the mall after early evening shopping. You probably won't see Lays crinkle cut chips on sale, in Dill and Sour Cream flavour of course. You probably won't see a beautiful sunset or red, yellow and orange...at 10:30 p.m.!

As we continue to settle here in Riga we appreciate your prayers for our adjustments to all the big things and little things you probably won't see in Southern California.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Innocent Prayer

The chairs around the dining table in our apartment have a very narrow base. Nate has a tendency to move around on his chair and sometimes the chair becomes unstable. The other night Nate's chair slid away from him and he fell hitting his cheek on the side of the glass dining table very hard. We immediately put "ice" (a bag of frozen peas which we called "the pea pillow") on his cheek. Even so we were sure that Nate would have a significant bruise on his cheek and perhaps a black eye.

Later that night I was putting Nate to bed. As he laid his head down on the pillow he sat up suddenly, held his cheek, and said, "What is that!?" I told him that his cheek was bruised and it would probably hurt for a while but it would heal. He looked at me and said, "God will heal it?" I said yes. He immediately looked up and said, "God could you please heal my cheek? Could you heal my cheek because I don't want it to hurt. Thank you God." Nate laid down on the not bruised side and fell asleep.

As I went to bed later I prayed that God would answer Nate's prayer and demonstrate His power. In the morning when we all got up Nate was his usual active self. When I got a chance to look at his cheek (trying not to be obvious) there was only the slightest bruise. I asked Nate if it hurt and he said, "Not very much." I told him that God had answered his prayer and his cheek was almost all healed in one night.

I wonder how long it has been since we have felt a need, immediately looked up, prayed and believed God would immediately work. To me that is the innocent prayer of a child, my son Nate.