I wrote with the Fboys and Mrs B. this weekend.  It was a ton of fun.  It felt like a true co-write...giving and taking..pushing and pulling...pacing and standing....singing...and more singing...playing...silence...laughing...thinking..eating.   We gathered around an idea, all threw our 2 cents worth in, and some might say, came up with....

 

8 Cents.

 

I would say however, that we came up with 2 great songs, and a priceless experience. 

 

Thanks you three.  Time to grab SueC and make a trip to the cornfields of Missouri!

For those of you unable to access Sue Smith's blog, here is some relief.  She has started a temporary blog while at Estes until the Mac folks figure out how to make software that doesn't have glitches.  Until then, we pc folk will help out the Mac users.  Here's her blog addy:

 

 http://writeaboutjesus.blogspot.com/

 

Enjoy!

Sarah is the prayer in the family.  Her prayers are heartfelt, tender, sincere, and....

 

LONG.

 

We're sitting in front of our grilled cheese and french fries today, odor wafting into my nostrils and causing my stomach to growl, and Sarah volunteers to pray for our lunch:

 

"Dear God, thank you for this day.  Thank you that I could go to softball practice, and swimming lessons, and thanks for Grandma and Grandpa coming over today.  Help us to have a good time with Grandma and Grandpa, and thanks for summertime, and thank you for our house to come home to, and please be with Mr. King and help his cancer to get better, and be with us and help us to get along and love you more.  And thank you for this food.  Amen."

 

And here's what I'm thinking the whole time:

 

"Yes, Lord.  Thank you...yes....ok...man I'm hungry...this is cute, but get on with it...sheesh...what next, oh, yes, Mr King,...man I'm hungry...amen."

 

Next time, I'll make a lunch I don't like.   Then maybe I'll pay more attention during prayer time.

 

 

 

Welcome to the world, Jonah! 

 

Check out the new pics of my brother's new baby boy!

Someone gave me grace a few weeks back...a huge dose of it.  I had hurt him with some things I had said about him to other people, and confessed it to him one night recently.

 

When I apologized to him, he forgave me...really forgave me.  Some say they forgive, but everything in their behavior shows the words to be untrue. Whether it's outright hostility, or more common...the polite withdrawal and distance...unforgiveness shows it's face one way or another, despite the words people say.  Not only did my friend forgive me, he asked me how HE had hurt ME.  Then, he e-mailed me the next day and encouraged me, and asked again how he has hurt me. I was shocked.

 

Forgiveness is born from grace.  Grace is giving someone what they do not deserve (in a good way--unmerited favor).  God gave His Son to us.  THAT is the quintessential definition of grace...a perfect Son offered for the salvation of the hopelessly imperfect.  We are called to reflect the glory of Christ to the world. So, we are called to extend grace.

 

When someone extends true, God-breathed grace to you, it's a powerful thing.  The walls come down.  The hurt heals.  The anger melts away, and gratitude takes its place.

 

I didn't realize how starved for grace I have been (not positionally, mind you)  until it was poured so lavishly upon me by my friend.  In that moment, I felt free to be the flawed, short-sighted, struggling person that I am.  I felt safe and accepted.  I felt loved.  I don't mean that I felt the freedom to indulge sin.  I mean that I felt loved in spite of my sin.

 

As a Christian, it doesn't seem right to feel a steady need to perform around other Christians.  It doesn't seem right to have to watch everything you say, and worry constantly about whether or not you're measuring up to standards.  It doesn't seem right to feel so unaccepted for who you are.  It doesn't feel right to feel like a disappointment.

 

Part of why I feel that way lately is because I struggle with giving grace.  Those standards often are MY standards for myself and for others.  I've made other people feel that way.  I have been stingy with grace.  I have held on to my hurt until it has turned to bitterness.  I have been quick to point the finger and criticize instead of stepping back, falling down on my face, and begging God for the strength to extend the kind of grace to others that He has extended to me.

 

In some respects, I'm wondering if lately (interaction with above mentioned friend excluded) I am reaping the consequences of sowing the seeds of grace-less-ness in my own life.  It may be so.  

 

I don't deserve grace.  But the beauty of grace, is that it is only given when we don't deserve it. 

 

So, may I walk in grace today.  May God remind me of His unfathomable, priceless grace.  May He help me see people as He sees them, and not how I want to see them.  And, may I be continually grateful for people like my friend who have walked in obedience and extended grace to me. 

He walked in to the studio and muttered a shy/been-here-done-this-a-gillion-times  "hey."  Slung across his back was his bass case, and he shrugged it off his shoulders, unzipped it, strapped it on, plopped down on a stool and finally made eye contact.   The producer pointed at the player and said to us "Jason."  Then he waved his hand across our area and said "Travis, Sue, Lisa."  After our second round of "hey's" it was time to get down to work.

 

The next hour was A COMPLETE BLAST.  Matt (producer) ran down the songs for Jason, discussing the "swirly, tasty, moogie" moments with him (refer to SueC's blog at left) and then they took off. 

 

It is so fun to watch session players breathe life into a song.  The entire time he was putting his groove on our songs, I wanted to burst out in a fit of...of...I don't know...creative joy...or...uncontrolled...happy spasms...or something.  

