It's raining. I have no clue what the group is doing because I stayed back at the college with a sick stomach (probably due more to cousin Tom than anything else) and a sick attitude. I figured it was better to rest up to be useful in the afternoon than to spend my morning in Intercourse, PA, looking at the Pretzel Factory and possibly Build-A-Bear. I'm kinda sad I didn't go now, but that takes a minute to explain. Sometimes, the mountain stays firm and will not come to Mohammad no matter how much he sighs and begs it to. Sometimes, Mohammad has to roll his eyes, pick up his bag and walk to the mountain. By the way, the bag was given to Mohammad by the mountain.
Sunday morning I walked into the office to get medical forms for those people (me and Jessie and Eli) who hadn't filled them out yet. I saw the CD from 2002 and knew Be Still and Know would be on there and since we hadn't sung it the way I remembered it yet, I figured I'd grab it and maybe play it for the choir if there was time before the second service. At the worst, it'd be played on tour some time, still being useful. I forgot about it after telling one kid to listen to it, but grabbed it out of the choir room before running around like crazy trying to help get the praise band loaded on the bus. It stayed in my luggage and I figured I'd done a good thing. There was no reason for me to have brought it- I knew all the songs on the CD by heart and I'd heard the whole program so many times, I might could have recited all the prayers for you. It obviously wasn't here for me- some kid would find it and realize how great Crossflame was and it would inspire the whole group. I know the power of one small thing, however insignificant and so I've been waiting for the chance to use it. With only two concerts left, though, I was starting to think it was a waste of space.
Well, I pretty much slept off the stomach ache, but not the bad attitude. To avoid the silence in my room which would have required actually talking to God, I put the CD in my computer- I liked hearing Faithful Over a Few Things so I figured I'd put it on my MP3 player. This is the prayer of confession off that CD:
Almighty God, I come to you because I am struggling inside. I dwell on past hurts and heartaches and refuse to let go and forgive. For that, forgive me. I spend so much time as a worrier, looking within, that I forget the promise of Your child, given to me. For that, I need forgiveness. I focus too many times on useless speculation of the unknown and fail to recall the promise of the Holy Spirit. Forgive me for not remembering that You live within and beside me forever. Amen.
That year, as the tour gift, they gave out stones that were your burdens before tour (I heard 'for tour' the first time I listened to someone telling the story). I love our wooden crosses but today, I'd like the stones. I'd like to take my burdens and put them in a stone and learn to let them go because they're keeping me from being the person I want to be. I'm not holding out for universal adoration- Jesus never even got that. Yet. But I want to be something more that what the people who have just met me see me as. I have a soul, kinda deep down, but it's there. I have a heart, it's just a bit walled on these trips so I don't drop it and break it so much. I'm not Jessie- I don't thrive around people. But today, I know that the time spent away from people has just been a barrier and it's my fault. God's a people Person and it's His Spirit that lives within me. After all, it's Christ who dwells within me and I'm supposed to have died and been raised to His life.
Now, this new-found goodness of heart might die within ten minutes of being back with the choir, but then I'll know that there's just more that I need to clean out for God to work properly. I'll see that it's me holding me back, not someone else's disrespect or apathy. It's like what Ghandi said: 'Be the change you wish to see in the world.' If I want kindness, I must be kind. If I want listeners, I too must be prepared to listen. But above all, I need to be willing to serve. God used this time alone to get me straight, but I'm sure He would have loved to bless someone else by having them help me. If I'm not willing to put me aside to help someone else, how can I expect anyone else to put themselves aside for even a minute to help each other, to help the life of the choir? I don't know that serving means keeping my mouth shut all the time but I know it means keeping my heart open. I got to figure out a way to make the two go hand in hand.
So thanks for reading. They'll be more later, I'm sure. Amber-Drew promised a blog post about our excursions in Philly, so if you know her blog, I'm sure she'll be on that soon. Pray for the choir tonight at our concert and for safe travels back and forth from the college. If you have a few prayer minutes to throw around to make your quota and want to holler at God about me, you're more than welcome. I'm sure there's better topics of conversation, but I didn't sing Somebody's Prayin' to sit back and think that it hasn't helped me when someone's been faithful to God about me. I might forget that, but I'll come back eventually.
I just gotta remember that it's never the end.
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