Queen In a House of Blue: Sunday Reset

It’s been a rough week. One of those that just isn’t much fun. You know...the kind of week where your clothes don’t feel right, your body is achy, you can’t get enough sleep, can’t stop eating, keep arguing with your husband over dumb things that turn into bigger issues than they need to, and really cannot even stand to be around your kids. Heck, I couldn’t hardly stand to be around myself! It wasn’t ALL bad, there were some good times - like our impromptu dinner guests for homemade bread bowls and broccoli cheese soup one evening. That was good night.

This week I got a little stressed out. I had agreed to do the musical message this Sunday several weeks ago, but in my true fashion I waited until just this week to figure out what it was I wanted to sing. There are so many great songs and how do you just choose one?! I reached out for suggestions from friends and in turn received even more choices.

I finally decided last night that I probably had better get it figured out, my name was most likely already printed in the church bulletin. I had sang a song several months ago that I loved. Carrie had found it for me. (She lost her “song picker outer” privileges with this one though. How dare she have a busy life and family and not drop everything to help me!!)

Anyway, I tossed around the idea of just doing “In Christ Alone” again. Who would know, besides me and Carrie, that I had just done it? Everyone. Everyone would know, because I have a big mouth and would have told everyone. Haha

Then I chose “Come to Jesus”... but just wasn’t feeling it when I would practice. Finally this morning, I just told myself it was what it was and listened to the song I was going to song over and over and over. I wrote out the lyrics, and then practiced all the way to church with Ryan as my coach. He tried to be encouraging, but his face... even he thought it might be a bad idea. It was rough. It really was not very good. I didn’t understand it... I sang along with JJ Heller in fantastic fashion, but as soon as I removed her voice...it just wasn’t pretty. My timing was off and my words kept getting caught or switched up. So, I prayed about it, and practiced again....with the same disappointing results.

When I got to the church, Jeremy told me that Pastor Scott said I didn’t have to sing if I really didn’t want to... he had gone ahead of me and told him how nervous I was about it. I considered going up and singing from the loft, at least nobody could see me up there!

I opened my bulletin and saw my name in there. No turning back now! As soon as I saw my name, I actually felt that it would be ok. It may not be perfect and it may not be pretty, but I knew that not one person there would ever say that. They would clap and it would be done, and hopefully someone would ask me to sing again. Robin and Carrie both offered some encouragement and the service began. Can I just say, that was the fastest service leading up to my turn in the history of ever?!?

I walked up there, took a deep breath, and ... I did it. Seriously...I impressed myself. If I hadn’t been so hot on the pulpit, I may have even given Jesus a little fist bump of thanks when I was done.

As I was singing, I scanned the congregation....there’s a lot of people that I care about that are suffering. Some of them were there, some were not. Their hearts are breaking, their worlds are shaking. My own world was shaking on this day, a year ago. I am so very thankful to be through it, and know that with time they’ll be through their troubles, too. We are all in His hands. Do me a favor, please add my friends and church family to your thoughts and prayers. All of them, for whatever they’re dealing with... loss, divorce, sickness, exhaustion...whatever it may be.