It's only been a couple of days

And by a couple of days, I mean a couple of weeks. But I have an excuse: I don't like the keyboard in Walkerton (it's more like a laptop keyboard, and I have very little laptop experience), so I try to avoid using it often. I'm just used to being able to press down more when I type than you can with that keyboard. Hey, I never said it was a good excuse...

Anyway, first and foremost, I need prayer for my grandmother (and grandfather). She's suffering from Alzheimer's, and it's getting a lot worse. She is consistently not recognizing her husband, especially at night. She wants her husband to lie with her as she falls asleep, but when this stranger (grandpa) wants to do that, she freaks out because she doesn't know him. At one point I think she thought I was her husband (he was built like me about 40 years ago). Grandpa's really struggling with all of this--she keeps changing her mind on what she wants and what she says, and it's frustrating him. I think that he's thinking he may have to move her somewhere (nursing home type of thing?) soon...either way, it's not a lot of fun to be there right now--for anyone.

So what else has gone on the past couple weeks? Well, not much, actually. God is teaching me some stuff, but at times I'm still rebelling. I've talked about God being like a drug at times, but I think sin is, too. It's very addicting. Once you commit a sin, you kind of want to do it again soon. And you have to keep doing it more and more to get the same rush, to get your "fix". In contrast to that, God is talking to me about his ominpresence. He's always there, so the aforementioned sin can't be hidden or swept under the rug. However, He's also starting to show me what a relief that is. I can't fake who I am with God. He knows all about me. All about me. And He still loves me and wants to use me. "...my power is made perfect in weakness." Not just His love or grace, but His power. That's a cool word.

It don't mean a thing...

There was some kind of sand or something on the dance floor at the Fountain Square Theater last night, and let me tell you, it was sweet. I'm not sure I've ever danced on a floor quite so slick. The first couple dances, I over-rotated on a few spins, and almost fell over once or twice. But overall, it was really amazing. Now, all we have to do is figure out how to get fewer dancers there so there's actually room on the dance floor...

Singing is cool

What a great small group! It was at my place, which means there's a piano available. Which means Barbara can play the piano. Which means there was all kinds of fun going on. Oh yeah, and Barbara is apparently really good--she played and/or ad-libbed just about everything we wanted to sing.

So what did we sing? Thought you'd never asked. We started with Close Every Door, included such hits as Music of the Night, Phantom of the Opera, A Whole New World, and Arabian Nights. We sang a lot of Christmas carols as well. Finally, after everyone else left, we sang some standard praise songs, including one of our favs: Praise Adonai.

I'm finding more and more how much I enjoy just singing with other people, especially when praising God. It was a good distraction from my lady struggles... If I ever get married, I hope she can play the piano and/or enjoys singing. I think it could be so much fun to be able to sing/worship with your spouse whenever you want. But that's definitely a long time in the future...

God is cool

How amazing...and truly humbling...is it when God uses you to talk to his children? Wow. I went to church in Yorktown on Sunday hoping to contribute to the service. I left church after talking about my "prison" dream having laid the basis for the entire 2.5-hour service. God met me during the worship portion, teaching me more how to totally lose myself in Him during worship, being less self-conscious (it's a (long) process), and even taught me a new language (apparently something that sometimes happens during spiritual transitions/high points/can't think of the right word here). Then right before everyone started sharing, Lisa said "be aggressive," which seemed out of the blue to me, but was exactly what God was telling me through the dream and His Word over the past few days. So, I shared. And He multiplied. God is so cool. I left with this intense desire to hear more from God--how cool is it that God is like an addiction? Once you get a little bit of Him, you want so much more...

A closing thought from Sunday I thought was pretty cool: Don't tell God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big your God is.

If at first you don't succeed

Then try teaching another pair of classes with no voice. Actually, my voice is slightly better--as long as I stay an octave or two lower and talk real slowly, I'm alright. Now, when I had to cover about 15 minutes of material in about 3 minutes at the end of my second class today, yeah, that wasn't so good. At least it's bringing my classes enjoyment. :) I may have to cave in to Jenny and actually drink tea, or figure something out to start talking better. I'm too impatient to wait a long time for my voice to get better. Hopefully they won't make me lead worship tonight at small group--that could be a problem.

Who needs a voice to teach?

Well, apparently I do, which creates a problem when you don't have a voice but do have two classes you need to teach. And since it's the week before finals, there's not really enough time to cancel class and make things up later. So, I struggled through class yesterday with a scratchy voice that could output about 25% of it's normal volume. I think my students were laughing at me at times... Plus, it pretty much shot my voice for the rest of the day. Today my throat seems less sore, but I haven't actually tried to make a sound, so we'll see what happens when I have to talk (say, at the swing lesson I'm teaching in Carmel this afternoon to a bunch of high-schoolers with short attention spans). At least I don't feel sick/nauseous anymore, which is a marked improvement from the weekend.

On a completely unrelated note, I had a very enjoyable time at worship on Sunday in Yorktown. Now that I've officially made that my place of worship, and made that announcement, it feels so much more like my home. It was a good service, and I got some good things out of it. I'm still learning how to discern between God talking to me and my flesh talking to me during the service, and I think I should have shared some (my jail/sin dream, for those who know it), but I didn't see how it fit in to the service. I found out very late, when it was almost too late to share, but I'm learning...I pray that God and the others will be patient with me in that regard. If nothing else, Elyssa and I have a 45-minute drive afterwards to talk things over. At some point, I think it's just going to take me taking a step of faith and trusting God to fit what I say into His plan for that Sunday, even (dare I say "especially"?) if I don't see how it fits in. It's hard to wrap my head around the idea that I have something to contribute to that group, that in this body of people I consider more spiritually mature than myself, my gifts are still needed to fill a need God sees there. How humbling is that?

Fun game

#1 Duke vs. #17 Indiana

A chance to show the country that IU is back, we're a national power, and a threat to win the Big Ten and go deep in the NCAA tournament. And....

...well, we almost did that. We got behind 16-2, showing we aren't comfortable playing this type of game. We fought back and had the lead with 4 minutes left, showing we actually can play with Duke (and thus, any team in the nation). Then, we pretty much stopped scoring, and ended up losing by 8, showing that we got tired and aren't comfortable closing out a game like this against a team like Duke.

So what have we learned? Umm....

On an unrelated note, it was really good to see Mel over Thanksgiving break. She's off in Texas, but visited Mr. and Mrs. Bum for the holiday (it's cheaper than Hawaii, where her parents are). A day of hanging out with the three of them--it doesn't get much better than that.