Let me tell you about a day that changed my life. The first half of the day wasn’t anything special. But that’s when everything changed. I came home and I was practicing piano in my room. The only thing that was unusual was my dad was home that day. On a normal day, he would have been at work and arriving home at dinner time, but on this particular day, he was home. Just keep that in the back of your mind, it will be important later.
On that same day, my brother was getting ready to sell his dirt bike he had. So he decided to run it real quick to make sure it was in good condition before he sold it. He rode it back and forth on the road in front of our house. Now, because he was just testing it out he made the choice not to wear a helmet because it was only going to be a minute and our street doesn’t have a lot of traffic. My dad was watching out the living room window the whole time as my brother rode back and forth. Let it be known that my brother was a daredevil. Ok, who am I kidding, he still is somewhat of a risk-taker. At this time he was at the height of his risk-taking. This was the same time that he used to race his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, don’t worry it was all legal racing there was a huge league. Some of the races would take place in unused warehouse parking lots. I actually got to ride in one race with him. That was an awesome experience. But my mom was watching both of her kid’s whip around the course probably freaking out on the inside. Don’t worry I had a helmet on and I survived. He was an excellent racer and won a few different races/competitions. Let me share with you one of my favorite stories. The pavement was a little slick this particular day. Each car is timed through the course so there is only one car driving at a time. During his turn, he was about to finish the course when on a 90 degree turn his car slid. At this point, he was facing the opposite direction he wanted to go. So can you imagine what he did? He whipped it in reverse and finished the race. Like really? I always looked up to my big brother and stories like these made him all the more cooler.
But back to this specific day, I mentioned before. I’m not sure how many times he drove his bike back and forth in front of our house, but on his last time, he was on his way to put it up. He decided to pop a wheelie, caught some gravel I assume, and laid the bike down. My dad watched the whole thing happen so he would have a better memory of this. After my brother hit the ground and didn’t get up instantly my dad rushed down to help him back up to the house. And this is where I come into this story. As both of them were walking up the stairs I walked out of my room with no idea what had just taken place. My dad asked me if I can watch my brother and keep him in the bathroom, where he was washing blood off of his hands and a small scrape on his head. You would have thought I was a prison guard because I was not going to let him out of my sight until I heard back from dad. As I was keeping an eye on my brother and keeping him talking to me, my dad went and got the bike out of the road and that’s about the time my mom arrived home. As they both rushed up the stairs to assess the situation it was quickly decided to get him in the car and take him to the ER to be safe. I stayed home with dad until we heard more details. A few blocks away from the ER my brother lost consciousness. Once in the ER the doctors quickly came to the conclusion that it would be better for him to go to the university hospital in the city. As the ambulance headed to university hospital my dad and I got in the car and headed that way.
Some of the details are a little fuzzy, but I do remember walking into the waiting room, where we waited for what seemed like hours, and maybe it was. The room was large and quiet, maybe that made it feel even bigger. The feeling of fear overwhelmed me. I don’t process situations well when it deals with the unknown and this was a big unknown at the time. While we were sitting there in that large empty quiet room my phone rang. It was my youth pastor calling. I answered and walked over to a wall, leaned up against the wall, and slid down. I didn’t know what to say because we had no answers, just asking people to pray with us that my brother would be ok. After that phone call, one of the doctors came over to give us an update. The only thing I remember from that conversation was that he is a miracle, if my brother would have arrived at the hospital 5 minutes later he wouldn’t be with us today. Those were the doctor’s exact words.
After receiving the update from the doctor we started to get notified of all the people praying with us. People were praying all around the country for my brother. I think that was the first moment I realized how the “big C” Church can come together. It didn’t matter what church you attended, everyone came together for one purpose. My brother made a miraculous recovery and recovered faster than the doctors expected. I am so thankful he is here today because he is doing big things for the kingdom of God!
That day shaped my outlook on life. Today I get to see that perspective come in a full circle. From that day many years ago when I saw the “big C” church come together in a powerful way and today I am a part of a ministry called Church Anywhere. We get to see hundreds of locations come together to be the church to the world. Now this church doesn’t look like your grandmother’s church but it holds a special place in my heart and I am so honored to be on this team. If you want to check out more about Church Anywhere you can check out our website. Churchanywhere.us or if you are reading this on the website check out what else we have to offer. If you have any questions you can always email me as well!
I pray that this blog today was an encouragement to you and can help in your daily life. Always know I am available to pray with you or just be someone to talk to when life gets hard. E-mail me at megan@churchanywhere.us if you need prayer!
Talk to you next Monday!