worship

I just spent several hours with my guitar.  My fingers are sore.  My heart is happy.

I have avoided getting involved in leading worship music for awhile.  After spending the vast majority of my life required to go to church and play and sing in front of everybody, I needed something different.  I needed to enjoy worshipping again--free from responsibility.  When Ryan and were about to be married, we knew we needed a church that wasn't a weekly chore to attend.  Our past churches, we knew, couldn't do that for us.  No offense, but we were tired and burned out.

God brought us to Vineyard Christian Fellowship.  You can't get much more random than that.  A dozen or so people gathered together like a house church, the pastoral figure sitting on a barstool up front talking to us like we just happened to bump into each other.  This is now our famiy, and is worth the agony of getting out of bed in the morning to participate in it.  It's worth it EVERY TIME.

I know God is calling me into music again.  I am a worshipper.  I love to soar musically into His glory, into the overwelming awe of Him.  I had lost this.  How are you supposed to enjoy being a worship leader if you forget how to worship?

I feel that it will be good this time.  It sometimes is a difficult job, and is definitely a responsibilty, but I know I was made to worship this way and to share this with my family.

I'm actually excited about it...that's how I know I'm ready.

home

Over the past two years, our life has been uprooted by a family health crisis, loss of income, relocation, and all of the little additional consequences that follow.

It's been...well, to keep it short...hell.

But we've learned a lot, grown up maybe a little too fast, and are thankful for so much even during the hardest times.  Sigh.  We're really, really tired.  I feel very old.  I've been through a lot.  I'm thankful for those around me that help sustain my joy.

Then, in one marvelous day (yesterday), it's time.  Ryan and I are suddenly homeowners, and are closing on our house in 29 days!

I shouldn't be surprised.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  I know He works out more than what we can ask for or even imagine, but it always seems so shocking each time He does.  I feel so loved, so blessed, to know that He cares about us who are weary and who have suffered and who have struggled to persevere.

I can tell you why our house is amazing and how He is blessing us so immeasurably more than imagined, but you really just need to see it.  At any other time, we would be that young redneck couple in the ugly 2/1 with weeds growing through the roof.  But ironically, the same struggling economy that helped to make our lives a nightmare in the first place has helped us to afford something we could never have imagined possible.

It's ridiculous.  Pretty much impossible.  Even between our realtor, our lender, and our loan guy, no one has ever heard of a short sale completed in 17 days.  Apparently, God decided to tell us very loudly that He wants us in this house. What an unbelievable process to get to this point.  What exciting days we have ahead of us!

I know there is more work ahead.  There will be more crises to come, some of them a continution of the ones that have already crashed on top of us.  But what a tangible hope we now have, to see so clearly that He provides and brings us through and blesses us even in the middle of a raging storm.

Maybe the point isn't necessarily that He calms the storm, but that He's in the boat with us.

And He's probably smiling like He's up to something.

journal

My husband tells me I need to start writing.

"But," I protest, "I haven't figured out what I want to write about."

I know I'll probably write some kind of fiction.  I also know I have to write about what I know about: nothing before 1990 and only places I've lived in or visited.  But if I'm going to write some type of lengthy novel, I've got to have content.  And that's where I get stuck.

"Just start writing," he urges.  "Pick a theme, pick a place, pick a character, or anything, and start writing."

I sigh.  He's right.  I should follow my own advice I give to my own creative writing students.  Keep a writing journal.  Start writing and stop trying so hard.

inspiration

I need a piano.

I've had this thought floating in my head for awhile, but it struck me hard last week as I sorted through a few of my old research papers.  It should have been an obvious truth over the last couple of years, but two Saturdays ago, I suddenly hit a wall of conviction.  I've stopped writing.  I've stopped creating.

Music has become simply a distraction to me during long workouts at the gym, popular songs beating into my ears to urge me on.  I'm no longer appreciating music; I'm using noise to block out my self-inflicted physical pain.  And writing is purely for practical communication, mostly email and text messages.  Abbreviations and texting slang have cluttered my vocabulary.  I've deleted syllables out of words like "probably" and flowered my verbal communication with redundancies or contradictions.  ("I prolly will maybe...")  I mean, what am I saying anymore?

I'm reading my research papers, and I feel stupid.  Not because my papers are terrible, but because they are good.  I can't write like that anymore.  I sit down to play at the piano, and I realize that my fingers have forgotten where these keys and notes are.  My muscle memory from hours of practice every week is gone.

God is a Creator, and designed me in part to reflect this aspect of His character.  Why have I become so distracted by life that I have silenced a core part of my very soul?  This cannot be good.

Okay, so I need a piano.  And to start writing again.  And you know what?   I think it is coming.  The year 2011, I believe, is going to be a year of great redemption...a bringing together again of what was scattered or abandoned during 2009.  That's pretty exciting to me.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of work to be done to enable this.  But perhaps I will be able to sneak some artistic expression into my life in the meantime and not let it slip away.  I do understand why I abandoned my art, but now, it is time to nuture it again and delight in it.

I am so thankful for the life that has gathered around me during the last couple of years.  So many like-minded people have become my family and have adhered to this communal journey.  I love that.  And now it is my responsibility to be who I am and use my skills and gifts.  Oh what joy to do this together and inspire each other!