Boasting in My Weaknesses

A few weeks ago I wrote about my experience leading worship that particular week and I wanted to share another experience from the week before last. One of the things I have been learning is how, when we allow Him, God works through us. That doesn't sound so profound. It's not that I didn't already know this, I just hadn't experienced it to this degree before. Normally our worship team rehearses on Tuesday and then Thursday morning we just sort of set up and warm up together--we don't have time to actually go through all the songs that morning. On this particular week, one of our key members (everyone is key when there are only four of you) was scheduled to be out of town during our Tuesday rehearsal but back in plenty of time to play and sing on Thursday. Our reheasal time on Tuesday went a little shaky, but fine. Thursday morning I arrived at church and our pianist was there but just barely: having just arrived in town the night before (instead of Tuesday night), with no luggage, and a sick kid at home. She hadn't touched a piano for the past week, let alone practiced this week's music. Not only that, but the first song we were playing I don't play on guitar so it's all her. We got through the song after a rough start and the rest of the songs went pretty well. I was content just to see God get us through without any major problems under the circumstances we had. But I usually settle for less than God desires: Over following week I received so much feedback on how meaningful of a worship time it had been to many of the women, with several people specifically noting that first song! All I can say about this over and over is: It is so much not about me. It is so much not about me. I've always felt that I have to be doing my best in order for God to work through me the most. Apparently it's not true. As someone told me the other day, sometimes we just have to get out of the way to let God work.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NIV)

And the winner is...

April, who recognized this week's line from "We Are the World" by USA for Africa. Now who doesn't remember that song? I remember feeling like I was changing the world just by singing along!

80's Mystery Song Lyric

Here's this week's line:

We are the ones who make a brighter day

Email your answer here.

Summer's End

It's been a while since my last post. I apologize about skipping Mystery Lyric Friday. I'll try harder this week.

A while back, I wrote about summer and how I love summertime and going barefoot. Now the hot weather has turned to only warm. The inflatable pool is deflated and in its place is a big muddy spot in the middle of the back lawn. Pumpkins, scarecrows, and gigantic inflatable spiders are popping up in people's front yards. While I love the weather turning cool as much as I love it turning hot, there is something definitely bittersweet about fall. Maybe it's because I know that short days with foggy weather is ahead. But I'm dragging summer out as long as I can. The time doesn't change for another week so we still have sunlit evenings. For the past several weeks, my family and I have been walking a lot in the evenings, often to a restaurant for dinner, sometimes up the road to Starbuck's. Tonight we stayed home. We barbecued some burgers while the sun was just getting ready to set, made some fresh guacomole, and peeled a mandarin orange picked from my mother-in-law's tree this weekend. In what other time and place do you get to enjoy an end-of-summer barbecue with fresh, ripe citrus fruit? I know it won't be long until I'll have to live like summer is gone, but you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming and barefoot.

And the winner is...

My sister Cheri! She was one of many who correctly answered C+C Music Factory "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)". I am sure that those of you who missed this one thought it was this song but also knew this song wasn't released until Dec. 1990--and that's why you didn't submit your answer. Right? Well, I did poor research up front, thinking I saw the release was in 1989 but apparently it wasn't until 1990. Sorry about that. But based on the responses I got, maybe I need to do a 1990's mystery lyric every week... Hmm... Personally, I don't consider the 90's a period of great music. Then again, a lot of my favorite songs are great music either!

80's Mystery Song Lyric

Here it is--this week's lyric. Maybe a little different than usual. I'm not sure if it's harder or easier though. Mail me the title and artist.

Jump to the rhythm jump jump to the rhythm jump

And the winner is...

April! April correctly recognized the line from Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon" and has been singing it ever since! Read all the lyrics here or watch the video here.

80's Mystery Song Lyric

Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dream

Send your answer (song and artist) to me. I'll post the answer and the winner later on!

Hangin' Out at the Chord House

I've been meaning to mention a useful site I found quite a while ago. If you play guitar or piano at all, check it out. It's the looknohands.com chord house. Enter the Guitar Room (or Piano Room if that's your thing) and select the chord you want to learn about. It shows you the fingering, the notes you're playing, and let's you hear what it sounds like. You can even add multiple chords to a list and then have it play through the list. And this seems to be a pretty exhaustive list of chords (unlike some of the other references I've found), including different options for the same chord. The Advanced Guitar Room lets you do the same for alternative tunings and includes scales as well. (I stick to the Easy Room.)

The funny thing is, on occasion, I've even used this site backwards: I'm playing a chord, but I don't know exactly what chord it is. It's pretty quick and easy to go through the list (especially if I know it's some type of E chord for instance) and find the one that matches the fingering I'm using.

I'm a Student Again!

I haven't been a student for almost 10 years but here I am in school again. I am enrolled in The School of Women's Ministries. It's set up as a two year certificate program with six all-day sessions over the two year period. The first session was Saturday. It was really good and I am looking forward to more. I have some reading and writing to do over the next few months before the next session and I thought I might use the blog to occasionally share what I'm learning an maybe even as a springboard for some of the writing.

Just so you know: I never liked reading and writing throughout school. I did it, and I did it fairly well, I just didn't like it. It's just been in the last few years that I have developed a love for reading. (I'm really glad because it fits well with my love of books--finally I'm actually reading the books I buy!) I've always avoiding writing. I really don't know why--I think it's because I get overwhelmed trying to organize all my thoughts. That, and research for writing normally requires reading. But I think I will be okay with it now. I may actually enjoy it!

And the winner is...

TraciHux!!! Congratulations Traci for knowing this week's line was from John Cougar Mellencamp's "R-O-C-K in the USA". Read the lyrics for the whole song here.

