It constantly amazes me how God works out the right thing at the right time. Very soon I will be minister of music for Faith United Methodist Church in Brimfield, Ohio. I'm so excited about what God has planned for me there, and about how the church is transforming and turning their eyes on God. It really just fell in my lap, through a friend, all of the sudden and the reason I didn't start right away in November is because we had already made plans at the church where I've been for music for Christmas and I didn't feel right about bailing on them.
I think it interesting that I'm going to be working for another church named "Faith", and I'm quite sure that God has a particular reason for that "coincidence".
Monday, November 26, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Introduction to Christian Worship by James F. White
Well, I don't have a clue how to do a review, and while I might say something about what I learned and what I think about the book at the end I'm mostly going to summarize it for my own benefit. I read this book originally for Seminary, though I think I skimmed most of it and I don't remember much, so I thought this would be a way that I can read it more indepth, interact with it and what I have read elsewhere, and hopefully remember what it says better. This'll be in several parts so that no one post is super long, and I will probably be quoting a lot because I don't feel like being in school again and having to try to figure out how to say the same thing in different words when I think how he puts it is pretty clear already.
Chapter 1: What Do We Mean By "Christian Worship"?
Dr. White chooses to mainly approach defining Christian Worship by describing what Christians do when they come together for worship, and he will be describing "the devlopment, theology, and use of actual structures or services." (pg. 22) Secondly he will also explore definitions of greater abstraction, and thirdly he will "examine some of the key words Christians choose most often to express what they experience as worship." These things are consistent aspects of Christian worship throughout the history of the Church, despite many changes in world culture and how the Christian Church functions in it.
When describing what happens in Christian Worship, it is helpful to look at structures and services to describe the forms in which Christians operate. Structures are things like the calendar which organizes a year's worship, which begins in the New Testament with a sense of having a weekly structure of time, and then annual calendars commemorating events that are important to the Christian community (Christmas, Easter, etc.), and there have also been daily schedules of public and private prayer developed in some communities. Dr. White will be looking at these more closely in Chapter 2, and in Chapter 3 he will be looking at the structures which shelter and enable Christian worship (things such as buildings, furnishings, etc.).
Services, then, are the actual gatherings of believers, and these take place daily (chap. 4) and weekly "service of the word" (chap. 5). Then there are other occasional services - baptism (and confirmation) to mark the "initiation" of outsiders becoming a believer (chap. 7), the Eucharist or Lord's Supper (chap. 8), and then a variety of pastoral rites which mark life's journey, such as services for healing and weddings, (chap. 9).
Chapter 1: What Do We Mean By "Christian Worship"?
Dr. White chooses to mainly approach defining Christian Worship by describing what Christians do when they come together for worship, and he will be describing "the devlopment, theology, and use of actual structures or services." (pg. 22) Secondly he will also explore definitions of greater abstraction, and thirdly he will "examine some of the key words Christians choose most often to express what they experience as worship." These things are consistent aspects of Christian worship throughout the history of the Church, despite many changes in world culture and how the Christian Church functions in it.
When describing what happens in Christian Worship, it is helpful to look at structures and services to describe the forms in which Christians operate. Structures are things like the calendar which organizes a year's worship, which begins in the New Testament with a sense of having a weekly structure of time, and then annual calendars commemorating events that are important to the Christian community (Christmas, Easter, etc.), and there have also been daily schedules of public and private prayer developed in some communities. Dr. White will be looking at these more closely in Chapter 2, and in Chapter 3 he will be looking at the structures which shelter and enable Christian worship (things such as buildings, furnishings, etc.).
Services, then, are the actual gatherings of believers, and these take place daily (chap. 4) and weekly "service of the word" (chap. 5). Then there are other occasional services - baptism (and confirmation) to mark the "initiation" of outsiders becoming a believer (chap. 7), the Eucharist or Lord's Supper (chap. 8), and then a variety of pastoral rites which mark life's journey, such as services for healing and weddings, (chap. 9).
