The Lord is my Maestro

In my Thursday morning bible study, we are studying the Psalms. Several weeks ago, while studying Psalm 23, we were challenged to create our own psalm. It took me several weeks, but I finally did. I know it’s a little cheesy and I am a rhyme-er, so it mostly all rhymes. But – here it is nonetheless:

The LORD is my Maestro, I will sing for Him alone.

He fills me with joy and excitement as He lets me play my part,
He rejoices over me with singing, and puts His music in my heart.

He stirs my soul and pulls out the innermost parts of me,
So that I can play a part in His majestic symphony!

Even when life is hard and I’m stuck in a minor key,
I know He’ll lead me through it with His perfect melody.

And when no one cares or understands the songs I choose to sing,
He lovingly reminds me that I’m singing only for my King!

As God allows, my lifesong will proclaim His Holy Name,
And then He’ll fly me up to Heaven where I’ll worship with the saints!

How He Loves

The song, How He Loves, by John Mark McMillan has had an enormous impact on me these last few months. We’ve sung it at the Edge a few times and I’ve been told that it has affected many of the students as well. I absolutely love this song. For a million reasons. I love that it is grounded in biblical truth. I love that it is real and raw. I love that it came out of real life experience and real emotion. But mostly I love that the author wasn’t afraid to be real in the lyrics. He wrote exactly what he felt like he needed to say. I love that.
When I write songs, most of them come directly from my journal. Many of them are what I was saying to God, or what God was saying to me. They are usually very personal. This song is so very personal. Not just to John Mark, but to me, and to so many people all over the world.
I think that the Gospel message can really be summed up in the words to the chorus of this song:

He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves!!

I also really love the (controversial) lyrics in the 2nd verse:

Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way…(He loves us!)

I honestly hate that there are so many churches that feel that they need to change the lyrics of the song in order to make it more ‘comfortable’ for the congregations. I hate that we feel that we have to make the Gospel more ‘comfortable’ for people. I believe that Christ’s birth, death and resurrection were anything but comfortable. I very much believe that they were very messy and uncomfortable (you might even say kind of like a ‘sloppy wet kiss’). I wish that we spent less time worrying about offending people with the message of Christ and more time worrying about people dying without Him!

In regards to the controversial lyrics, John Mark had this to say:

“The idea behind the lyric is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of
earth converge in a way that is both beautiful and awkwardly messy. Think
about the birth of a child, or even the death of Jesus himself. These miracles are both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sloppy (“gory” may be more realistic, but “Heaven meets earth like a gory mess” didn’t seem to have the same ring). Why does the church have such a problem with things being sloppy? Do we really think we’re fooling anyone on Sunday morning, especially God? Are we going to offend him? I mean, he’s seen us naked in the shower all week and knows our worst thoughts, and still thinks we’re awesome. What if we took all the energy we spent faking and used that energy to enjoy the Lord instead? That could be revolutionary!”

If you haven’t heard the song yet, check it out here.

Hypocritical Worship

“I hate all your show and pretense – the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies…Away from me with your hymns of praise! They are only noise to my ears. I will not listen to your music, no matter how lovely it is. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry.”

Amos 5:21, 23-24

God was talking here to the Israelites who were, according to God, extremely unjust and wicked. They were lying, cheating, oppressing the poor. He called them hypocrites because they talked about worship and sacrifice, but they ignored the injustices happening among them. In these verses it is obvious that these injustices and the lack of righteous living were absolutely essential to worship. They could not worship God on Sunday (or Saturday actually, right?) and act like everyone else the rest of the week.
When our life outside the church walls doesn’t match our life inside the church walls – When we say we love Jesus, but can’t love our co-worker or neighbor – When we promise to follow His ways, but ignore the hurting or needy all around us – our worship becomes hollow. It becomes useless to God. Worship is, after all, more than music – it’s about obedience. I have heard worship defined as “our response to who God is and what God has done.”

I do think it’s interesting that in these verses he specifically talks about music. Have you ever been singing a song on Sunday morning about the amazing grace of Jesus Christ when you realized that you are still angry at your spouse for something that happened earlier that day or even that week?? I have. Have you ever sat in the middle of the worship service and been annoyed or even angry about the odd outbursts of someone who may be new to church and God and who is quite different than the people you normally see come through your church doors? Guilty.

God doesn’t care at all for offerings of worship that aren’t backed up by our lifestyle. He isn’t interested in hollow worship. He isn’t pleased by singing hypocrites – no matter how beautiful we think we sound.

If we seek to worship God, we must also seek His justice. If we seek to worship God, we must also share His grace. If we seek to truly worship God, we must stand up for what is right (no matter what people think of us).