 

But that's not what you do in a studio.  No sir.  You must act chill, and like you know what you're doing.  I'm horrible at both of those things.  I'm not good at just soaking it in and nodding in a cool way to the beat, and occasionally stroking my soul patch as if deep in thought about how these bass tasties should lay in with the rest of the tracks.  If I HAD a soul patch...now that might be a different story.

 

What I want to do is a running commentary of how cool it all is, and how much fun I'm having, and how everyone is so good at their job, and how nervous I am, and how bad I am at things, and how funny all their little lingo words are, and how now I'm annoying everyone with my chatter, and now how sorry I am and that I'll just shut up now...geez..I'm a dork.....they must think I'm a dork....but it's all so cool, and I'm so grateful, and this is so fun....

 

But I didn't do those things...well not too much anyway.  I held it in.  At times, I felt like I was going to buss open man. 

 

The creative process is amazing.  Music is better than food.  It's almost better than coffee...but really can you separate the music and coffee...no you can't, so it isn't better than coffee...it's one with the coffee in my brain...which is still on a complete coffee buzz from drinking gallons over the past three days.

 

When it was my turn to lay down my tune, I felt like I was going to throw up.  The entire day before studio day, I was praying that I could get into that place where I was enjoying it, and expressing myself honestly.  No fear, no nerves, no insecurity, but just a time of doing my thing the way I can do it in an empty sanctuary or in my living room. 

 

That didn't happen.

 

Not til the second pass anyway, and in that moment I felt like I was flying.  Headset on, fingers just going wherever the song led me.  It was pretty great. 

 

I think I'm going to allow myself a giant happy spasm today when Bart takes the kids to the pool.

 

Then I might go get me a soul patch.

 

 

 

 

Bart and the girls were cleaning up in the yard yesterday.  Apparently, several bumble bees have taken up residence near my neglected pots on the patio.  They didn't seem to like the hubbub, and one of them stung Bart on the back of his head.  Another one landed on Sarah's face, between her lip and nostril, and stung her.  I looked over at her, and she was frozen in her spot, her big brown eyes filled with sheer terror as the giant furry bumble bee landed on her face.   She held still, but it still stung her.

 

She was hysterical.   In the middle of the crying, she screamed..."Mommy I did what I was supposed to do!  I stood still and it still stung me!  Why did it sting me?" 

 

Her face is very swollen.  It's even worse today.  Every time I look at her, her puffiness reminds me of that question she asked.  Why do we sometimes suffer consequences even if we make the right choices?

 

We're not in control of our lives.  You may make an endless amount of right choices, but there still is a bigger picture that may include suffering and pain.  Some Christians actually believe that if bad things happen to you, it's your fault.  I've heard some say that sickness is merely a lack of faith.  I'd like to see one of those people stand face to face and say those things to the likes of Job, or all of the disciples who were sawed in half and crucified because of their RIGHT choices.  Now don't get me wrong, there are often consequences to our sinful behaviors.  God disciplines us (Hebrews 12), but it's because He loves us, not because of any kind of lack of favor.  We're His children, and He cares too much to let us run headlong into our sin without any consequences. 

 

But, even if you live a morally upright life, bad things may still happen to you.   It's not God's lack of favor.  He doesn't punish us for our lack of faith.  He does use suffering, though, to grow us.  Suffering brings about deeper faith, trust, and humility in the believer's heart.  His job is readying the bride for heaven.  Some of that will require brokenness and pain.  We are prideful people.  Our lives may demonstrate an outer piousness, but God's in the business of purifying our hearts...hearts which were born into sinfulness.  It's not punishment.  It's love.  It doesn't often feel like love...but that's because I'm so consumed with my definition of love, and not God's. 

 

Someday, I will be in that place where I don't question God's plan.  For now though, my prayer is for God to give me the heart and the strength to obey, the faith to trust God no matter what, and to accept what God has planned...bee stings and all.

 

 

The smell of sulpher, sticky ice cream faces, whiffle ball...yep,  it's the Fourth of July!

 

This afternoon, we could hear an intense game of whiffle ball going on in the neighbor's backyard.  Grandpa and Grandma had all of their kids and grandkids over, and the game sounded like it had World Series consequences.  The cutest thing of all is that most of the neighbor's grandkids are under the age of 5.  They were having a "blast."

 

My girls were having a blast too.  This was the first year they have been allowed to light their own fireworks.  It was a completely different year than years before.   For one thing, my firecracker lighting days are done. *sniff*  Some things you just never get tired of, but I have been de-punked.  The punks (I've heard are made out of camel dung...can anyone verify that?) I once held are now in my daughters' hands, and in the hands of their friends.  And another thing that's different this year is that they're WAAAY more interested in the fireworks.  I used to have to bribe them to sit in their chairs and watch Dad and me burn up our hard earned money.  No more.  They have taken the mantle of money wasting upon their shoulders with gusto and exponentially expanded attention spans.

 

Two years ago, at our fun small group party, one of our friend's grandmother came.  She was 90 at the time.  She sat with us and enjoyed the show just as if she were a teenager.  The only difference was, one of the fireworks tipped over and shot straight at us, and almost started her wig on fire.  That probably wouldn't have happened when she was a teenager.  She still loved it though.

 

When I'm 90, I hope I still enjoy this holiday like I do now, even if it means risking my wig going up in flames!

 

P.S.

I just looked at the clock..it's no longer the fourth, just in case you're wondering about the date...it's all a blur to an insomniac!