I’m a little late getting started this morning. Our power went out last night for a better part of the evening, and well, you can’t exactly go to bed when it’s so dark can you? That would just be odd. So, I stayed up in the family room with, well, my family. And, I’m not sure why I keep using, well, “well.” I’ll stop it now.
When the electricity goes out, there are no distractions. Ever notice that? Of course, the tree falling into my parents’ backyard crushing a part of their fence caused a slight commotion, but there was no blaring of a television or surfing of a browser that turned our heads from one another.
Instead, we took turns trying to remember as many Reba McIntyre songs as we could. That game appropriately started with none other than “The Night the Lights Went Out In Georgia.” Oh, and me belting it out like the red-headed diva herself, all sans the red head and ultra skinny waste. And, great vocals. Perhaps, it was my vocals that led to John Henry insisting on playing some 38 Special. That and the fact that he’s never heard any Reba. How did my parenting go so wrong?
Before we mustered up the courage to go to bed in the dark, we sat around and talked about our friend, Phil. Phil stood in the presence of His Creator, the object of his affection, only a few days ago. We talked about how there was no age discrimination in the lives he touched. He touched the old, the young, and the really, really young. I watched a 16 year old girl with uncontrolled tears covering her beautiful, young face, because one 63 year old man touched her life.
Phil Purser didn’t pastor a large church. He wasn’t a missionary to some foreign land. But, he was a pastor and missionary wherever he was to whomever he was with. And, he was the greatest encourager I have ever known.
May we power off more often, so our heads do not turn from one another. And, may we all grow up to be a Phil Purser.
