Monday's (Sunday's) Fabulous Moment of the Day

A few days ago I posted a sentence..."I freaking love squirrels." I was questioned about it and some assumed there was a story to go with it (a natural assumption). But there was really no reason at all, aside from the fact that I looked
outside and saw one. Now that's not to say that I don't have some amazing squirrel stories from years past. I do. That being said though, I didn't write that for any reason...at the time. Little did I know that in just a few days I was going to have a new found affection for one of the little critters, who sadly passed away on Sunday.

But I assure you, he did not die in vain.

Every Sunday morning I get to church at 7:30 to help the student ministry tech team get set up, get the light plot figured out for the worship service and then when service begins at 9:30, I run the lightboard. I always love those two hours before everything gets started. There's something very peaceful for me about that time where I'm in the light booth by myself, listening to the band warm up and practice. It gives me some amazing alone time to pray and get my heart ready for the day. That morning I was on my way to the church and I began praying. For no particular reason I said, "God, I just ask that you would help all of us get out Your way this Sunday. I pray that if things have to fall apart in order for us to rely on You and know You better and see Your power, then let things would fall apart. Humble us however you need to, but God get us out of Your way."

well...

I went through the first two hours with no problem. I got a light plot set up that I was pretty excited about, loved on some kids as they arrived, the service started with a video and just as we pulled all the kids up near the stage to play a game of human tic tac toe, there's a few little zaps and a buzz and the entire auditorium goes dark. The weather was perfect so my first assumption was that we had blown a fuse but that didn't make any sense either given that we were in a theatre which is set up to withstand massive amounts of electricity pumping through.

Now, when you have 100+ teenagers all crowded up in one spot together in a huge room that is completely black, one of two things is going to happen...

1. Everyone starts screaming and acting stupid and it takes the entirety of our time together to get them to settle down and operate like normal human beings.

2. Everyone starts laughing, someone busts into leading a song that all 100 of them know and before you know it they're all singing together and then continue to play the game in the dark.

I'm very proud to say that our kids chose the latter and some of the tech team ran around unplugging and replugging until we could at least get a couple microphones going. Luckily a generator had kicked in and we were able to get some power back. Problem for me was that I couldn't get to the dimmer rack I needed to reset in order to have any stage or house lights at all. So, we turned on a couple of the work lights back stage which bled onto the stage area a tiny bit and decided we would just continue on in the dark.

It was a bit hard for me in the beginning. I'm so accustomed to having a job during student worship, to being needed, to having some very specific purpose during that time. And so for the first few minutes I wandered around trying to figure out how to fix the lights before I finally stopped long enough to realize that worship was going amazingly well without them. In fact it was probably better than it's ever been and if I did get the lights back on it would only serve as a distraction. The kids were so into the music, the message, everything.

I finally just sat down. I sat down at the back of the theatre and watched in total amazement of the way God's presence moved through that space that was completely stripped and raw feeling. And I was humbled to realize that ultimately, God doesn't need me there each morning doing the lights. He wants me to be. And He gives me the opportunity to serve that way. But He doesn't need me there. He's going to show up and do what needs done whether I turn on lights or not.

We found out later that a squirrel had run into a transformer, successfully taking out power not only in performing arts center, and not only in the entire highschool (main worship service lost it too) but in that whole little corner of Austin. A squirrel...who is now unfortunately a little pile of ashes. But again, not in vain. In his little death so many of us were reminded of the awesome glory and power of a God that's far too big to be understood. And if God will use a squirrel to convey that message I can only imagine what He's waiting to do with us, if we'd only let Him.