Sunday, February 4, 2007

Extreme Southern Hospitality - God is Good!

Wow! Am I feeling spoiled or what?! These past two weekends have been spent in Alabama and Louisiana leading worship for Disciple Now youth retreats. The weekend before last we were in Sylacauga, AL which is about 45 mins or so outside of Birmingham. (We'll post about this past weekend in LA later on this week.)

We all stayed in the same beautiful host home where the wife was an excellent cook! I think that must be a qualification for wives in the deep south. Hopefully it's just the deep south otherwise I've got some serious catching up to do=}. As soon as we arrived on Friday she had quite a lunch buffet spread for us with delicious desserts to follow. We were told to eat light because dinner was even more elaborate, so I did my best to not completely stuff myself. The next morning they even cooked us a full breakfast. We were taken care of and well prepared for our long run (more to come on this later).

Anyway that weekend was such a great worshipful weekend for me. Even though I hear downhere lead worship quite often it never gets old to me. I think God uses the same words and melodies to breathe new meaning in my heart. The venue where they played was a gym that had a track that went around the top of it. I was able to watch them lead worship from the track and kind of be "on my own". I also had a view of everyone worshipping... that was pretty cool! One of my favorite songs that they use to lead worship is How Great is our God. During that song I saw a little girl, probably about 4 years old, come onto the track from the door nearby. She was dressed in a pink tutu with pink tights and leotard. And she began to dance to the song. She was right on the beat and danced so childlike and beautiful. On these lyrics:

Name above all names, you are worthy of all praise, my heart will sing how great is our God


she would stand on her tip toes and lift her arms up over her head like a ballerina over and over and look toward Heaven - and I just lost it. The tears started coming. She was the expression of the way my heart felt at that moment.. and should feel more often. I would have felt silly dancing in worship like that even though my heart wanted to. Her dance gave me a glimpse of what I will be doing for eternity with Jesus. And I also saw it as a reminder to have childlike faith - praise God and express your heart no matter what or how silly you may look to others. And in doing so God will see it as a beautiful dance and rejoice over you! The rest of the weekend went on and I just kept seeing her in my mind. And now I think I will whenever I sing that song.

God also kept on blessing us through our hosts. Jeremy and I went for a long run on Saturday - which felt great by the way - and came back to a steak dinner waiting for us! What a way to finish an 8 mile run... and 13.1 for Jeremy! We were definitely spoiled by this family. If we are ever in Sylacauga, AL again we have a place to stay.

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