Life's Not Fair

One of the things that excites me most about heaven is that "life" will finally be as it is supposed to be. So often in our lives, things happen that make us shake our heads and think "that is just not how it is supposed to be".  Sadly, this is the consequence of living in a world negatively impacted by our sin, which God initially intended to be perfect...and will some day in the future will make perfect again.

An example of this took place on Saturday evening here at our home.  Our former neighbors, married couple with two boys the same age as David and Jonathan, were over for dinner. We had just finished dinner and were enjoying some dessert while the boys were playing upstairs.  All of a sudden we hear a scream from upstairs. Screams and cries are not uncommon in a family of 5 children, especially with 2 additional children thrown in, but this one was different. When we got upstairs I saw something that broke my heart. David, our eldest, was standing there with blood flowing out of his mouth and his right front adult tooth was gone...and I, who usually acts smoothly and decisively in a moment of crisis was honestly stunned.

What happened??? Well, this is where life is not fair. Jonathan and the other boys were starting to get a little too wild in their play. David sensing this and wanting to do the right thing had asked the boys, all three of them, to settle down a little bit. Their friends listened and settled down, but not brother Jonathan. He continued to act foolishly and threw a big plastic toy at his brother David and "POW", hit him right in the mouth, cut his lip, sliced David's gum, and knocked his permanent tooth clean out. (I will blog more about Jonathan and this part of “the deal” at a later date...)

It truly was a surreal moment for me. Growing up, I always had this fear of getting one of my permanent teeth knocked out and I remember checking my teeth every time I got smacked or hit in the mouth with something. I was kind of paranoid about it and probably still am.

At first we were trying to treat David for the bleeding that was coming from his mouth. Then I went upstairs and found the whole tooth, root and all, lying on the carpet. I tried to insert it at that time, but was not sure I was seating it correctly and placed it in milk instead. After trying for 10-15 minutes to contact a dentist or someone else to help guide us, which was impossible on a Saturday evening, we grabbed the cup of milk with the tooth and headed to the ER at the Children's Hospital here in St. Louis.

Before too long we were in a room in triage and a doctor came in and helped insert the tooth as much as it would go in. Unfortunately, it had been about an hour since getting knocked out and the likelihood of saving the tooth is best when reinserted in 30 minutes or less. Well, as David applied pressure on the tooth while we waited for the pediatric dentist who was on call to come in, he was able to get the tooth fully inserted back into his the cavity in his mouth.  The dentist was great, especially on a Saturday evening having been interrupted while eating out with his wife.  Once he arrived we did some x-rays and saw that the tooth was inserted perfectly. Then the dentist explained what was going to happen in the coming weeks.

Three things would/could happen:

1) The best scenario would be for the nerve in the tooth to reconnect with the nerve in the gums and for the tooth to reseat in David's mouth. This would save the tooth fully and cost little in the way of dental expenses. We are praying that is what has and will ultimately happen.

2) If the nerve did not reconnect, the body will not recognize the cells inside the tooth which has been reinserted in David's mouth and it will begin to attack it sensing it as a foreign object in the body. This would be bad for David, cause pain, and lead to a whole host of dental procedures and expenses we are not looking forward to.

3) If situation 2 does occur then David will need to get a root canal to deaden the exposed nerve in the empty cavity where the tooth used to be. Then they will take the dead tooth, clear the nerve out of the tooth and fill it with some substance that would allow it to stay up in the cavity for years to come. This is important because of the need for spacing as David's other adult teeth come in.

*Remember that David had the whole Perthes Disease in his hip last summer which we prayed over and saw the Lord heal him of that.

So, a couple things to remember as I close this blog...

1) Life is not fair. David is as just and as well tempered a 7 year old boy as you will find and "he" gets his tooth knocked out even as he is trying to bring peace to a wild situation. 

2) We would appreciate your prayers for David and for this tooth to heal. Granted it is only a tooth, but the fixing of it will be extensive and expensive and he didn't even get it knocked out playing hockey. 

Finally, this has been harder for me than it has been for David.  Why, I am not sure, but Saturday night while he slept great, I tossed and turned all night which is very rare for me.  Julie finds this funny and says how interesting it is to learn something new about someone you have been married to for almost 10 years.  David keeps trucking forward enjoying life, while we wait for several weeks to see what in the end has or has not occurred.  

To be continued...

Small Group Update

I wanted to post an update on our Financial Peace University small group since I mentioned it last month as we started up.  Julie and I love the group.  This is the first small group we have hosted in our home in many years and subsequently the first group we have hosted here in our St. Louis home.  It is such a joy to have our friends over every week.  Julie does such a great job hosting and I always love having people over and around. 

In addition to getting to know our group members much better than we previously did, each and every group member is taking this group so seriously.  We are seeing people face some of their fears and struggles related to finances and walk in the victory that God has for us when we place our faith and trust in Him.  We are seeing couples in our group come together to tackle their financial struggles rather than let the struggles drive them apart.

One thing I have seen in my years of ministry and encouraging people to pursue God honestly and more passionately, is that he uses real life stuff to help us and grow us.  It is kind of like working out in the gym.  That which may cause us some temporal pain is actually the thing that will benefit us most in the long run.  Facing our fears and even our personal failures is not ultimately bad, as much as it may hurt in the moment.  Yet, the soreness that comes can reassure us that we have exercised our spirit and our spiritual muscles. 

Finally, I want to share something that I have shared numerous times in the past couple weeks.  Since we Americans are so good and controlling our lives and not needing God because all of the security and comfort we can bring to our own lives, I believe God uses our finances as a means to speak to us.  Money and how it impacts us is one area we cannot totally buffer ourselves from and as a result it is a great way for God to speak to us in the depths of our heart. 

An Important Issue

If you think about it, I would appreciate your prayers.  Presently I am venturing into an important issue at Rooftop, one that perplexes the church of America as well.  The issue is "How do we best minister to and train up our children and youth?"  At Rooftop this is taking the form of how to shape our forthcoming youth ministry effort.  Presently, I am reading Wes Stafford's, Too Small to Ignore and enjoying it.  Yet, his conclusions and suggestions fly in the face of typical Western culture and the way most Christians have raised their youth in the recent decades.

I am beginning this venture through reading a number of books, plan on talking to a number of parents, consulting our staff and leadership, and praying a ton.  The most daunting statistic that is driving my pursuit is that 90% of church attending teens in recent decades leave the church and potentially their faith, once they graduate from high school.  What this means is...what the church and parents have been doing has NOT been working.  Only 10% of American youth have continued with church involvement into their young adulthood...that is insane and a horrible tragedy!!! 

Interestingly, Julie and I did experience this reatlity firsthand through our struggles reaching young adults and growing the young adult ministry at our last church in Grand Rapids.  During 5 years of focused and steady ministry to young people ages 18-29, we had only TWO seniors from the church's high school minsitry transition into our group and stick.   This is in a church of almost 3,000 people with 50-100 graduating seniors every year.  TWO people, Adam and Michele, everyone else in our group had little or no connection previously to Kentwood before joining our ministry.  Is this not crazy???

Well, now we are trying to address this problem from the other end, developing a ministry or discipleship plan for our children to help them avoid being one of these statistics.  What this looks like, I do not yet know.  What I do know is that it will probably be different from what people experienced themselves or have been used to.  With a 10% success rate, we can only hope that it is different.  Thanks for your prayers and your interest.  Stay tuned for more of my findings and learnings as we continue on this journey...