I’m reminded of a song I’ve loved for a long time called Stand by Susan Ashton. Here is my favorite part…

In a moment of truth at the top of the will
I open my arms and let go of my will
And stand with my face to the wind
With the storm beating down
On this sacred ground
If I stand, for the graceI have known
For what I believe
Then I won’t stand alone – no I won’t stand alone.

Toothpaste or Strawberries?

Okay, so this morning I was sitting on the couch drinking my tea and watching Rachel Ray (for the first time in forever!) while keeping an eye on the kids. Well, Maya walks up to me with a tube of toothpaste in her hands smiling ear to ear. Not wanting her to get it all over herself (or my floor), I took it away and set it on the table next to me just out of her reach. She completely lost it! She is just learning to throw fits, and this one was a doozy. She threw herself onto the floor and cried and cried. Everytime I tried to give her something to distract her, she’d push it away and cry harder. I couldn’t help but laugh. (I know, I’m a wonderful mother 🙂
I just kept thinking…toothpaste? really? That’s what you want? I even tried offering her some strawberries (her favorite) and she wouldn’t have it. It was toothpaste or bust!

I started thinking about all the times I’ve done that to God. How many times have I cried over the “toothpaste” that I couldn’t live without when God had juicy, red, wonderful strawberries He wanted to give me if I’d just stop crying over the lost toothpaste!

I wonder if God laughs at me the way I did Maya. Probably so.

What about you? Are you crying over toothpaste, or waiting for the strawberries?

Not Good Enough…part 2

I’ve been thinking lately. If God’s going to do what God’s going to do regardless of what we do … does it matter what we do at all? Is our effort, planning, hard work, talent, skill, etc important at all in the scheme of God’s plan? It must be – or He wouldn’t give us the skills, abilities, knowledge to do those things.
I know that God doesn’t need us to accomplish His will – BUT He chooses to use us. In light of that…
I believe we should offer our everything. The very best we have to give. I can’t imagine anyone would disagree with that, but how often do we really live that way?
Like the story in John 12 about the anointing at Bethany. When Mary came with her very best perfume, in a very large bottle and poured it all out on Jesus feet – she was giving him everything she had. Holding nothing back. She didn’t bring whatever was closest to the door (most convenient), the one that was easiest to find or carry, she didn’t pick something off the street to bring to Jesus. She picked the very best, most expensive, most treasured thing she had to offer to her King. She wasn’t concerned with convenience, ease or cost.
She knew it would cost her. I wonder what she was giving up in order to bring that offering to Jesus. I’m guessing it was just as much a sacrifice as an offering. I’m guessing that it probably cost her a meal or two or ten – and it meant that she would be questioned, ridiculed, criticized . I wonder if she was afraid what people would think? I wonder if she was wondering how she would take care of her bills/food/family? I am wondering if she thought about anything else at all – other than the incredible privilege of bringing her very best to the One and Only?

I am reminded of a specific time in my life when I abandoned all in worship of that same One and Only. There was a mission trip I was a part of as a teenager – called Houston 2000. I honestly don’t remember what we did there. I don’t remember what the purpose of the trip was (sad, huh?). I only remember that it is there that Jesus met me where I was and taught me how to worship. Not just in song, but in lifestyle. Not just through music, but through thoughts and intentions and obedience. It was in that place that I understood for the first time what it felt like to abandon everything for the sake of getting just a little closer to the Savior. Usually when we pray or worship we bow our heads or get lower to the ground as a picture of reverence and devotion. That’s a wonderful thing. But that time God brought me to a place where I was standing on my tip-toes reaching up as high as I could desperate to be closer to him. My eyes were wide open and I was looking up to that ugly ceiling and sobbing and singing with everything in me that Jesus was my everything. Oh to go back to that place.

I have experienced many similar moments over these last 10 years – but none like that one. It was my first. Firsts are special. The first time I met Jesus was special – I will never meet Him like that again. The first time I held each of my daughters were special – I will never feel like that again with any of them. The first time I held my husband’s hand and looked into his eyes was special. Even though I love him more now than I ever thought possible – it will never feel like it did that first time.

That moment in Houston, TX I met Jesus in a way that I never have since. It was the moment that I understood that He wants my everything. Not just some of me – but all of me. Not just my best – but my VERY best. Not just 1 day a week, but 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Anything less than that is not good enough. My last post was all about how I feel like I’m in a perpetual state of not-good-enough. I hope that won’t always be the case. I struggle EVERY day – EVERY moment – with trying to remember to give God my everything. My thoughts. My works. My family. My job. My relationships. My obedience. My words. My intentions. My feelings. I know He wants it all. I wonder if in our busy schedules, many responsibilities, and all the things we do FOR God we are missing the simple act of sitting at His feet giving Him everything we have heart and soul?

