I just got a one line e-mail from Gina saying that she prayed for unexplainable peace for me over the weekend.  That line gave me chills because God answered her prayer abundantly. 

 

The whole time Sue and I were leading worship, I was almost bewildered at how natural it felt.  It felt like we had been doing it forever, even though it was our first time together.  

 

The speaker was great.  She has lead a life of quiet faithfulness to God and to knowing Him through His word.  Her teaching was correct.  Her manner was humble yet convicting.  Her testimony was an amazing story of God's changing power. 

 

The facility was wonderful.  It is like a hotel, but built to look like a giant farmhouse.  It sits in the wilderness in a camp setting.  We had nice big rooms, and comfy beds, and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies at our 24 hour disposal. 

 

The glasses made an appearance.  I even tried them on.   They covered half of my face.  But I felt smarter in them, like a wise old owl. So, I'm ordering a pair today.   Sue told me the glasses come with a squeegee to clean the lenses.   Either that, or you can just attach portable windshield wipers. 

 

So, I learned a lot, felt convicted about some things, and was blessed by how everything went.  I'm thankful......and really really tired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sue C and I are leading worship together at my church's spring retreat.  We leave in a few hours.  The 2 days before a retreat are some of my least favorite kinds of days.  I'm so focused on getting things ready, that I lose sight of how fun and bucket-filling this weekend is going to be. 

 

There is one thing that concerns me, now that I'm out of my to-do-list haze.  We have all of the perfect ingredients for a serious bladder control crisis.  I'm going to be hanging out with Sue C and other good friends, having little or no sleep, and the post-contacts-pre-bedtime appearance of Sue's 80's style glasses are the recipe for some leakage issues.

 

Maybe Sally Jesse Rafael will bring some extra Depends.

 

 

My mom and Gina both e-mailed me to ask what the deal is with my blogging lapse.  I've been sitting here for 15 minutes trying to find something to say.  There's a lot to say.  Too much to say, actually, and so I don't even know where to begin.

 

So, I'll just tell another lunch duty story.  The dish-o-the-day was chicken fried steak.  I call it chicken fried steak.  The menu says:  "breaded hamburger patties."  Serving BHP has been the most stressful lunch duty so far.  The kids weren't raising their hands if they wanted gravy, which was ticking Lunch Lady off.  She kept yelling at the kids who would come back into the line with their trays because they had sat down in the gymnasicafetorium, and discovered they didn't ask for gravy, and wanted gravy.  "Raise your hand if you want gravy!  I tell you kids this every day!  Don't be coming back in after you sit down and asking for gravy!  It's not my fault if you don't get gravy...all you had to do was raise your hand....(looks at me and the rest of the nervous volunteers)  See what I put up with!  Geez...they never learn...everyday....I tell them to raise their hands if they want gravy!.   The thing that cracks me up is...she's so busy yelling every 2 seconds.."Raise your hand if you want gravy!"  that she might as well just ask every single kid if they want gravy.  Skip the raising of the hands business and just do what I do when I'm on condiment duty.  It's more efficient.  I just say: "ketchup?"  and they say yes or no.  Of course I wasn't going to say:  "Lunch lady, just say "gravy?" it's more efficient."  She would have had ME for lunch.  So I just nod and put on my MMMM-HMMM-GIRL-DON'T-I-KNOW-IT-THEY-NEVER-LEARN face and keep slapping the BHP's into their compartment on the styrofoam tray.

 

The kitchen isn't air conditioned.  It's in the 70's today and muggy as all get out.  We're expecting nasty storms later, so it's hot, and close, and steamy in the kitchen, which doesn't help Lunch Lady's mood at all.  My face was sweating, and so I went to wipe off the sweat, but couldn't because of my lovely plastic gloves covered in butter from the rolls, and BHP grease.  So, you sweat, and squint your eyes when the sweat rolls into it. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of my sweat drops made it on to the BHP's.  If any of you are grimacing at this moment....just think about what's actually IN the BHPs!  Hamburger?  I think NOT.  They should call it Breaded Mysterymeat Patties With Lunch Volunteer Sweat On Top.

 

I went to pull out a tray of BMPWLVSOT from the oven and I almost dropped it.  I'm telling you, in that moment, where my wrists were faultering, and I was sort of stumbling forward to try and land the tray on the table as I was dropping it, my heart about burst out of my chest.  I was scared to death.  Can you imagine the lecture I would have gotten?  Actually, who knows what might have happened.  I might have gone postal on Lunch Lady, flinging BMPWLLSOT's like frisbees and pouring gravy on EVERYONE'S BMPWLVSOT all while screaming: "WANT GRAVY? I DON'T CARE YOU'RE GETTING IT ANYWAY BAAA HAAA HAAA HAAAAAAAA!"

 

The end. 

 

Gina and Mom, are you regretting asking about my blog lapse now?  BAAAAA HAA HAA HAAAAA!

 

Jenna came home from school yesterday with this joke:

 

This guy came up to me and said:  "there are three kinds of people in the world, the ones who can count, and the ones who can't."

Bart reffed the Boy's State basketball tourney this weekend.  He did a great job.  It's always a fun time for all of us.  His folks and sister's family come down, and we all dive headlong into the tournament action.  Here are a few things I learned over the weekend:

 

1.  NEVER EVER sit directly behind the bench of any team, unless you have no sense of smell.  By third quarter, I was praying the coach wouldn't call anymore time-outs.  WOW...don't boys believe in deoderant? 

 

2.  I am surprisingly capable of carrying my weight in coats, hats, mittens, purses (mine and the girls'), gameboys, funnel cakes, sodas, hotdogs, and popcorn, all while holding a 7 year old's hand, climbing hundreds of steps and crawling across dozens of people in rows.

