As we enter 2017 <3

Hello and happy New Year as many of us enjoy an extended holiday.

And to those of you who are working, we appreciate you and hope you have a day filled with delights that exceed having an extra day off <3

I don’t know about you, but I personally loved having Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fall on a Sunday and just think it would be sweet if that happened every year.

Or maybe just if we could have Church on those days every year…though God bless the staff that would have to pull that off….I hear them groaning now … sorry…it was just a thought.

On Sunday at our church, communion was attended with one of our worship leaders playing the piano as we meditated on what Christ did for us. Waiting as the Body partook of the Body…one by one…and it was sweet.

Our pastor stepped up with his Bible in hand; but as the pianist rose from the bench to make her exit, he had other plans.

He laughingly apologized for the loop he was about to throw into her morning as he explained that the hymn she was playing …

was one that holds a rich history for a nation in times of crisis.

As he instructed us to get our hymnals and…have mercy…there may have been dust on them…but my heart was all atwitter opening a hymnal again…he asked Lacy to grab a microphone.

He shared with us that in England this hymn was sung by the people during times of devastation as wars threatened to rip away every precious thing.

And he assured us he was not driven by an alarmist view of our nation, but acknowledging both personal and national upheavals we have faced in 2016 he urged us to sing both the first and third stanzas.

Take a moment and zoom in on those words.

Because as Pastor Wayne shared with us, though the lyrics paint a grim picture in the first lines, they flow into the promises that hold us and sustain us and THOSE promises never fail…never falter…even when we feel we might.

But THAT is not the point of my writing today…so sorry dear ones… there is more.

I want to go back to the little lady that was asked to quickly adjust from a quiet place at the back of the platform, gently playing a beautiful piece on the piano to standing in front of all of us…unplanned and unprepared to suddenly sing from a hymnal and lead all of us to sing this together.

Being empathetic by nature, I was heaving inside with a bundle of emotions for her.

Because if someone thrust a microphone in front of me and handed me a sheet that contained only words and notes and said he would play and I would sing, I would basically die on the spot.

You would do as well to hand me a scalpel and set me in front of an operating table and tell me to perform an appendectomy.

I was sick for her and then…as she smiled and immediately hit every note and led us in this beautiful hymn of worship…I breathed a sigh of relief because … I am not Lacy.

I do not have her giftings and talents.

I have not been wired with what it takes to spend years in music classes and all of those notes are a foreign language to me because I am not called to lead worship.

She was doing exactly what God has equipped her to do.

God has given me other things.

Things that come so easily to me that I think they are nothing and that everyone can do what I do.

But they can’t.

And God has given each of you wonderful ways to serve Him and to build others up.

The way YOU do things…

is unique and designed to edify the Body and reach the lost and bring glory to His Name.

So let’s go forth into 2017…thankful for the ways others are gifted and yielded to the Lord that we might be effective in the plans and purposes He has for each of us with the way we have been wired.

I look forward to the journey with you this coming year <3