God deserves my best, expects my best and even demands my very best. Anything short of that is not good enough. I pray that today I will make every effort to serve him instead of others, to love him instead of myself, to focus on him instead of all the ‘things’ I need to get done. And I pray that I will learn to rely on His strength and instruction in order to do all of those things. I pray that my life today will be an act of worship of my One and Only. Anything less than that is simply not good enough.

Not Good Enough

I feel like I’m in a perpetual state of not good enough. How about you? It really gets me down a lot of the time. I feel like no matter how hard I work, or how much I prepare, or how badly I want to give my everything – there is always something that holds me back or drags me down. I feel like the more I know God, the more I know about Him – the more ‘not good enough’ I feel.
I don’t think that it’s such a bad thing to always want to give more, do more, be more for Christ. I actually think it’s a good thing for me to feel that way about myself.
BUT…here’s where it becomes a not-so-good thing. My incredibly high standards that I set for myself (and never feel like I come close to achieving) are starting to color my opinions of others around me. I often expect everyone around me to aim for those impossible standards too, and when they don’t I get really frustrated. I KNOW it’s my own issue – and that I should only worry about myself, but have been really struggling with it lately.

In John 21, Jesus is asking Peter if he loves Him and Peter keeps saying yes – and Jesus keeps saying, then feed my sheep..then this happened…

20Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) 21When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”
22Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

It’s interesting that in the middle of the lesson that Jesus was trying to teach Peter – about how to love Him – he gets distracted by someone else around him and wants to know what Jesus wanted to do with him. Jesus says basically that it’s none of his business – and that all that should matter to Peter is what Peter will do. I have been focusing a lot on this passage lately and have been making huge efforts to focus on my service, my job, my responsibilities as a follower of Christ and not worrying about everyone else’s responsibilities. It’s a battle I struggle with almost daily – and I intend to win.

Jesus says to me today…’as for you, Kim…you must follow me.”

Funny Kid Stories

Okay, so I’ve always thought my kids were entertaining. But sometimes they are downright hilarious! Here are a few recent examples..

Wisdom from an 8 year old (all of this happened during the car ride home from school):

First…
E: “I think it must take a long time for food to go from our mouth all the way back out.”
Mom: “Actually, baby it has to go through a lot of organs before it’s ready to come back out – like your stomach and your intestines.”
E: “Hey – dogs have intestines too! I learned that from Martha Speaks.” Then, in her best know-it-all voice…”See mom, Martha Speaks is educational. That’s why I should always get to watch it. And Cyberchase too cause it teaches fractions.”

Then…
E: “I wonder if anyone knows how to stop the water from coming out when they need to go to the restroom. I think the scientists should really figure that one out.”

And my very favorite…
As we were driving into our neighborhood there was a kid with his parents all out in the middle (the actual middle) of the street! They didn’t even look up or move when we (in my huge van) finally had to just drive around them! Then my 8-yr old said..
E: “I wonder if they are hobos. (pause) One of my friends in Sunday School said that hobos are d-u-m-b (she spells it cause she thinks it’s a major bad word) cause they go into the street and just lay down until cars run over them. But I think they just sit next to the street and ask for food and money and clothes and stuff cause they are actually homeless.”

Wisdom from a 2-year-old:

First…
The other day Syd was lifting up and down her shirt because she thought it was funny. Then suddenly she stopped and said…
S: “Mommy, mommy look! (then she pointed at her chest) – I have bra!”

And last night…
After tooting on me and laughing she suddenly had a very concerned look on her face and said…
S: “Mommy? Yesterday I toot on Christian’s mommy.”
Mom: “What, baby?”
S: Yesterday I toot on Aunt Chelle.”

Don’t really have any wisdom from the 1-year-old yet, but give her 6 months or so and I’m sure she’ll be just as genius as the other two.

Man, I love my kids!

Hello, is this Poison Control??

So I know I already posted about our close call from last night with the dog’s overdose, but needed to update you with our second ‘overdose’ of the last 24 hours. Seriously.

I was cleaning the kitchen and looked over to find Syd (my 2 yr old) on the couch holding my newly bought bottle of pepcid complete. I forgot to put it back up on the counter this morning after taking one – OH NO!

I ran over to the couch to find a very happy, sneaky looking kid, an empty bottle, a pile of chalky pink tablets all over the couch and one in her sneaky little mouth. Asked her to spit it out – too late – already swallowed. I began counting the tablets. There were 25 in the bottle to begin with minus the 2 I had over the last 24 hours minus the 19 I found piled up on the couch and that leaves 4 TABLETS!! I asked her how many she ate and she said 5 – but she’s two and can’t count – so I figured my math was more correct.

