Parents, not what I expected. During one holiday celebration, my family and I had gone to a family reunion when I was a child. I was just like any other boy, I loved fireworks. I loved the explosion, the anticipation of the explosion and the effects of the explosion. The older cousins were lighting firecrackers, but apparently these were older or cheaper fireworks and not all of them would explode. So, we younger, elementary school aged, cousins would go pick up the duds and wait for a lighter to try them again... so we could be like the older cousins. I had one in each hand. What I didn’t know was that one had a fuse that was unnoticeably still smoldering. Then bang, it blew up, instant pain in my fingers and ears! With my ears still ringing I looked at my fingers that had blood blisters where the firecracker had exploded. The firework fun was over and then the frightened and hurting water works started. My dad knew just what to do; he got ice in a wash cloth and had me go to a quiet place, sit down and hold the ice pack… there were not many quiet places since my grandmother’s home where the reunion was happening was less than 900 sq.ft. and there were more than 30 first cousins at the time (my mother was one of 11 siblings). My mother, grandmother, aunts and uncles all checked on me, I think even my sister felt bad for me. I finally fell asleep on the drive home. I had learned several things that day: respect the fireworks, they are great fun, but also powerful and dangerous; there is comfort and healing even after a traumatic experience and it’s a blessing to have a family that cares.
There is a powerful person of the Holy Trinity that gives us the Greek transliterated word “dunamis,” which means power and where we get our word “dynamite.” The Holy Spirit does many powerful things: He reminds us of who we are as God’s children made in His image and the things we do, thoughts we have, that don’t match that truth and how they disconnect us from Him (John 16:8). We also know that the Holy Spirit permanently lives in us (John 14:16-17), He seals us for eternity so we are never again disconnected from God again (Eph. 1:13), He teaches us the truths we need to know (John 14:26), He guides us into that Truth (John 16:13), He reminds us of Jesus’ teaching (John 14:26), He bears spiritual fruit through us (Gal. 5:22-23), He comforts us (John 16:7), He equips us with spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:4-7), and He fills us that“dunamis, “ when He empowers us to do His work (Acts 1:8). The Holy Spirit is such a blessing, probably much more than we knew or expected when we begin to connect our life with Jesus. We can have surprising power from the Holy Spirit for living as God’s children even when we are hurting, or doubting, or experiencing hardship. He connects all His children together as family to help and comfort each other too! Maybe we can all let the firework celebrations of this weekend remind us of our dynamite God!
Hang in there people! God is with us! I’m praying for you all!
