Date: 05/16/2024
AO: CHOP, Milton, DE
QIC: Fireplex
Pax: Quattro, T-Rex, Deez, Bunt, Toy Soldier, Chattahoochee, Probe, Streudel, Fireplex
Warm up
SSH – 20 IC
Cherry Pickers – 15 IC
Bolt 45’s IC (4 Count) – 15 squats to halfway down. 15 squats halfway to full down. 15 full squats.
Imperial Walkers – 15 IC
Windmills – 15 IC
The Thang
B.O.M.B.S. – 50 Burpees, 100 Overhead Claps, 150 Merkins, 200 Big Boy Sit-ups, 250 Squats. After every 25 evolutions of each exercise, PAX will NUR up to Strawberry Alley from Front Street and mosey back approx. .02 miles. Time limited the Nur and Mosey and affected the last 250 Squats. They were completed without the Nur/Mosey “break”. When all was completed, Pax Nur’d up the grade & moseyed down approximately .5 miles.
Count-O-Rama, Name-O-Rama, and the Circle of Trust. Prayers were offered for multiple needs within the attending PAX, but please keep all our HIM in your thoughts and prayers.
F3 Message 05/16/2024
May 6, 2010
The tornado sirens went off near our daughter’s house a few nights ago. She knew what to do. She and our son-in-law quickly herded their three children into the basement until the danger passed.
Unfortunately, Nikki Carpenter lived outside of town where she couldn’t hear the tornado sirens. She and her three young sons had no time to prepare, and there was no basement in the trailer where they lived. For me, Nikki’s story seems especially moving on this Mother’s Day weekend.
When part of the storm system that hit our area moved on to Yazoo County, Mississippi, Nikki Carpenter was getting Austin (1), Ethan (2), and Layne (7) ready for their day. The tornado was a monster – an E-F4 packing up to 170 mile per hour winds and measuring 1.75 miles wide. As the tornado bore down on their trailer, Nikki grabbed a mattress, threw it over her boys, and lay on top of it to protect them.
It took neighbors more than two hours to work their way through the debris to get to that trailer – or what was left of it. Those three little boys were pulled out alive. Mom didn’t make it. Her mother said: “She saved those kids and gave her life.”
Here was a mom, doing what mothers do on a daily basis – sacrificing herself for her children. In this case, letting all the wrath of a tornado fall on her so it wouldn’t fall on the ones she loved.
And for me, a moving reminder of the One who covered me so I wouldn’t die. My Jesus let all the wrath of all my sin fall on Him, so it would never fall on me. He died; I lived.
That’s what happened on a cross on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. Strip away all the religion and all the ritual, and that’s what Jesus is all about. The only Son God has, choosing to lay down His life to save you and me. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:11, 18).
There’s no way anyone could take the life of the Son of God. He made the tree He was nailed to and the men who put Him there. The only way He could die was if He gave His life. And that’s what He did: the brutal ripping of His body with Roman whips, the crown of thorns jammed onto His head, the spikes driven into His hands and feet, and the spear thrust into His side. Worst of all, the hell of being totally cut off from the Father, because He was carrying our sin. Nobody did all that to Him. He let it happen, because it took that dying to pay the death penalty for my sin.
That’s how much He loves me. That’s how much He loves you. He loves you too much to lose you.
So like a loving mother taking the brunt of that tornado, Jesus put Himself between you and the eternal death penalty of your sin. “God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). Jesus’ sacrifice removes all your sin from God’s book the moment you tell Him, “Jesus, You are my only hope. I’m resigning from living my life my way, and I’m pinning all my hopes on what You did for me on that cross.”
One day I chose to give my life to the One who gave His life for me. Things have never been the same, because Jesus didn’t just die for the world. “He loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20)…and for you.
Respectfully Submitted,
Fireplex