"Fasting is Like Buttoning Your Top Button First"

This past weekend our Pastor challenged us to 10 days of fasting.  My husband and I decided to take the challenge.  What better way to start off a new year.  I found the message to be so helpful and thought I'd share his points on my blog.

Fasting in a nutshell is refraining from eating food for the purpose of spiritual growth and sensitivity.

Why fast?
1)  To declare over our life and body that we are going to do more than merely exist.
2)  Because we want to hear God.
3)  Because we long for breakthrough in our lives.

Ways to fast:
1)  No water, no food - this is a supernatural ability and should only be done with strong leading from God and approval of doctors.
2)  Water only
3)  No food; minimal liquid supplement
4)  Daniel fast (Daniel 1) - no meats or sweets - only vegetables, fruit and water
5)  Omit meals

Results of fasting:
1)  Deeper, more intimate and powerful relationship with the Lord.
2)  Powerful cleansing work

• body - removes toxins
• mind - removes distractions
• spirit - removes strongholds

3)  Humbles us - softens us, makes us pliable and flexible

4)  Releases faith

5)  Increases wisdom

6)  Powerful and lasting breakthroughs

"We were created to be led, not driven"

"Fasting is like buttoning your shirt starting with the top button first.  Somehow the Lord lines up the rest of the buttons in our life and makes sure they get buttoned."

Love Wisdom Like A Sister

I've been trying to read a chapter from proverbs just about every day for years now.  I crave wisdom in such a huge way.

Being a full-time musician has its challenges in ways you might not normally think of.  There's always the thin line of letting people know what you're doing and feeling like you're doing too much 'self-promotion'.  No one in your life can really tell you where that line is.  The Holy Spirit has to guide you and even then, it can feel tricky to discern His voice.

Today I read Proverbs 7 and was struck again by a simple piece of advice.

"Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family."  Prov. 7:4

I have one older sister whom I dearly love.  We have been friends since I was little.  We shared a bedroom in our big old farm house growing up and I think I caused her distress sometimes because I wasn't too great at keeping our bedroom real neat.

She was real good at saving money and the family used talk about going to 'the bank of Brenda' because if anyone in the family had money - she did.  Even if it was just the little 'see me save' bank in which she collected her money.

She was also a good seamstress and I remember one Easter in particular when she made me the most beautiful long dress I had ever seen.  It was brightly flowered and had a beautiful green ribbon around the waist.  As I recall, she stayed up a good portion of the night to finish that in time for Easter morning.

We would make music together too.  She would play the flute and later the recorder and we would do classical music duets together or sing our favorites from the Honeytree songbook.

When Proverbs says to love wisdom like a sister, I get that kind of relationship.  The hard part is figuring out how to really love something that you can't see.......like wisdom.  But I think it is a gradual quiet kind of attachment, just as it was growing up with my sister.  We spent time together.  We did things together.  Even now we e-mail, call on the phone and try to have 'sister time' when we do get together as a family...even if it's just a walk around the block.

So loving wisdom must be like that.  When I read Proverbs, I'm loving wisdom.  When I pray about decisions and ponder what the Holy Spirit might be saying to me, I'm loving wisdom.  When I make choices based on the inner guidance I sense, I'm loving wisdom.

When I fight the feelings I have inside and don't want to follow through, I'm pulling myself away from that 'sister' relationship and letting something come in between.  When I feel too busy to read and meditate on the Scriptures and let the busyness win,  I'm shutting out that 'family' member.

I want to include wisdom in everything I do so that wisdom is a part of my 'family'.  It's easy to love my sister because she's a part of me and has been a long time.

It must be like that with wisdom.  The more time I give to it and the longer I know it, the more I will make it a part of me and my family.

I'm Like My Cat

This week I made salt dough ornaments for my music students.  I'd love to give them more for Christmas, but funds are really tight right now.  I decided to get creative and make them something for a change.

In the midst of the floury mess, with rolling pin in hand, and socks on my feet, I noticed my cat seemed to be getting a bit playful on the kitchen floor.  Couldn't be that I was making ornaments.  This could only mean one thing:  a mouse!

Sure enough.  She had a dead mouse.  At least I think it was dead.  I didn't want to get too close to confirm it.  I'm not real fond of mice to say the least.

