Our most viewed post for the past year was a Daniel Fast article! “The Daniel Fast: Here We Go!” was the top viewed post, followed closely by “We Don’t Do the Church Thing”.  Today is our final flashback, celebrating Hope in the Healing’s One Year Anniversary! Anything that included My Three Sons was always a “hit”.  My sweet friend, Carrie, was the inspiration for this post. Enjoy!

Hindsight is always better than foresight, so they say. I am a slow learner. I think I’ve told you I raised boys, did I tell you I raised boys? I may have told you I had at least three boys, sometimes it seemed like more. Three adorable, look-you-in-the-eye-I-didn’t-do-it boys. So I have an excuse for my absentmindedness.

The boys, they caused all kinds of things to happen to me, it wasn’t my fault.

I could usually get away with blaming it on Kristopher, the middle riddle. It usually was his fault! He was known for his mischievousness, and if I wasn’t apologizing to a teacher, a parent, or a neighbor, we were visiting the emergency room. It started very early in his life. We arrived at the hospital just in time to settle in, and the obstetrician arrived just in time to catch Kristopher; and he has been running ever since.

Kyle, The Worrier, is 5 ½ years older than Kris and has always been his protector, even though it usually meant he had to tattle. It was nothing for him to come running in my bedroom with a horrified look on his face, “Mommmm!!!! Kristopher is on TOP of the refrigerator!” Kristopher had barely learned to walk, how could he be on TOP of the refrigerator?! But true to his word, there he was, sitting proud as a peacock, smiling from ear to ear and clapping his little hands.

Kyle was terrified. I had a problem.

It wasn’t two days later that I heard the same blood-curdling scream as he came racing down the hallway. I was taking curlers out of my hair and thought surely the house was on fire. Two minutes ago they were sitting quietly playing with their Fisher Price airplane! Kyle comes tearing into the bedroom, “Kristopher, (pant, pant) Kristopher!!!”

That’s all he could get out, I was already running. Thankfully our little ranch house was small, and not so thankfully, I could already smell smoke! There he was, sitting on the kitchen counter again. This time he had taken all of the little plastic ABC magnets off of the refrigerator and put them in our toaster oven and turned it on! In seconds, smoke was pouring out of the oven. Thank God he wasn’t burned! And thank the Lord for Super Sleuth Kyle!

I could go on and on and write a book on Kristopher alone but I want to save some of that material for other slow blog days!

I have been laying the foundation for my defense for the story I am about to share. I was a frazzled mother of three. My husband was a busy air traffic controller and God knows how stressed they are. I could tell you that statistics show it is one of the most stressful jobs in the WORLD!

We were also youth pastors at the time of a large and very active youth group, which we loved very much. Kyle was involved in Bible quizzing and I was one of the coaches. That was also a very time-consuming activity, but we loved it and it was worth it.

There are some things in life that are just worth the effort. Sometimes you are just desperate. You will go the extra mile and push everything else aside. No matter what it costs, you will do whatever it takes to get what you need for your loved ones.

Now stay with me here…you won’t believe where I’m going. And it does get spiritual, I promise.

“While he (Jesus) was preaching…four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, ‘My child, your sins are forgiven.’” Mark 1:2-5 NLT.

We can all feel this man’s “pain”, wanting to get to the front of the crowd, not being able to see, especially if you are short like me! Well they were definitely creative! I read that a first century home in Palestine had a flat roof made of stone tiles which was very easy to remove and easy to replace. It wasn’t like they tore up someone’s home, thankfully.

And it also had an outside staircase up the roof. So they could easily carry their paralytic friend on his “bed”, which was just a lightweight pallet or mattress-like pad. But they still didn’t just shrug their shoulders and say among themselves that it was too much trouble. And not only did their friend receive his miracle, he received the forgiveness of sins, the bigger miracle!

They were desperate and they resorted to desperate measures. 

