Prose

SATISFACTION

· By Wishful Thinking

She walks into the room and stares, her heartfelt desires are coming true but are they really what she wants? She is nervous.

He looks into himself not knowing if he can handle it. what will the thoughts be? Why is it him? He is worried

Her old hands are shaking, she can barely pick up what she needs to so that she can complete her 9-5 that she still works. She is in pain.

He is sitting alone pondering what to do next, is their another step up or is this it? Looking back helps none in looking forward. He is scared

Why she is crying no one knows but her. it will be difficult to go through. she can’t decided.

Who can make us feel? Why do we need love? Where do the questions stop?

We go through time and wonder as to what we will do in life, and if we can live up to all there is to live up to.

We all fail and the hurt seeps in, it cracks the seemingly innocent walls of our hearts. We are all here and trying to survive. Is it evolution, human nature or God, that we are like this?

There is a choice of whether or not to know, love, laugh, and hope.

FEAR

What does it mean to be a christian? It means to sacrifice yourself and follow Christ. What does it mean to follow Christ? Now this is the interesting part.

To follow Christ you need to know Him. First and foremost He is the son of God and the bible is God breathed. Therefore, a key factor in knowing God is reading the Bible. We are taught in the bible to pray. Every strong Christ follower, as well as Christ Himself, are seen praying at key points in there life. So, praying as often as possible and setting a side a daily time to read the Bible is following Christ? Close but not quite there. The most important thing is fear. FEAR, how is fear the most important in following Christ?

Fear, when you are afraid of something it consumes you. When you are afraid of heights then just looking at something slightly taller than your knee makes your heart sink. This is because you the know of power of heights, so you pay great respect to it, you do not try to make it conform to your will but you allow it do its thing while you stand out of the way. This is the fear of God. As we read the Bible and pray and grow in our understanding of God, we are to fear Him. We are to grow in reverence, love and awe of Him, allowing him to take control of our life and set aside our will for His.

Change my Heart, oh God!

We are in the season of LENT!

In today's children sermon, and at JBU's Ash Wednesday service, we learned that Lent is a time of spring cleaning. Where we refocus our hearts on Christ and what His will is for our lives.

I would agree, it is a time of remembering our cross and what

it means to daily carry it. Lent is a time where you sacrifice, mainly by giving up a food or food's of your choice, and pull into Christ allowing him to search your heart and change it. It is a time of re-organizing our priorities and turning our hunger and cravings for food into a hunger and craving for Christ our Lord. It is a time of windex-ing our hearts windows and allowing the light of Christ illuminate our dark corners that we never even realized are there. We are to dust off our old habits and refurbish them into new God centered ones.

The winter is over! So throw open your heart, and allow Christ to come in as

a cool breeze that refreshes and renews. Delight yourself in him, and do not trust your own eyes, but use this time to learn to fear Him. Humble yourself before Him during this time, and sacrifice your heart to Him, allowing Him to move in and change you. See what He reveals to you, I guarantee you will be blown away at what God will do with this time! But only if you truly allow Him to change your heart towards Him. Good night and Good Luck during this Lent season.

gRoWinG uP

Looking back, seeing what you didn’t, knowing what you couldn’t and laughing at what you wouldn’t.

Leaving what was possible and venturing to the impossible. Believing in the truth and never forgetting the scars required to get there.

Blessing those who you never knew and believing there is still hope for those you do.

Understanding that you will hurt and that hurt will come out in one way or another.

Learning to never underestimate the power of growing up.

Takes one to know one

I have discovered it really does take one to know one. We all point the finger, not thinking about the other three pointing back at us. I had an app. on facebook where you asked a question and anyone could comment anonymously what they thought. I asked if people thought I was a good witness for Christ (Bad idea!) and the comment I got back was, no I am to judgmental. Lately I would agree, I am quick to judge and slow to love. Christ was the exact opposite. I have discovered what keeps me from judging, TEARS, lots of tears. They break down walls and barriers you never even knew you had up. Don't hold them back, let it all out. You will begin to love in ways you never knew you could, and have a much less judgmental life. :)

Sunday Set list

All creatures of our God and King (David Crowder)

~ Shout to the Lord (Darlene Zschech)

~ Better is one Day in your courts

~ Blessed be the name of the Lord

We can try so hard to have the best service ever, yet we never really ever get there.