Since I was pretty sure it was dead, I resumed working on my ornaments.  Next thing I knew, that mouse came flying across the floor right into my stocking feet.  I screamed out loud and jumped away. 

So that I could finish working on my ornaments and deal with the mouse later, I put my empty laundry basket upside down on top of the mouse to keep my cat from flinging it at me again.

While talking on the phone with my big sister, (I couldn't get the ornaments to roll out right - so I called for advice) I happened to see my cat playing in another part of the house.  Sure enough, somehow she had managed to remove the mouse from under the basket and was now flinging it around in the living room.

That's it.  I couldn't take the pressure of not knowing where that thing would fly to next. 

I went to the basement and grabbed my husband's big leather gloves, picked up the mouse by his/her tail (how do you know which it is?) and went outside. 

I'm still not sure if the mouse was alive or not, but it bumped against my glove and once again I screamed and flung it across the yard. 

When I came back in, heart pounding out of my chest, I noticed my cat lounging by the window as if she could care less that I had just removed her pride and joy from her.

Everyone says that she was proud of her mouse and wanted me to see it and to notice her.  Whatever.

I got to thinking though.  I'm not much different than her. 

I have a new project coming out soon. It's called "Hand Painted".  It has eleven contemporary worship tunes painted on the piano (and other instruments).  Every time I post my progress about it on facebook or twitter, I wonder if others are feeling turned off by my 'flinging' it around.  But I can't help it.  I'm quite fond of it. 

This is my catch.  My hard work is now finished and soon to be released to the world. 

This project is a canvas of musical colors created out of sheer joy with my hands and heart.

Playing the piano is where my musical journey all began, so doing this was like going home in a sense.  Leading worship has been a part of my musical journey too for many years.  Now the portrait is complete with some of my favorite tunes played on my favorite instrument. 

Thanks for listening, thanks for enjoying and thanks for continuing to support my music. 

And if it feels like a dead mouse to you that you personally have no interest in, that's ok.  That's the beauty of art.  Whether the beholder enjoys the art or not, I've had a great time 'capturing my mouse'. 

Hopefully others will notice and enjoy it too.  Does that mean I'm like my cat?

Relationship Versus Religion

I struggle sometimes.  Caught between religion and relationship.

At church over the weekend, my Pastor shared an amazing message about this very thing.

His points were worth sharing:

*  Religion seeks to replace the work of the Holy Spirit with our performance

*  Religion makes you miserable and mechanical

*  Religion will get you racking up points and keeping score

Religion is:

*  Trying to earn what is already ours

*  Trying to manufacture what only God can produce

*  Striving FOR acceptance instead of living FROM acceptance

Religion =

1)  You become performance focused or performance based

2)  You become competitive with someone else and do a lot of comparison with others in general

3)  You become a fault finder and critical

4)  You become defensive

5)  You live with an unresolved sense of guilt because you base your relationship with God on what you DO instead of   what Jesus did FOR you.

Trade in every 'religious' act for His love.

Trade in criticism for prayer.

"Weepy Worship Leaders?"

I was privileged to lead about 500 women in worship through music this past weekend.  It's something that I frequently do and I find it a very enjoyable privilege.

I prefer to maintain some sort of professionalism when I lead and though I can be quite emotional off the stage, I find it hard to sing well and cry at the same time, so I prefer to maintain some sort of composure.  But this past weekend was so full of little kisses from heaven upon my own heart, that I couldn't hold back the tears very well.

In discussing this with some friends, I discovered that they much prefer to see a worship leader who isn't afraid to cry and let their true emotions show.

I held it together until the other singer, Bonnie Keen, sang a most beautiful arrangement of the "untitled hymn".  The last time I sang that song was at the funeral of a 13 year old son of a deacon family at my previous church.

I've never handled death very well, not sure if it's due to so much death in my own family or what, but whatever the case, I couldn't get through that song at his funeral and I wasn't getting through listening to it this past weekend either.  I was doing ok until the last verse......'fly to Jesus'.  My tears began to fly too.

