Laughing at My Future

Today I served on our worship team for the morning services. I've been serving in this department in one capacity or another for over 20 years, and it's one of the greatest joys for me. I LOVE worship. I love singing. I love our team. And yet... One of the reasons I so easily fell in love with worship was that I was raised very closely to it. My daddy was on a worship team for basically my entire life until he passed away. Even after he got sick, even after he'd been through multiple rounds of chemo, he still faithfully served. It was something we did together and it made it mean all that much more to me. I'll never forget the first time I went on to lead worship after he passed away; I nearly didn't make it to the stage. It caused me physical pain to be up there without him at least in the building. Or alive. It took my breath away, and for many months - years, really - there would be moments where I experienced that same overwhelming sense of loss. I...

One of these days I'm going to sit down to type out what's on my heart, and it's going to be the wittiest, most lighthearted piece of blogging literature you've ever read. Maybe. In my dreams anyway. Not today. A few months ago I was in my bible reading plan, and somehow managed to simultaneously hit on the story of Gideon (in the Old Testament) and the story of the father asking Jesus to heal his son (in the New Testament). I've read both of those passages over and over again over the years, but something about them being presented to me in the same day just jarred me to the core in the best way. I've wanted/needed to sit down and write this for awhile but haven't quite been able to get my words out. But today I'll lay it out as simply as I can, real, rather than perfect. So these two stories: In the Old Testament, Gideon was selected by God to lead a charge against an enemy. He was scared. He doubted himself, and I think maybe he was a little uncer...

I've come to discover that the most frustrating thing in the world as a writer isn't necessarily a flat-out writer's block, but rather having a zillion words in your mind and the complete inability to get them down on paper. I can't tell you how many countless times this has happened to me in my book-writing journey. In my mind, I've practically finished, not just the book I'm currently working on, but the entire series! On paper? On my computer? I think I've succeeded in putting down maybe 25,000 words, tops? (For reference, I've found the best way for myself to make it through the editing process is to submit a manuscript that is between 85 and 100 thousand words.) So yeah, I'm not making much progress. And it is driving me insane! This year in our homeschooling, all three of my girls are at a charter school working with their teacher for a solid 3 hour block every single week. And at first I didn't even know what I was going to do with mysel...