 

3.  Having to park 5 blocks away from the basketball game, and wearing heels is the equivalent of scraping the balls of your feet with a cheese grater that's been in the oven for an hour.

 

4.  Even though we sit and consume thousands of calories of deep fat fried, processed game food, it seems to be imperative for our family of eleven to go to a restaurant and have dessert after the game.

 

5.   Sitting directly behind the bench of a team puts you in the perfect position to listen to all of the fans behind you, and the coaches in front of you yell vile, sarcastic, and humiliating things at your husband, who is reffing the game.  Good times.

 

6.  Children see the world completely differently than adults.  While I was noticing the stained chairs, crooked toilet, chipped counter tops, and leaky roof of the hotel, my kids were squealing in delight about what an awesome hotel we were staying in.

 

7.  I'm either getting older, or the outfits and girations of the dance teams at half time are getting skimpier and more suggestive.

 

8.  Watching an entire town from the farthest reaches of the Nebraska prairies show up and root on their teams is pretty cool.

 

9.  Getting to hook up with friends and family over coffee and a meal is a huge blessing.

 

10.  Getting home, crawling into your own bed, with only your own germs, after having lots of fun, is one of the best feelings there is.

God answers prayers.  He's been answering prayers in my life lately.   Sometimes, when I'm praying, I don't know what to pray.  The other night, I was praying, desperate for God to just understand my hurting heart, even though I didn't understand.  God even answers those prayers...those which seem so muddled to me.  To Him, they make perfect sense, thanks to the Holy Spirit.

 

His answers hurt sometimes.  I see the good in His workings, but it still hurts.  When I pray for wisdom, deeper faith, greater love, humility, sometimes He wounds to grant me those things.  I can't say that in this moment I am grateful for how He's answered.  He has given me enough faith in this moment though, to trust that He knows what He's doing.

 

My friend Dawn prayed for greater faith.  Not long after that, God walked her through the one of the darkest valleys a mother could ever imagine enduring.  A year or so after she lost her 4 month old son, I was talking to her about what she'd been through.  Although she was and still is very honest about the pain of her loss, she was just as ready and willing to praise God for the work He had done in their lives.  God gave her greater faith.  She bears the wounds to prove it.  To me, those wounds have just made her that much more beautiful.

 

So, while I'm not jumping up and down about God's way of answering prayer, it doesn't take me long to think about the emptiness and pain of a life without God's refining hand. He loves me too much to let me stay where I am.  Knowing this is for my good, and for His glory gives me comfort, and just increases my longing for the day when His work in me is complete.

 

 

Our pastor is out of town.  It just so happens he's a wonderful singer as well, and he's one of my leads.  My tenor is out of town as well.  So, I asked another great singer in our church to fill in for Pastor Rob this Sunday.  Jimmy was happy to do so, but he couldn't make any of the practices.  Because Jimmy is such a great musician, and he knew the set we were singing, I wasn't feeling too nervous...but there was a niggling.  I always get a little nervous when we go into something cold...or lukewarm anyway. 

 

Then, at 8 this morning, a man walked into our sanctuary and sat down on the platform steps.  He's been kicked out of many establishments around town for his "boisterous"(the kind way of saying bordering-on-violent) and erratic behavior.  His wife has put a restraining order on him.  We've helped him and his family out in the past, but he has become one of those people who is working the system.  The last time he was in church, he walked up the aisle right in the middle of the first service and stood at the base of the platform.  Rob stopped the sermon, and prayed with him.  Second service, he came back in, walked up to the front talking loudly, wanting a plane ticket to California, and had to be escorted out.  He's shown up mid-week, scaring people with his angry nature, and they've had to call the police.  So, we're trying to practice with this man in the sanctuary.  Nervous niggling number 2

 

Then, the elder in charge of announcements comes up at 8:38 (service starts at 8:45) and asks if we could extend our set to play the entire service.  (we usually get 15 minutes...the service is an hour)  Our guest speaker hadn't shown up yet.  All of my music is at home, so I go to Jimmy, who is the youth group band leader and singing with us, and frantically ask to look at his music.  Nervous niggling-turned tidal wave of adrenaline number 3.

 

So, it's 8:40 at this point, we got a team who hasn't practiced together, angry homeless guy in the sanctuary, Pastor Rob gone, and no speaker.  Jimmy and I are rifling through his music trying to figure out how to geriatricify (aka "tone down") his youth group music, and at 8:44, the elder peeks his head into the office and says: "Speaker's Here."

 

Speaker arrives, perfectly composed and ready to go on, angry homeless guy is dealt with by other arriving elders, Jimmy sings like he's been with us for ages, and I avoid throwing up all over my keyboard.

 

During Sunday School, the choir director comes up to me and tells me that the AWANA pinewood derby is using the sanctuary tonight while we're supposed to be having Easter practice.  They had forgotten to put it on the calendar, or something like that.  At that moment, I can feel the heat rising up my neck and onto my cheeks.  We can't skip practice, which is what is usually expected of the music ministry at our church.  There are only 4 practices left, and we've chosen a pretty ambitious musical.  There's no way we can skip it.   So, we spend the entire Sunday School hour trying to figure out where and how we're going to practice.  At this point I'm nursing a fairly gigantic headache and I have the shakes from drinking too much caffeine in all my morning nervousness.  We got something worked out...sort of.  It will have to do.  I hope the AWANA kids don't mind racing their cars to resurrection music.  Just kidding, but I was tempted to dig my heels in and tell them we weren't going to budge.  Breathe in Jesus...breathe out love...breathe in Jesus...breathe out love.....

 

God is good.  But, it's good to be home, with a bag Cadbury chocolate eggs in hand.  whew.