Monday, September 17, 2007
Rich Mullins - In Memory
I wrote this Monday, and saved it as a draft so that on Wednesday (the anniversary of Rich's passing away) I could simply tell it to post. Well, Wednesday came and went and I completely forgot. So, here it is, two days late. On another note, I'm saddened by the guilty verdict that came out yesterday against Floyd Landis, because I believe that he won the 2006 Tour de France cleanly and fairly. They just didn't want to have another American win, and they allowed a clearly incompetent lab bungle the testing without having them properly back up their test results. If you are interested and want to read up on it, go to either Floyd's website or to the Trust But Verify blog.
Well, it's been 10 years since the passing of an amazing poet, songwriter, and lover of Jesus, Rich Mullins. His influence on the Christian music world is still felt - more than a typical ripple of a rock being thrown in a pond. More like a tsunami, but not in a destructive way, but an amazingly long-lasting way for better honesty and craft in songwriting.
Just a couple of weeks ago I had the most amazing image in my mind of Rich jammin' up in heaven with the likes of J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, John Newton, Felix Mendelssohn, Asaph, and King David. Just imagine what they talked about, how they fellowshipped with one another, and then Jesus is right there being so wonderfully glorified! I hope I get to hang out with them someday, and actually when I read the Psalms and these others' hymn lyrics and play their music I think in some ways I am able to know them a little even this side of heaven. Much of a person's soul comes out in the music and words that they write.
God, I know you wanted Rich up there to be with you, but we sure do miss him down here.
Well, it's been 10 years since the passing of an amazing poet, songwriter, and lover of Jesus, Rich Mullins. His influence on the Christian music world is still felt - more than a typical ripple of a rock being thrown in a pond. More like a tsunami, but not in a destructive way, but an amazingly long-lasting way for better honesty and craft in songwriting.
Just a couple of weeks ago I had the most amazing image in my mind of Rich jammin' up in heaven with the likes of J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel, Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, John Newton, Felix Mendelssohn, Asaph, and King David. Just imagine what they talked about, how they fellowshipped with one another, and then Jesus is right there being so wonderfully glorified! I hope I get to hang out with them someday, and actually when I read the Psalms and these others' hymn lyrics and play their music I think in some ways I am able to know them a little even this side of heaven. Much of a person's soul comes out in the music and words that they write.
God, I know you wanted Rich up there to be with you, but we sure do miss him down here.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Okay, okay, I finally got around to fixing the blog...
Way back I switched to the new template on Blogger, and said that I would put back on the banner and fix my blogroll and all... Here it has been 5 months and I've finally gotten around to doin' it. Story of my life.
Anyhoo, now I got some linky love goin' on, with a blogroll that is not comprehensive (I use Bloglines) but at least representative. Same goes for the music selections. I might figure out how to do the whole "ipod shuffled" playlist thing sometime.
Doing this was mostly because I wanted to figure out how to put my LibraryThing catalog on here, now that I've gotten almost all of my books in there. There are a few missing, but I'm quite sure that you are going to think that I'm really bizarre in my tastes of reading material. Remember a few things: some stuff was required reading in Seminary and College, and some is just because I need to be able to let my mind escape the real world for awhile. I'll get the ratings hooked up as I have time to recollect what I thought when I read the book the first time, and/or to actually read the book! :-)
Oh, yeah! I forgot that I gotta stick on here my Facebook page link. Hmmm...that'll have to do for now until I figure out how to add it in the sidebar. If anyone out there that might actually take a gander at this, I'm really just a pathetic amateur that only knows enough HTML to be dangerous, but not to make it look really good and behave properly. If you'd like to help me out, I'd much appreciate it!
Anyhoo, now I got some linky love goin' on, with a blogroll that is not comprehensive (I use Bloglines) but at least representative. Same goes for the music selections. I might figure out how to do the whole "ipod shuffled" playlist thing sometime.
Doing this was mostly because I wanted to figure out how to put my LibraryThing catalog on here, now that I've gotten almost all of my books in there. There are a few missing, but I'm quite sure that you are going to think that I'm really bizarre in my tastes of reading material. Remember a few things: some stuff was required reading in Seminary and College, and some is just because I need to be able to let my mind escape the real world for awhile. I'll get the ratings hooked up as I have time to recollect what I thought when I read the book the first time, and/or to actually read the book! :-)
Oh, yeah! I forgot that I gotta stick on here my Facebook page link. Hmmm...that'll have to do for now until I figure out how to add it in the sidebar. If anyone out there that might actually take a gander at this, I'm really just a pathetic amateur that only knows enough HTML to be dangerous, but not to make it look really good and behave properly. If you'd like to help me out, I'd much appreciate it!