I immediately called Poison Control and they said that she will probably be constipated, and might throw up, but it won’t kill her. So, I hung up the phone ready to kill her myself (just kidding for all you who have your hand on the phone about to call child protective services) – and had a very serious talk with her about why you shouldn’t eat medicine that mommy doesn’t give you. She laughed – I cried – good talk.

So it is now only 11:45 and already I’ve had to clean up the aluminum foil that Syd spread across the den (it is now in a very lovely aluminum foil ball b/c I couldn’t get it rolled back up), clean up the mess from my dog throwing up a sock (yes – he also eats socks!), and call poison control to make sure my daughter was not going to die from an antacid overdose. I’m laughing out loud even typing it all!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am in the running for mom of the year – and I’m sure after this post I have your vote.

My 2 year old music critic and my huge chocolate eating dog

It was one of those nights last night. It was bath night – so that was an adventure in and of itself. It was also the night before Elisa’s valentine party at school. I hadn’t been feeling well all day – so I asked Ricky to go to the store and get the valentines along with some pepcid and gatorade (cause of course I forgot to get valentines until the night before – ugh).

We put the youngest 2 down to bed and then Elisa began working frantically on her valentines (which we had again forgotten about). She finished them in less than an hour and headed off to bed. About 30 minutes later Ricky and I heard some rustling in the living room, which is where Elisa had been working on her valentines, and both of us instinctively called out “Elisa – BED!” forgetting we’d already sent her to bed. Then along came Tux (my giant puppy-boxer) trotting along at a pretty quick pace. I told Ricky that he only came running like that when he’d been into something he shouldn’t have been. Then we both looked at each other and realized that the valentines were in the other room (complete with a piece of chocolate on each one!)

The valentines were EVERYWHERE!! All but one of the chocolates were gone – he ate 20 pieces of chocolate!!! We started freaking out – not only because he had eaten alot of chocolate, but because in his frenzy to get to the chocolate he pretty much destroyed the valentines our little angel had spent so much time and effort on!

I read the bag and it turns out that he only ate about 9 oz of chocolate after all – not nearly enough to be fatal. Thank God! He didn’t even get sick – he must have a stomach of steel!

I spent the next hour trying to recover Elisa’s valentines. Luckily I found a bag of chocolate that my mom had bought about a week ago – so I was able to put them back together (and replace a few of them that the dog ate along with the chocolate). Hopefully Elisa won’t be sad that it looks all different. Oh, and by the way – during this fiasco we needed to find out how much he weighed so we’d know how much chocolate was too much chocolate – turns out he weighs in right at 75 POUNDS!!! I knew he was big – but oh man!!

On another note…

This morning while we were driving Elisa to school I turned on the radio.
Syd immediately calls out – “No, mom – not THAT song!”
(Note: it was a very slow, sweet, lovey-dovey song).
So I changed it to PowerFM and I think it was Skillet playing and she said – “Yeah, that one!”
I laughed so hard!! Just to test it out again – on the way home I changed it back to KLTY (disclaimer: I honestly love KLTY – and listen to it regularly) which was playing again a very slow sweet song. She yells out – “I don’t like that song!” I switched it back to Power FM and she yells out – “Yeah – yeah! That one!”

So I guess my 2 year old has inherited my taste in music – woohoo!

Believing God for the Impossible

I was reading my bloglines today and came across one that seemed to echo what God has been teaching me over the past several months…

Here’s the link to the original post…you should read it. A young woman named Katie who lived in Uganda and takes care of so many of the poor, orphaned kids there – providing them food, school, shelter and much love. She wrote a post about how God is the God of the impossible. Here’s a small glimpse (and my favorite part of the post):

“Every morning as I wake up with some impossible ask in front of me, I know that God will meet it with impossible strength and love. I serve the God who used Moses, a murderer, to part the Red Sea, a God who let Peter, who would deny Him, walk on water. A God who looks at me, in all my fallen, broken weakness, and says YOU can do the impossible.”

It seems that God has provided me with several opportunities in the last several months to believe that He is the God of the impossible. Not every one of these opportunities has turned out the way I would have hoped – but I have come out of each of them with a bigger belief that GOD CAN DO THE IMPOSSIBLE. I believe that He can do whatever He wants to with me – even when I don’t understand how He would do it. He has been teaching me that I have to believe Him for the impossible.

I read something a while back that has stuck with me (it came from this blog)…

“Expectant faith honors God, and God honors expectant faith.”

I have been learning to pray expectant prayers – that is praying what I know God wants me to pray and expecting Him to answer in a way that only He can. I am growing closer to Him as I am learning to believe (like Beth Moore taught me) that
– God is who He says He is
– God can do what He says He can do
– I am who God says I am
– I can do all things through Christ
– God’s word is alive and active in me

It’s a daily struggle to keep on Believing God – but it’s a struggle I intend to win today. What about you? What are you believing God to do in and through your life?