Awesome Sunday!!!

Isn't it amazing how you can sing (or hear) the same song a million times, and it means something special to you, but then all of a sudden one day it hits you right where you are and you can almost feel the Holy Spirit digging a little deeper into your soul and fusing together a torn place inside you? That happened to me today in church, second service. We had practiced it Thursday and again this morning, and we had done the song in the first service, too, then all of a sudden during second service, I could hardly get the words out because I was so moved by them. Awesome! It was just a great morning of laughter, joy, encouragement and time with some very special people.

I got an email yesterday from high school/college friends who are married to each other and have three kids. They discovered a mass in his abdomen Wednesday that was removed on Friday. It was malignant, and he faces aggressive cancer treatment in the very near future. He is my age, 37. I don't know much more at this point. They are still processing it all, and the kids don't fully know what's going on yet. It seems like one person after another around me - family and friends - are getting cancer. And all of a sudden, they are people my age and younger. It used to be "old people," but it's not anymore, and it's scary. It reminds me how short our earthly lives really are....and how uncertain. The only thing we can really be sure of in life is God and His complete provision in all of our circumstances, good or bad. Of course, we'd all prefer the good, but if all we had was good, I am positive that we would forget to rely on His grace and mercy and to lean on Him. We humans are very self-centered and so easily fool ourselves into believing we're self-sufficient.

And on that note, I'll close this entry with a challenge for us all. It's how I want my life to be: Live with joy, love without condition, give without hesitation, forgive without reservation, look at others through the eyes of the Creator (God-goggles!), and do all of these with passion, honoring the God who gives us the chance, and when we fail, is the God of second chances...and third, and fourth......