The Day After Easter

It's the day after Easter and I recline on our guest bed and write a paper about the respiratory system. The little girls are putting stickers on their letter "F" and the other kids are deep in their school books too.

It's the day after Easter, and this is our worship.

It's the day after Easter, and my Pandora station plays worship music all day long. The respiratory paper stops sometimes, and the writer closes her eyes to dwell on her Jesus. "You can have all this world, but give me Jesus..."

It's the day after Easter, and this is my worship.

It's the day after Easter, and I sit in the bedroom with the twins so that they don't talk to each other while they're supposed to be sleeping. My history pages ask me about the Scottish Covenant and astronomers and Pascal's Law and Isaac Watts.

It's the day after Easter, and this is my worship.

It's the day after Easter, and I stir cheesy potatoes in the frying pan and set the table while Momma cuts apples and peels oranges. We're working together to feed the family.

It's the day after Easter, and this is our worship.

It's the day after Easter, and my worship is vastly different today than it was yesterday. But I believe that we can live lives of worship, and that worship is more than just singing and reading our Bibles. Granted, that is worship...

School is also worship.

Cleaning is also worship.

Eating is also worship.

Breathing is worship, when you do it with the name of Jesus on your lips.

As long as you are doing your work to glorify God, then your work is worship.

Don't be discouraged by the drop from your wonderful church service yesterday to the grind of everyday life today. You can find God in the little things just as much as in the building with the cross.

Your life can be an act of worship to our King of Kings. Will you let it be?

Are You Really Okay?

We're standing in the dusk of backstage left when her searching eyes look into mine. "Linds, are you okay?"

I jump to assure her that I am, that I'm "fine."

Source

Her eyes pierce deeper. "You hide things."

I know. oh, how I know.

"I hope you do tell things to some one."

ouch.

Her words haunt me for the rest of the night and into the next morning.  She's right. I hide things deep, shovel "I'm fine"s on top, because I'm scared of being hurt. again.

She won't hurt me. She loves me. She's my friend.

And she's worth the truth.

Source

It's easy to feel like she won't care, but she does.

It's so easy to feel like she's too busy, has too much stress to handle my little problems. I mean, she's Eliza! in My Fair Lady! She has enough to think about.

But the truth is, I'm hurting her by my hiding.

I only have a week and a half left of this show with her, before she's graduated from HPA forever.

Do I really want this last show to be tainted with my lies? Or will I share, deepen our trust?

It's in the dark of night that I resolve.

And when I see her in a few hours, after we hug and she tells me how practice has gone so far, when she looks into my eyes and asks "And how are you?"

She's going to get the truth.

The whole truth.

Every time.

Because she's worth it.

Above All

It being the last day of 2012, I feel like I should have some deep, rich thought to share.

But I don't.

I don't have any resolutions yet, no word of the year. I haven't decided to take a picture every day this year, or run a marathon in September.

I'm just going to enter into this new year thinking about Christ. I want to keep Him above all else this year. So often I will forget; forget what He has done for me, forget His love.

So if you really want a resolution from me, it can be that I will pray for the presence of Christ in my life at all times. I want to radiate the light of one who dwells on Christ's goodness constantly.

I want to remember Him above all.

May God bless and keep you and yours in this new year. Happy 2013!

Merry Christmas!

from our family to yours!

{On The Events of Friday}

I was at a school on Friday.

For the first time in 6 years, I signed in at an office and walked the halls. I peeked through doors into classrooms full of kids.

And then I served 10 kindergarteners lunch.

They were cheerful and merry- their hearts were full of the joy that comes when it's almost Christmas and you're 5.

I saw Jesus in them.

It was several hours later before I got home, serving lunch to 20+ other students and teachers and then studying for a midterm at a friend's. Just before dinner, I logged onto the computer and kept seeing glimpses of something that happened in CT.

It puzzled me, but not enough to find out what happened. I finally clicked a link and came across a news article that notified me of the horrific truth- 27 dead. 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7. 6 women. and then he killed himself.

The stories filled our house over the next 2 days as we all tried to comprehend what we were reading and watching. The teachers who threw themselves in front of their students and died. The families never got to thank them.

The teacher who got her class to the closet and managed to barricade them in- and kept them quiet- for over an hour.

I look at the faces of those who died and my heart hurts for each of their families, who- as my mom put it- have unwrapped presents with now-dead names under the tree.

A co-op teacher of mine encouraged us to pick a name or two and commit to praying for those families for a year. I've picked Emilie Parker, because her picture reminds me so much of my girlies.

Will you pick a family to pray for? These are not just names on a list; these are people. These are living, breathing, hurting people. They need your prayers.

Will you give them?

A Christmas Video

I know that this video takes a few liberties, and is slightly unrealistic in the fact that Mary and Joseph didn't have Facebook. But I love the way it shows the Christmas story and I find it makes the common text more realistic for this tech savvy world.

I hope you are having a great Christmas season and taking time to rejoice in the true meaning of Christmas!

A Team

During Fiddler, one of my favorite memories is just remembering the camaraderie between all 6 members of the devotion team. Yes, we had been chosen by the directors as a group, but we were more than a team.

We were friends.

When we were together, God was there with us. When one of us gave devotions to the cast, the rest of us were behind that one, praying. When we had a problem or prayer request or a praise, that was the group we'd take it to.

Together, we were set-apart. 

Praying before closing night- in various stages of costuming

This year, our team is different. Janae graduated, Tanner has gone other directions, Chase is in Seussical, but Asia, Abby and I are still here. together. And we've added two guys, Andy and Jamie to our midst.

and it's incredible what God has done.

I hadn't realized just how much I depended on these people. They were the ones who I could always go to. They were always there.

But on Thursday, practice was a little different. Andy was gone, due to being sick, and Asia sprained her back and was taken away in an ambulance early in our practice.

HPA wasn't the same. Abby and I didn't know what to do- how to go about our day- without these two critical members of our group. It was as if our little family had been ripped apart.

And in those moments, Jesus reminded me to never, ever, take someone for granted. Asia showed us all how quickly someone can be perfectly healthy one moment, and gone away in a flash of red light the next.

So look around you. Find the people whom are stable. and imagine your life without them.

Then thank Jesus that that picture isn't reality.

And hug those people extra tight next time you see them.