It's Back - 80's Mystery Song Lyric

Back by popular demand, the mystery song lyric of the week! Read the line(s) below and be the first to correctly identify the which 80's song and artist it's from! Email your answer to me and I'll post the correct answer and winner later on!

They come from the cities
And they come from the smaller towns

Hungry-Israelite Thinking

Shortly after God led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, they started complaining that life was better back in slavery than on their way to the promised land. Every time I read this I think how ridiculous these people are. They just witnessed God instantaneously starting and stopping all these plagues in response to Pharoah's actions. They just saw Him hold back tons of water so they could cross a sea only to see the waters suddenly released to swallow up their pursuers. And at that time they praised God for doing these things. But a few weeks later we find them grumbling in hunger: "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt!". How fickle! Where's their faith? Don't they remember what God did? Don't they know what God is doing?

Those are my usual thoughts about the Israelites. Today I'm not quite as harsh on them. The last couple of weeks, anyone who cared (and some who didn't) listened to me go on about how excited I am to be leading worship for my Bible study and how God has been using that to strengthen my faith, to trust Him more, to pray more, and on and on. He has made Himself so evident to me in so many little ways, it has been amazing. And, the worship times have been going amazingly great. Well, today's worship time was a little off--nothing went wrong, it just wasn't amazing, like the last few weeks have been. That's all it took for me, like the Israelites wanting to go back to Egypt to die because of a little hunger, all day I've been battling these thoughts about how terrible today went (it wasn't terrible) and how ridiculous it is for me to be doing this (I know this is where God wants me). Occasionally I remember my excitement from just yesterday. That helps. Then I realized that I was acting like the Israelites in the desert. How fickle! Where's my faith? Don't I remember what God did? Don't I know what God is doing? No, I don't always know what God is doing, but I do remember what He did. And I'm going to have to operate on that, not on my irrational hungry-Israelite thinking.

My Husband's Poetry

Usually I reserve this blog for my own writing but tonight I make an exception. My dear husband who gave me my shiny new iPod (on which I'm currently listening to Relient K "For the Moments I Feel Faint"--great song) accompanied the gift with a card with a cute inscription that I publish here with his permission. I hope you get as good a chuckle from it as I did!

If you wish the sun to stop its shining, and this would bring you delight, then I shall take hold of it, and fight with all my strength 'till it succumbs to my might. If a single flower should curl but the corner of thy mouth into a smile then I shall search to the ends of the earth and give you enough to strethch a mile. If this gift should be what you desire and it will bring you joy, then I shall go to Amazon.com and click buttons as they have never been clicked before and choose super saver shipping to have it delivered to thy door.

Long Time, No Blog

I thought I was going to start posting more often once I got into a normal routine with all sorts of stuff starting up for the fall. I actually did pretty well for about a week... and then dropped the ball. Well, let's try again. Here's a sampling of what I've been up to:

• It's football season and that means one thing: Fantasy Football! Watching football is just more interesting to me if I have some personal stake in it. This is my family's second year of having our own little Fantasy League (through Yahoo! Sports). I'm ranked 4 of 8 right now but should be moving up after tonight's game!
• I've been leading worship for the Women's Bible study I attend. Between picking out songs, practicing guitar, practicing with my team (one on piano plus two more vocalists), and then other setup type of things, this has been keeping me pretty busy--but I am having an absolute blast doing it!
• I've been keeping up on house-cleaning a little better than usual--though there's always more to be done!!!
• New to my small but growing collection of electronic gadgets: a black iPod nano. I've been loading music on there and, of course, listening as well!

5 Words

I've been tagged again! I love this stuff. This one's a word association thing. Here are the five words I was given (by April) and the first words that came to my mind:

Guitar - strum
Paper - shred
Laundry - basket
Shoe - repair (though I've never had a shoe repaired!)
Slap - face

I'll tag Pat, Jules, and Cheri. Here are your five words:
Pear
Beyond
Blue
Calculator
Shrub

WWII Correspondence

Here's something you'll want to read. I can say that confidently because I'm about the least likely to enjoy this sort of thing, and, yet, I can't get enough. Carl Schaad of Blog Hero has been posting a set of letters from WWII one by one. Each personal letter is written to a man named Charles and signed Margaret. You can read all about how he found the letters here. Then catch up by reading the first few here. (Scroll to the bottom to read the first one first!) He's posting one a day and there are 31. I've never cared for "history", but it is beyond interesting to me to read about individual people who lived in the past.

Number Fun

Over at Math Trek I read about this Number Gossip site. You can enter your favorite number(you do have a favorite number, don't you?), up to 10000, and find out all the properties about that number. There are all these properties that I'd never heard of before tonight, most of them with names that peak your curiosity: happy, hungry, lazy caterer, and apocolyptic powers to name a few. Fortunately, they are all defined so you can figure out how to calculate the properties of all your favorite numbers greater than 10000 on your own!

Ask A Ninja - "Summer Jobs"

Upon occasion, I visit askaninja.com. I love this stuff. If you haven't seen any of them before check this one out. I can't get enough of this--it's hilarious!

It's a Party!

Yesterday we had a construction-themed birthday party for my now-three-year-old. It was first shot at planning a kids' party where the birthday boy and guests actually understand what's going on. I'm really against the whole invite-every-kid-your-child-knows, impress-the-kids'-parents, rent-a-bounce-house-clown-ice-cream-truck-marching-band kind of party for a three year old child. I loved the simple birthday parties I had growing up and want to make the same kind of memories for my children. So I decided on making it a construction party since my boy loves tools, and my husband and I had a great time coming up with names for the food and decoration ideas. We went to more effort than I had planned on, but not overboard. Everyone there had a great time including me. Here are some pics:

Three three-year-olds. (Birthday boy on right.)

Tool "tattoos"

Build-your-own hotdogs

Dirt cake (which is neither dirt, nor cake)