{"id":4176,"date":"2012-05-04T03:54:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T03:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4176"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","slug":"time-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4176","title":{"rendered":"Time Out!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you remember playing games with siblings or classmates or neighborhood kids and\u00a0having that amazing power\u00a0at any time to put your two hands together in the shape of a “T” and shout, “Time out!” to stop the game?As long as\u00a0you didn’t overuse or abuse it, the “Time out!” was all it took to bring the game to a grinding halt.\u00a0 Then, nothing else bad could happen – you couldn’t be “tagged” or “out” or “it”.\u00a0 (But nothing else good<\/strong><\/em> could happen either: if you made a move towards winning the game after you called the time out, then you were a cheater – scorned by all the other players.\u00a0 And what you\u00a0accomplished didn’t count anyway, so just stop cheating!)But a properly used\u00a0time out gave you time to catch your breath. Or tie your shoe so you wouldn’t trip over it.\u00a0 Or run inside to the bathroom.\u00a0 Of course the most gallant use of the “Time out” was when\u00a0you called\u00a0one on behalf of a teammate who had fallen.\u00a0 The game itself lost all importance while you gathered around the injured friend.\u00a0 If it was bad enough, nobody even suggested restarting the game.\u00a0 Somebody had to go get an Adult.\u00a0 I have to tell you, right now I just want to call a big old, indefinite “Time out” on life.\u00a0 And it’s not because I’m losing the game.\u00a0 There’s so much good\u00a0at the moment,\u00a0but things are moving so fast I can hardly absorb the full impact of God’s blessings.\u00a0 I am having trouble keeping up on writing Thank You notes!\u00a0 So I’ve been wanting to call “Time out” to catch my breath for a few weeks,\u00a0and\u00a0now\u00a0all of a sudden a teammate\u00a0has fallen.\u00a0 And it’s not a scratch and it’s not a “shake it off” moment.\u00a0 It’s bad.\u00a0 And in my head I’ve spent the week\u00a0desperately screaming “Time out!” Sorry to be so cryptic, but circumstances and my\u00a0own scrambled emotions\u00a0prevent me from being more forthcoming.\u00a0 Suffice it to say I’ve got a friend who is down and needs\u00a0the Lord’s\u00a0help and I humbly ask for your prayers for\u00a0him and his family.\u00a0\u00a0There’s need\u00a0of a miracle.\u00a0 Actually … several miracles.\u00a0 That’s what I’m praying for. “Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:<\/span><\/span>
If either of them falls down,<\/span>
<\/span>one can help the other up.<\/span><\/span>
But pity anyone who falls<\/span>
<\/span>and has no one to help them up.”\u00a0 Ecclesiastes 4:9-10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you remember playing games with siblings or classmates or neighborhood kids and\u00a0having that amazing power\u00a0at any time to put your two hands together in the shape of a “T” and shout, “Time out!” to stop the game?As long as\u00a0you didn’t overuse or abuse it, the “Time out!” was all it took to bring the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4177,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions\/4177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}