God speaking directly to my heart
I just started last night Ruth Myers' 31 Days of Praise: Enjoying God Anew for my nightly devotional time. What was really weird is that I just did lesson one of the homework in Beth Moore's Believing God online bible study and it had questions about what I challenges I have and how does God speak to them. Wow, did God answer on the first day of praise! She takes the Scripture noted at the end of each paragraph, and combines similar messages and ideas and personalizes the pronouns so that it is directly reading what God is saying to me (as the reader/listener). She encourages readers to look up the actual Scriptures and write in the margins any additional things that spoke to them, and to underline in the prayer whatever stood out. I practically underlined the whole thing! I thought someone might really be encouraged by it too, so here it is:
My heart rejoices in You, Lord, for You are my strong shelter in times of trouble and danger and stress, my hiding place to whom I may continually resort...my Father who lovingly provides for me...my Shepherd who guides and protects me...my Champion who upholds my cause as His child and defends my interests...my Bridegroom who delights in me...my God who is mighty to save, who rests in His love for me and rejoices over me with singing, with shouts of joy. You are my inheritance, my share in life, the One who satisfies my longing soul and fills my hungry soul with goodness. (Ps. 27:5, 71:3, 91:1-2; Matt. 6:25-26; Ps. 23:1-3; Is. 62:5b; Zeph. 3:17-18; Ps. 16:5-6, 107:9)
I praise You for Your love and Your wisdom. You are too wise to ever make a mistake, too loving to ever do anything unkind. You act on my behalf, accomplishing what concerns me and fulfilling Your purpose for me as I call on You. Thank You that You love me deeply and tenderly. You are compassionate and gracious, full of lovingkindness, ready to forgive, patiently considerate, and generous beyond imagining. You desire my love and rejoice to do good things for me. You delight to give me the desires of my heart as I delight myself in You. How precious is Your love to me, O God! I sing for joy as I take refuge in the shadow of Your wings! (Ps. 57:2, 138:8, 86:5, 103:8; Matt. 22:37; Jer. 32:41; Ps. 37:4, 36:7, 63:7)
My heart rejoices in You, Lord, for You are my strong shelter in times of trouble and danger and stress, my hiding place to whom I may continually resort...my Father who lovingly provides for me...my Shepherd who guides and protects me...my Champion who upholds my cause as His child and defends my interests...my Bridegroom who delights in me...my God who is mighty to save, who rests in His love for me and rejoices over me with singing, with shouts of joy. You are my inheritance, my share in life, the One who satisfies my longing soul and fills my hungry soul with goodness. (Ps. 27:5, 71:3, 91:1-2; Matt. 6:25-26; Ps. 23:1-3; Is. 62:5b; Zeph. 3:17-18; Ps. 16:5-6, 107:9)
I praise You for Your love and Your wisdom. You are too wise to ever make a mistake, too loving to ever do anything unkind. You act on my behalf, accomplishing what concerns me and fulfilling Your purpose for me as I call on You. Thank You that You love me deeply and tenderly. You are compassionate and gracious, full of lovingkindness, ready to forgive, patiently considerate, and generous beyond imagining. You desire my love and rejoice to do good things for me. You delight to give me the desires of my heart as I delight myself in You. How precious is Your love to me, O God! I sing for joy as I take refuge in the shadow of Your wings! (Ps. 57:2, 138:8, 86:5, 103:8; Matt. 22:37; Jer. 32:41; Ps. 37:4, 36:7, 63:7)
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Indescribable
Friday, June 22, 2007
Worship with Vicky Beeching
May I see it like the first time
Standing as a sinner lost,,
Undone by mercy and left speechless,
Watching wide eyed at the cost
May I never lose the wonder,
The wonder of the cross.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
morning worship w/ Tim Hughes
There in my dreaming,
God in my watching,
God in my waiting.
Be my everything.