This sunday I learned about the power of prayer and the power of God, how he can take our week attempts to pray and serve him and turn them into something only He can do. Rehearsal on Wednesday broke me down, I felt like such a failure. We spent 30 minutes on one song and struggled the whole way through it. I was very distraught afterwards, and really wondered how this morning would go. I began to read what I call the Christian Artist Bible, "The heart of the artist", it was partially for a class and partially for comfort. I decided to read a section to my band this morning about perfection. It was about how God still uses us even if we mess up and a song goes wrong. I explained that I am way more concerned with the fact that they are growing in Christ and using their talents as an expression of that then wether or not a song we play is perfect. Well, God not only uses bad song but also bad Bible studies. I was very tired from the night before and a bit irritable, so I am afraid my words came off a little to pointed and strong. Yet, I loved it when the band and I all went into the chapel and were able to pray together. Something that I started last week and I am very pleased with. Also, Worship went very well this morning, despite all of my short falls. God has truly blessed me with a talented band and a wonderful job!

A Beautiful Disaster

~ Praise to the Lord the Almighty
~ Amazing Grace/ My Chains are gone
~ Jesus Draw me Close
~ O for a Thousand Tongues to sing


This sunday I did something a little different with the band. I had been getting so focused on making the music sound really great that I had been neglecting the Worship side of things. Every sunday morning we have prayer in our chapel at 8:30 and this week in our staff meeting we were talking of ways to encourage people to attend. I decided the band would end rehearsal at 8:30 then head over to calm our minds and steady our spirits. I wanted them to know I value our Christianity more than our musicianship. So, during the time when I am usually running around double checking everything and making sure everyone knows what they are doing, I spent instead praying in the chapel. Well the prayer time was wonderful and I truly felt more prepared for sunday morning than I have ever before. I did not realize that I need to schedule my time a little different, because of our new addition.

When I walked back into the sanctuary everything began to fall apart, my new member of the media team was struggling with several issues, including having prepared different songs from what we were going to be playing this morning. Trying to resolve the issue, I gave her my music and scripture for the morning. Tried not to think much about it and continue on with things as normal. The sound guy was needed as a greeter this morning, so I had to pull from my two classes worth of knowledge on how to run an analogue sound board and convert that to a digital sound board. Then we were off. The Lay Leader began with the welcome and great your neighbor, followed by announcements then joys and concerns with offering ending her time. Most sundays we allow for special music during the offering but did not have any this morning. I did not remember to tell her that about that and that we needed to go straight into children's time during the offering. Well, there was a small time of panic as we tried to remedy the situation in the middle of the service, it's a good thing I sit on the front row. We got it all solved and I settled down with a snicker thinking, "well one thing has to go wrong every so often, right", little did I know this was only the beginning. When the band and I got up to begin our worship set I realized that I had never gotten my music and scripture back from my media team. So, I am now flying solo up on the stage, luckily I could kind of see my other vocalist music. But when it came time to read the scripture I had nothing, so I ad libbed a bit and went right into Amazing Grace / My chains are gone. I survived the second problem of the morning. When we finished the Pastor came up and read the scripture for me then began his sermon.

As the band and I began to do the closing for the service, I noticed I got a lot of puzzled looks from the congregation, our newest media team member did not get to fix the last two songs and apparently had some very different words on the screen from what we were singing. :) What else could end our service more perfectly!

We have only been in our renovated sanctuary for about 2 months and are still trying to figure out a lot of things. But through it all, I will place Christ over all. Of course this morning had some problems because Satan hates it when we change our routine to be more Christ centered. None the less, it was really great to see that the congregation was still entering into a great time of worshiping our Creator, and we had more people stay after to take communion than we have had in a long time. It was a beautiful sunday morning service.