A Painful and Enjoyable Memory
Story
Larry had a way of touching my life in a way that few could, both through his powerful pursuit of my heart and through his humor and enjoyment of life. While I was in the counseling program I led worship in his church. Larry liked the way I led worship, but not what he experienced from me. He pulled me aside one day and said, “I love how you lead worship, but I wish you weren’t up front. It’s all about Mike and I want to see Jesus.” My heart sunk!!! I recognized that my motives were wrong so I stepped down from the worship team. Larry saw me a few weeks later and said,”Why haven’t I seen you leading worship the last few Sundays?” “Really Larry!? Because I realized that I simply need to be a worshipper and not make it the Mike Christian concert.” “Great get back up and lead us! But lead us from your brokenness, not your giftedness.” Isn’t that just like Larry?
Now the fun side of Larry…A number of years back we were doing a youth ministry conference. While driving back and I would pull out my guitar and we would sing Elvis songs for hours. We laughed and laughed as each of tried to outdo each other in our impressions. What fun that was. I can’t wait to do that again with him in heaven.