"Everything" by Tim Hughes
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Alive Festival
Brought to you by the coolest phone ever, my Motorola Q. :-)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
goin' mobile
Monday, April 2, 2007
oops...some changes
Well, I wanted to try out the new template features, but that means that the custom parts I put in are momentarily gone. I did save the code of the original, but I have to figure out where to put it in the new one. Grrrr. I don't have time now to spend on looking for where to put in my custom banner! And now I have to redo my blogroll! So, pardon the mess...only another 2 weeks to go and then I can feel like a normal human being again. :-)
April Fools - who's the joke really on?
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A suggestion for all: don’t play April Fool’s Day jokes on your pastor...remember that he has a close connection with the Big Man. I played a joke on my pastor Sunday - showed up with a splint I had from my past on my wrist, and said that I fell at work and sprained my wrist and would be unable to play the piano for 4-8 weeks. He totally believed it! After I told him it was an April Fool’s Day joke, he said something to the effect of that I should watch out because it may come to pass that I fall at work and hurt myself. Well, today...at work...I fell. No joking. The above pictures are of the nasty bruise on my left upper arm, and I have another smaller bruise on my right upper arm. Thankfully, though, it didn’t hurt my wrists or affect my ability to play!!! And other than some discomfort from the bruises, and having to endure his teasing now, I’m fine. I learned my lesson, though - don’t mess with the pastor!! LOL
Monday, March 12, 2007
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Testing
I’m testing out Post2Blog - a desktop blogging client for Windows. This is an example of quick snippet that inserts link to Post2Blog and text if you type "Post2Blog". To disable this quick snippet just remove it via "Tools" | "Manage Quick Snippets". I got it from www.giveawayoftheday.com.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
I'm getting so spoiled...
I have a funky feeling that it won't be much longer until I will want to replace good 'ole desktop PC with a Mac. This MacBook Pro is defenitely spoiling me. It...just...works. I have pooh-poohed and "oh, please"d Mac people for a long time now, especially with the seemingly abundant amount of bloggers that have Macs, and now I am eating crow, with my Aqua. My abundant apologies.
Anyways, I am MUCHO excited that I finally got PHP and MySQL with Apache working on this computer - I don't want to even think about loading it on the PC. It has been quite an education, not only using an unfamiliar OS and commands in UNIX instead of DOS, but also configuring programs from scratch, which I've never done before. But, after doing them over and over again several times, reinstalling MacOSX back to factory, and finally reverting to Apache 1.3 that came pre-installed (couldn't get Apache 2 to work) and reverting to MySQL 4.1 (because version 5 wouldn't work, either), I got the PHP test AND the MySQL test to work. :-)
I do hope to really get going on the website. I've been waiting so that I can do it with MySQL, and have the versatility that goes with that. I might be doing it through WordPress, as well, I have to figure that out. I don't want it to be just a blog, but sort-of half Web 2.0 blog-like and half Web 1.0 static pages. Who knows what it will be in the end. I definitely want to use MySQL to make a database of all my music - I've tried to do it in Access and I just can't seem to make it work for me. I guess some of that is because I'd rather have it somewhere on the web so I can look up and add to it from anywhere, and not have to wait til I'm home or something like that.
Oh, and I love even more than my Mac my new iPod. It has taken me forever to enter into the 21st century of mobile music, but I'm finally there and I love it. This thing is unbelievable. I actually got a 1Gb Philips mp3 player for Christmas, which I also like a lot because it is easier to use for going on walks and for trips that I don't want to risk breaking or losing my iPod. It is just hard to decide on what to put on there with so little space (hey, if you had as many CDs as I have, you would have a hard time, too!)
God is so good in His provision. I feel so awful and faithless because I seem to forget that a camillion times a day, but He truly is. I wish I could get my heart to be satisfied with just God, and not be looking so much at the desires that I can't seem to shake (husband, etc.). I'm tired of "maybe someday" and I can't make myself accept of "maybe never". God knows what's best, but it is a daily struggle to get that to my heart.
God is good, all the time.
