Transcript:

It was a Saturday afternoon shortly after lunch. I was in the midst of cleaning out my closet. I mean, such a fun task needless to say.

TJ was out working in the yard. He was cleaning out gutters and trying to get things done right before it started to rain.

And then all of a sudden he comes in and he tells me that he can't breathe. He has fallen off the ladder. Five feet off the ladder and hit this concrete planter box that we had.

He is telling me he cannot breathe, and that we have got to head to the doctors. So we load him up, and I take him to the emergency room.

Low and behold, he has fractured two ribs and has a hole in his lung. The reason he couldn't breathe is because of this lung puncture. Scary, scary times. They ended up holding him overnight.

He had to spend the night because they said that lung collapses can come on quick so you have to be super, super on top of them.

Bless his heart. I've never fractured a rib, but from his experience, apparently it is just excruciating. He said the absolute worst though was what he sneezed.

He is such a tough guy. I mean, he is not a complainer and he's super tough. But the rib fracture, whew. It was pretty intense for him.

Many of you know that we live on a mountain, we call it a mountain. It's really not a mountain, but we refer to it as the mountain. And so there's a lot of yard work that is involved in that, you know. The grass does not stop growing even when you have a rib fracture and you can't mow.

And Lo and behold, our life group showed up in the most amazing way.

One of my dear friends, Kelly, she was on top of it.

I'll be honest. The last thing on my mind was the fact that our grass needed to be cut.

Thankfully we live where no one can see our yard, so it was not on the top of my priority list.

But oh my goodness. Kelly just jumped in. She organized everything and less than a week later we had 10 people over at our home.

There had been several storms after TJ was hurt and there were so many tree limbs. It was a hot mess.

And then our life group just showed up, and it made me think about how precious Christian friends are.

And that's what I want to talk about this week, Christian friendship. And to really analyze the friends that we have in our life.

Are They God honoring? Are they fruitful? Are they selfless? Do they strengthen our relationship with the Lord? Are they a source of temptation?

I can't tell you how appreciative I am to have the friends that we have in our life group. They make me want to be a better friend.

The way they showed up reminds me of Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

As you go about your day today, let it be our charge for all of us that we look for opportunities where we can be the hands and feet of Jesus and be a good friend.

All right, I hope you have a fantastic Monday. Get to take on your day.

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