In Case of Snake Bite, Pull Cord

There is nothing more scary than receiving two voicemail messages, one from a cousin saying "Josh, call me" in a serious voice, and one from my brother saying "Josh, call me; something happened to dad." I immediatley called Justin to learn that my dad had been bit in the hand by a rattlesnake at our ranch in Freer.

Freefall...

Go home...

Drive to Chorpus Christi...

Pull Cord.

I never realized how big of a support network my father and family has. My mother found out about the incident while having dinner at her pastors house. I had been at a crawfish boil with Anna, who is a co-worker of Ellie's, whose parents were also having dinner at their pastors house. As soon as I got off the phone with my brother I told Anna what had happened and that we needed to go. Ellie and Jeremiah were across the table, so I informed them as well. She called her dad, he was sitting across the table from my mom and told her (of course, her cell phone was at the house, where it belongs).

We all converged at my parents house, then loaded up in the car, with my uncle behind the wheel. The cell phones had already been working behind the scenes, but the first hour on the road we all scrolled through our phonebooks calling everyone we knew. Everyone we knew called everyone they knew. I would not be the least surprised to find out that we had well over a thousand people praying for him and us.

Community is a strange, beautiful thing. I am now starting to see with new eyes why it is so critical for living out a healthy Christianity. We need each other. Sure, we can do a lot on our own, but when we do, it takes away from us, makes us less. With community we can deal with situations in a way that builds, that adds to our lives, making us stronger, not wearing us down.

We still don't know what pasture we will land in; thankfully, with the prayers that have been prayed for us and the grace of a wonderous God, we are hovering over the greener one. One thing that I know, though, is that even if we find ourselves in the other one, we will have a soft landing; not without scrapes and bruises, but soft.

Thank you all for your prayers.

Josh