What did I get myself into?

The musical is one week away which actually computes to 8 hours of practice time away.  I don't have any idea how it can all work out, but I'm trying to hold out hope that it will.  I guess I'll let you know. If you live in the Dallas area, I hope you will plan on attending. It will be at 6:00 on Sunday, May 15th at The First Baptist Church of The Colony. The odd thing about writing the musicals and working so hard on them is the wondering if it is all worth it. My family sacrifices a lot for me to write them. My family, the youth and parents that are involved sacrifice a lot to practice and make them worth watching. I guess it is around this time (a week before the presentation) that I start to wonder, "What did I get myself into?" I'm sure there are students asking themselves that same question....So...What DID I get myself into?... I got myself into a position where all of my inadequacies at putting it all together show (a humbling experience). I got myself in a position to be around so many awesome youth (again, a humbling experience). I get to see my writing come to life in a way that most people never get to see. (again, humbling).  I get to help create memories for the students and children that they will hopefully tell their own children about someday (spoken in a parent's voice-"When I was your age, I played the part of a demon in a play.") I get to obsess over whether or not I wrote what I was supposed to write. (you guessed it-humbling) And I get to deal with my own personal demon-the fear of man. What I really want the answer to the question to be is that I got myself into a place where God could use me, but I seem to keep getting in the way (very humbling)...If you have the chance, please pray for me this week. Pray as God leads you. Thanks so much......
 Lord, I pray that You will use the musical "Set Us Free" in my life and in other's lives. I pray that there will be joy and peace in my heart about it and that You will remove all of my fear. I pray that it will all be "worth it" to You and to Your kingdom. Amen.

Let me tell you about...a family tradition

So, here I am again. This blogging thingy is addictive. It's like with every thought that comes through my mind I think, "Oh, I could write about that." It is really a funny, new thought process. Today is the beginning of the week of Thanksgiving and I have so much to write about thankfulness, but first I want to tell you a little bit about Sundays at our house. Yesterday was Sunday. Sundays are very special days in our house. We all look forward to them. We look forward to seeing friends. We look forward to singing and worshipping. We look forward to being taught from God's Word. We even look forward to Sunday naps. One of my favorite things about our Sundays is a tradition that we began many, many years ago. So...Let me tell you about our Sunday morning drive to church. Years ago, when the children were young, I would always hear about how so many families would fight and argue on their way to church and then put on a fake, happy face when they got out of their cars in the church parking lot. I did not want to be that kind of a family. I wanted us to be real and honest about who we were, but I also didn't want us to have bad attitudes on Sunday mornings. John and I decided that we would give the children something specific to do on the way to church, so... we taught them to "pray on the way".  We would begin at the back of the van and each of us would pray out loud for our Sunday School teachers, our pastor, the worship leaders, our attitudes and our ability to stay focused and learn what God had to teach us. We would also pray for all the people that were trying to decide whether or not to come to church that day. Praying on our way to church has become a great family tradition. An unexpected blessing from it is that it has even taught our kids not to be scared to pray out loud. I think every family could benefit from this tradition.  It's never too late to start "praying on the way". Now that most of our kids have gotten older, we don't all ride together to church anymore, but I'm pretty sure we all still remember to pray.