A sovereign & a superhero

God has given us the opportunity to walk with people through their pain. We think that we're doing it to minister to them, but Jesus changes us. While I was a teacher, we entered into the suffering of student's families while they mourned the loss of their child. While being a coach and men's discipleship leader, we walked through suffering brought on by sin. We've walked through sickness, death, and multiple moments where the rug seems to be pulled right out from under folks.

There were two situation, however, as a Pastor that still blow me away. I'd like to share one of them.

I had just returned from a a ten day trip to Shanghai when I met a family in our church that had just returned from Southeast Asia. They were requesting prayer for their little one, Micah. Our pastoral team gathered around Maurice and Linda to pray over rambunctious, little Micah. Hear them tell their story here:

Ahern's Encounter Story from First Euless on Vimeo.

After rejoicing, some time later Micah went for another scan. The Aherns were told that the cancer spread throughout his entire body. It returned, but this time with a vengeance-even going into his bones. Maurice showed me a picture of the scan of little Micah, the black or dark that represented the cancer was everywhere. Everyone was devastated. We prayed, God answered, and yet the cancer returned. On repeat with people that were close to this situation was,

God is good. God is faithful. God is sovereign and gives grace to his children."

When Scripture talks about David talking to his soul, many had to talk to their soul, reminding our hearts of these truths as we watching Micah loose his hair, develop sores, and go through treatment after treatment.

Though we've moved away from Texas, the imprint of Micah and the Ahern family will remain with me forever. I haven't had coffee with Maurice in awhile, but I wish that I could. I facebook stalk the family and recently came across some pictures of Micah, or Superhero Micah as we all call him. He was chilling with the TCU baseball team. Then, a few nights ago I saw one of him and Maurice chilling int he Mavericks locker room, holding Dirk's huge shoe. Then, I saw this piece from channel 8 in Dallas:

A simple blog post can't share all of the things that the Aherns have experienced. A multitude of moleskin journals couldn't memorialize all of the stories of lives that have been impacted for Jesus through this little guy, but the refrain rings on: "God is good. God is faithful. God is sovereign and gives grace to his children." Here is the kicker: God was good, faithful, and sovereign throughout the whole thing, despite the outcome.

God has given us the opportunity to walk with people through their pain. We think that we're doing it to minister to them, but Jesus changes us.

You can continue praying for Micah and his family. They keep this facebook group updated with the recent news.