Anyways, I am MUCHO excited that I finally got PHP and MySQL with Apache working on this computer - I don't want to even think about loading it on the PC. It has been quite an education, not only using an unfamiliar OS and commands in UNIX instead of DOS, but also configuring programs from scratch, which I've never done before. But, after doing them over and over again several times, reinstalling MacOSX back to factory, and finally reverting to Apache 1.3 that came pre-installed (couldn't get Apache 2 to work) and reverting to MySQL 4.1 (because version 5 wouldn't work, either), I got the PHP test AND the MySQL test to work. :-)
I do hope to really get going on the website. I've been waiting so that I can do it with MySQL, and have the versatility that goes with that. I might be doing it through WordPress, as well, I have to figure that out. I don't want it to be just a blog, but sort-of half Web 2.0 blog-like and half Web 1.0 static pages. Who knows what it will be in the end. I definitely want to use MySQL to make a database of all my music - I've tried to do it in Access and I just can't seem to make it work for me. I guess some of that is because I'd rather have it somewhere on the web so I can look up and add to it from anywhere, and not have to wait til I'm home or something like that.
Oh, and I love even more than my Mac my new iPod. It has taken me forever to enter into the 21st century of mobile music, but I'm finally there and I love it. This thing is unbelievable. I actually got a 1Gb Philips mp3 player for Christmas, which I also like a lot because it is easier to use for going on walks and for trips that I don't want to risk breaking or losing my iPod. It is just hard to decide on what to put on there with so little space (hey, if you had as many CDs as I have, you would have a hard time, too!)
God is so good in His provision. I feel so awful and faithless because I seem to forget that a camillion times a day, but He truly is. I wish I could get my heart to be satisfied with just God, and not be looking so much at the desires that I can't seem to shake (husband, etc.). I'm tired of "maybe someday" and I can't make myself accept of "maybe never". God knows what's best, but it is a daily struggle to get that to my heart.
God is good, all the time.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
I've been convinced
'Been needing a laptop, can't argue that for music and media they are simply the best and most reliable...so this long-time PC user is finally taking the plunge and it will be here next week. Thank you, God, for the resources to finally get it, and thank you, Apple, for refurbishing.
Can't say, however, that I'm taking the total switch, because my desktop is a PC, and that is for personal use. The laptop is for the business/ministry.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
One thing...
A blog I regularly read, called 2nd Cup of Coffee, posted this today and I just so resonated with it that I wanted to share it with you.
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I kind of wanted to jump on the bandwagon at Laurel Wreath's place for the New Year's meditation thing, but I didn't think I had anything deep or wide enough to sing about, so I'm doing an abbreviation on the theme. I'm calling it "1 Thing." It's a small phrase, but if I were re-naming my blog, I would call it 1 Thing because of what it represents in Philippians 3:13-14:. . .
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
I joke about my feeble memory, and sometimes I am seriously worried about what lies ahead for me medically because I'm already memory-challenged. Interestingly, though, my mind is weak mainly in certain areas. For instance, I can't seem to memorize scripture very well, and I often forget to buy bagels for the school reading club breakfast, for example. But my absent-mindedness is selective. It skims over the good stuff and pores over the bad. On a daily basis, I catch myself rehearsing the times I failed, sinned, embarrassed myself, hurt others, insisted on some selfish idea, etc.
I think I know why I get stuck in the condemnation loop. See if this analogy makes sense to you:
My sin is like an intruder who broke into my home and assaulted my family or me. The intruder may have been apprehended and taken away forever to jail, but every night, I think I hear him, or see his shadow, or I re-trace the horror of the details of the invasion, and I am afraid again. The truth may be that he is gone, but the memory still has power over me.
I know the truth about my mistakes is that the Lord, in his "compassions that fail not," has forgiven me--my sins are blotted out, dissipated, conquered, by his power. However, he does not erase the occurrences from my memory. Ironically, painful memories and regret can help me understand my weaknesses and help keep me from falling again. But the sin memory can also hold me captive and beat me down like a slave.
However, the truth is, I'm NOT a slave to my past behaviors. The truth is, God apprehended my sin and took it away forever. I am not defined by a shameful list of secret and not-so-secret sins. That's why when I feel that old heaviness coming on, I need to remember ONE THING >>> to forget what is behind and press on toward my destiny, the reason I was created--to glorify God and enjoy him forever. After all, God "thought me up;" I didn't have any say in my existence. For some reason, he wants me to "be."