So I found myself in quite the similar situation one beautiful spring day almost twenty years ago. We had a quiz tournament to go to a couple of hours away and I was driving the church van and taking the quiz team. I had driven to town to pick up our babysitter that was going to stay with my littlest baby boy, Korey Ross, at the time. I picked up the Bible quizzers, then came back to the house to drop off the babysitter and Korey, before we all headed north for the tournament.

Everything was under control, we were on time and it was a beautiful day. The kids were happy, we get back to the house and there was only one big problem. I didn’t have a key to the house!

I don’t even remember now why I didn’t have the key, it’s been so long. But I do remember why we couldn’t take Korey with us. The car seat and his diaper bag with his diapers and bottles were in the house too! THAT was a big problem.

And now we are running out of time. I was in a panic. The Bible quizzers were in a panic. This was a big tournament. They were all talking at once. And believe it or not this was BEFORE cellphones! Or at least I didn’t have one. It wouldn’t have done any good to call anyone. The neighbors didn’t have a key anyway.

I know what I am about to tell you would not be what YOU would have done. I have been laughed at for the last 20 years over this one and now I am just laying myself out there for the world to laugh some more. I didn’t care what it cost. I did it for the kids.

That’s right; I did it for the kids.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I went around to the side of the garage, our house backed up to a woods, thank goodness, so no one saw the “vandalous” act that was about to take place.  They might have called the police. And before you jump too far ahead, yes, I had already tried ALL of the windows; they were locked!

I went around to the side of the garage and there was an old brick lying there by the garage window so I picked it up. I thought if I broke the garage window it wouldn’t cost too much, and that would be the safest place to break into. I told all of the kids to stand back and I threw that brick with all the strength I had and instead of shattering into a million pieces it came back and almost hit me in the face! Stupid windows were double-pane!

I had to throw that brick at least three times before I ever broke it! The quiz team was cheering me on. Well, all of them except for Kyle. He just kept saying, “Dad is gonna be so mad, Mom. He’s gonna be so mad.” Kyle is a worrier. I told him Dad would understand.

He’s like that, your dad, he’ll understand.

We scraped all the glass away from the window the best we could. We then scooped The Worrier in through the opening to run and open the garage door. We’re in! Everything from there is a mad dash. Get the babysitter and the baby settled. She is a nervous wreck because “DAD” will be home before I will. I assure her he will understand! But she isn’t so convinced. And unfortunately there is no way for me to get to him and tell him what has happened before he gets home. He just gets to show up.

Well, the good news is the Quizzers won!! And to brag on them a little more they even made it to Nationals that year!

The bad news is that DAD wasn’t real happy with MOM.

It did take some convincing that my getting the kids to the quiz tournament was just as desperate as the four men getting the paralytic to Jesus! They won the tournament just like he had his sins forgiven! And I should be forgiven too!

I tried to tell him it was just a window, it was replaceable, and they sell them on TV all the time.

And one day we will laugh about this, really we will, and so will everybody else.

It is true that sometimes our situations put us in a place of desperation. And while breaking windows and tearing down doors may not be the best way to go about it, we do need to be desperate when it comes to our relationship with God, desperate for the will of God at any cost.

Desperate for the people that we see every day with a need, and then be willing to make a difference.

Desperate to reach our unsaved families, to go out of our way to heal the hurting, and then, through us, Jesus can reach the broken.

Do I really care about those whose lives are paralyzed by sin? Those that might just be waiting for me to reach out to them? Who are waiting for me to invite them to church or my home fellowship group? Or just out to dinner one night?

Am I too busy being a “Christian” that I don’t have time to carry one corner of the bed of my paralyzed friend?

Early Christians “turned the world upside down” for the cause! They lived in hard times and difficult circumstances without the tools we have available to us today. Let us be just as desperate in our desire to reach those that we see on a daily basis. Let’s make it easy for them to get to Jesus.

And if you’re ever locked out of your house…just call me.