The Real Thing

Tim and I got to experience our first U2 concert on Monday, along with 56 000 of our closest friends.  A massive crowd--I'm not sure I've ever seen that many people in one place, let alone that many people in one place singing the same song.  And, they're the same songs that I've sung countless times on my own as I hit rewind over and over (and more recently, hit repeat).  It's a small taste of heaven. 

The concert was somewhat redemptive for us, and a reminder of the ways that Grace is given.  The tickets for the concert were from last year.  In Fall of 2009, Tim had purchased U2 tickets for me as a surprise birthday present--the concert was scheduled for July 3.  News reports in Spring 2010 carried stories of cancelled/postponed U2 concerts because Bono was having back problems.  As the Spring wore on, we realized that our concert would be postponed as well.  Initially this was disappointing because we really wanted to go!  Shortly after, though, we were in hospital with Caleb.  I will not forget the moment that I realized how things had worked out, in this case, for our good.  We were standing in the OR waiting room with Caleb, ready for his port surgery, June 24.  I looked across the waiting room and saw an old Coca-cola pop machine--remember the line "The Real Thing"?  That always makes me think of the U2 line "even better than the real thing", and as is usual for me, I sang the line out loud.  At that moment I realized that we wouldn't have been able to use our tickets for this concert even if it had gone ahead as planned, because our lives were currently upside-down.  Because of Bono's back problems, we'd be able to go to the concert, whenever it would be (which ended up July 11 of this year--Happy Anniversary, Dad & Linda!). 

It may seem insignificant to some, but to me, as a well, BIG fan, for my first U2 concert, I'm so thankful that things worked out so that we could go.  Think of it how you will, but I experience that as another bit of Grace.  I may be misquoting here, but Philip Yancey talks about "Grace Notes," the notes in a piece of music that add flourish to whatever is played--God works elements of Grace, like these Grace Notes, into our lives.  This is one of those Grace Notes--maybe just fortuitous timing, maybe just luck, but I'm quite sure that there's design in this experience.
 

And the SkyDome is pretty cool too--I guess it's the building formerly known as the SkyDome.  Rogers' Centre.  Here is one section of the roof, as they were opening it up early in the evening.

And here's the guy who's pushing it open:

And the picture that caught our kids attention:

"Forklifts?!  They had forklifts there?!!"