And if 1 Thing in Philippians 3 isn't enough to encourage you, see if these examples of 1 Thing speak to your heart:
Psalm 27:4 ... One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
Luke 10:42 ... but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Mary chose to focus on Jesus; Martha, her sister, was fretting about hostess responsibilities while he was in their home. He wants a relationship with us.)
2 Peter 3:8 ... But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. (Do we really think about eternity very often? Are we patient concerning God's timing in answering prayer?)
John 9:24-25 ... A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God," they said. "We know this man [Jesus] is a sinner." He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"
I'm asking the Lord to break through the distractions and blindspots of my life this year, to help me focus on relationships and eternity, and to press on to be who he created me to be. Boil it down to One thing that I need in 2007: Jesus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I kind of wanted to jump on the bandwagon at Laurel Wreath's place for the New Year's meditation thing, but I didn't think I had anything deep or wide enough to sing about, so I'm doing an abbreviation on the theme. I'm calling it "1 Thing." It's a small phrase, but if I were re-naming my blog, I would call it 1 Thing because of what it represents in Philippians 3:13-14:. . .
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
I joke about my feeble memory, and sometimes I am seriously worried about what lies ahead for me medically because I'm already memory-challenged. Interestingly, though, my mind is weak mainly in certain areas. For instance, I can't seem to memorize scripture very well, and I often forget to buy bagels for the school reading club breakfast, for example. But my absent-mindedness is selective. It skims over the good stuff and pores over the bad. On a daily basis, I catch myself rehearsing the times I failed, sinned, embarrassed myself, hurt others, insisted on some selfish idea, etc.
I think I know why I get stuck in the condemnation loop. See if this analogy makes sense to you:
My sin is like an intruder who broke into my home and assaulted my family or me. The intruder may have been apprehended and taken away forever to jail, but every night, I think I hear him, or see his shadow, or I re-trace the horror of the details of the invasion, and I am afraid again. The truth may be that he is gone, but the memory still has power over me.
I know the truth about my mistakes is that the Lord, in his "compassions that fail not," has forgiven me--my sins are blotted out, dissipated, conquered, by his power. However, he does not erase the occurrences from my memory. Ironically, painful memories and regret can help me understand my weaknesses and help keep me from falling again. But the sin memory can also hold me captive and beat me down like a slave.
However, the truth is, I'm NOT a slave to my past behaviors. The truth is, God apprehended my sin and took it away forever. I am not defined by a shameful list of secret and not-so-secret sins. That's why when I feel that old heaviness coming on, I need to remember ONE THING >>> to forget what is behind and press on toward my destiny, the reason I was created--to glorify God and enjoy him forever. After all, God "thought me up;" I didn't have any say in my existence. For some reason, he wants me to "be."
And if 1 Thing in Philippians 3 isn't enough to encourage you, see if these examples of 1 Thing speak to your heart:
Psalm 27:4 ... One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
Luke 10:42 ... but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Mary chose to focus on Jesus; Martha, her sister, was fretting about hostess responsibilities while he was in their home. He wants a relationship with us.)
2 Peter 3:8 ... But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. (Do we really think about eternity very often? Are we patient concerning God's timing in answering prayer?)
John 9:24-25 ... A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God," they said. "We know this man [Jesus] is a sinner." He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"
I'm asking the Lord to break through the distractions and blindspots of my life this year, to help me focus on relationships and eternity, and to press on to be who he created me to be. Boil it down to One thing that I need in 2007: Jesus.
His mercies are new every morning...
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord!!
Just when I wonder if God is paying any attention whatsoever, He tenderly and lovingly shows me in countless ways that He truly loves me.
The holidays are hard for me - since my parents divorced in '96, but especially since I moved back up to Ohio in 2000, Christmas never feels "right". Everything going on celebrates "family" and yet mine never can seem to get along even for one day. What is funny is it actually isn't my parents all that much, though it is hard to get them to decide on what they are going to do, it is my siblings. Anyway, long story short my sister made her own plans to be somewhere else on Christmas, which is just as well because she usually causes the most tension and stress, and my dad and stepmom went down to my stepsister's in Columbus. So, my aunt and I went to my mom's house, where my brother and my nephew spent the night and we had Christmas together. My brother managed to upset my nephew only once with a silly demand and an even sillier punishment, and my grandma complained about us watching "Cars" on DVD only twice. All in all, a pretty good day considering how it has gone in the past.
Anyway, because of that family stuff and because all the hoopla makes the desire to have a family of my own (husband and children, ahem) come out full-force, I also usually feel REALLY lonely. This year, while I did face some of that once again, God new the prayer in my heart and brought back to me some friends from my past (high school) and helped me get closer to other present friends. I don't know why, but friendships always seem to be difficult for me - not necessarily difficult to create, but difficult to go deeper than a surface friendship and very difficult to continue if circumstances of life draw us away from living near one another and seeing each other regularly. I can't say that I'm all that great at keeping up correspondences, but the funny thing is that all of my friends from as far back as I can remember have the same problem. They don't write me much, and I don't seem to either. It isn't on purpose, and it isn't because I don't care or they don't care, it just happens for no real reason.
The other gift of Christmas God brought me is actually continuing to show me that I'm headed in the right direction with starting my Beside Still Waters Ministries business. I just had another church agree to pay me to lead worship on a regular basis on Saturday evenings. It was basically laid in my lap with little effort from me, and I am just amazed. With the money from the cantata I played for at Uniontown, I was able to register my own domain name for the next three years. I only have one page there right now, and the only link that works is to go to this blog, but here it is: http://www.beside-still-waters.org/ . Just so you know, the dashes are important, the name without them was already registered to someone else as was using ".com" at the end instead of ".org" I also got for a little more money an e-mail address using that domain name. I'll be switching all my business stuff to that.
Well, gotta go because lunch is done. God is good - ALL the time!!
Just when I wonder if God is paying any attention whatsoever, He tenderly and lovingly shows me in countless ways that He truly loves me.
The holidays are hard for me - since my parents divorced in '96, but especially since I moved back up to Ohio in 2000, Christmas never feels "right". Everything going on celebrates "family" and yet mine never can seem to get along even for one day. What is funny is it actually isn't my parents all that much, though it is hard to get them to decide on what they are going to do, it is my siblings. Anyway, long story short my sister made her own plans to be somewhere else on Christmas, which is just as well because she usually causes the most tension and stress, and my dad and stepmom went down to my stepsister's in Columbus. So, my aunt and I went to my mom's house, where my brother and my nephew spent the night and we had Christmas together. My brother managed to upset my nephew only once with a silly demand and an even sillier punishment, and my grandma complained about us watching "Cars" on DVD only twice. All in all, a pretty good day considering how it has gone in the past.
Anyway, because of that family stuff and because all the hoopla makes the desire to have a family of my own (husband and children, ahem) come out full-force, I also usually feel REALLY lonely. This year, while I did face some of that once again, God new the prayer in my heart and brought back to me some friends from my past (high school) and helped me get closer to other present friends. I don't know why, but friendships always seem to be difficult for me - not necessarily difficult to create, but difficult to go deeper than a surface friendship and very difficult to continue if circumstances of life draw us away from living near one another and seeing each other regularly. I can't say that I'm all that great at keeping up correspondences, but the funny thing is that all of my friends from as far back as I can remember have the same problem. They don't write me much, and I don't seem to either. It isn't on purpose, and it isn't because I don't care or they don't care, it just happens for no real reason.
The other gift of Christmas God brought me is actually continuing to show me that I'm headed in the right direction with starting my Beside Still Waters Ministries business. I just had another church agree to pay me to lead worship on a regular basis on Saturday evenings. It was basically laid in my lap with little effort from me, and I am just amazed. With the money from the cantata I played for at Uniontown, I was able to register my own domain name for the next three years. I only have one page there right now, and the only link that works is to go to this blog, but here it is: http://www.beside-still-waters.org/ . Just so you know, the dashes are important, the name without them was already registered to someone else as was using ".com" at the end instead of ".org" I also got for a little more money an e-mail address using that domain name. I'll be switching all my business stuff to that.
Well, gotta go because lunch is done. God is good - ALL the time!!
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