It was my turn to lead an upbeat version of "I Am Free" right after Bonnie moved us with her song and all I could do was cry.  Since I had just had a discussion about showing your emotions when you lead worship, I decided to do something different and let the tears flow freely.  After I was able to pull myself together enough to speak, I just told the women that I was so moved by that song and could not hear that song without thinking of the family who lost their teenage son.  His name was Nathan.  The brother I lost in our farm pond was named Nathan also.

On the way home from the conference, I got up the courage to ask my friends what they thought of letting my emotions show in that instance.  I was quite shocked at their answers.  They wanted to see a worship leader who was 'touchable' and somehow my transparency made me relatable to them.  If these were my good friends feeling this, how much more must people you've never met need to feel this.

This hit home when a new found friend on facebook sent me the following message:

"thanks 4 ur friend acceptance 2 fb. i say again how awesome ur leadership was in our worship music this past weekend @ sandy cove. luv'd 2 ur open emotion, i think that shows a true heart & i forgot any tissues...so thankgoodness for sleeves!! lol."

I don't mind being transparent, but I always feel that hesitancy when it comes to being on the platform and being in front of people.  Why do we need to be so prim and proper?

I welcome the thought of being a 'weepy' worship leader.

How do you feel when someone on the platform weeps?  Would love to hear your comments.

No egg in this 'face' book today

It took a lot of persuasion for me to join myspace years ago.  A teenage friend of mine finally convinced me that I need to get with the program if I was going to communicate with her generation.  That's all it took.  I joined myspace.  After all, she even offered to set up my page for me.

Later when she told me 'facebook' was the new way to go, though I was a bit frustrated with having to join yet ANOTHER social network to keep up with her, I joined facebook and again, she set up the page for me.  (She's now in her twenties).

I have to say that I have fallen completely head over heels for facebook now.   I love communicating with people in this way.

But recently, I saw a new side to the face of facebook when I posted a link to a blog I wrote about having to take my mother's car away from her.  She's 86 and ready to give up driving, but it was a hard task for me.  (see earlier blog post)

She seems to be doing well with it, so that's not my reason for this blog.

The 'egg farm' from which my mother would go and buy delicious home-laid eggs posted a comment on facebook that they were aware that she was no longer going to be driving because she sent them a note in the mail to tell them she would no longer be able to come buy their eggs.

Another FB friend read the egg-farm comment and offered to pick up eggs from this farm for my now 'grounded' mother and drop them off right at her front door.

I just talked with her yesterday on the phone.  The FB friend had located her home, stopped to visit her and offered in person to pick up and deliver eggs right to her front door.  (They have been a long time family friend, so don't be spooked by this.  It's just that we have reconnected recently thanks to FB).

Those of us who grew up on a farm where we had fresh eggs understand that there's just nothing like fresh, home-laid eggs.

Thanks facebook for providing a way to show random acts of kindness just by a post on the wall.  No eggs in your face today.

"Busted"

I thought it was cool when I was little and missionaries came to our church and told of how they had to live by faith and trust God for every single need they had.  They'd tell of amazing miracles God did in providing for them supernaturally and I wanted to live like them.

That was then.  This is now.

Over a year and a half ago I left my 'day job' to pursue songwriting and performing full time.  It's a vision I had for a long time and was thrilled to see it finally come to pass.  Though it was a big step of faith, I have seen God provide for me and have always been able to not only pay all my bills, but pay them on time.  My bookings have increased and doors continue to open.

Lately however, I've been sensing the call to step out in even greater ways.  To trust more fully.  To let go of one of my last sources of 'steady' income.  Teaching private lessons in my studio.

I was reading Matt. 6:31-33 recently where God asks us why we worry about clothes and food?  If He cares for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, surely He'll care for us, He promises.

My exact words to Him in response were "I'm not worried about food and clothes...I know I have enough of those things....I'm worried about paying my monthly obligations as a result of this ministry that I've given myself to."

So me and God have been working on this part of my faith.  I'm still working through the 'whys' of my lack of faith and asking God to help me trust Him more.  Why am I so afraid He won't care for me???

This morning as I was reading in Psalm 78, I got hit between the eyes.....or 'busted' as some folks might say.  Guess I still have more work to do in this new season of trust.

"They even spoke against God himself, saying, "God can't give us food in the desert. Yes, he can strike a rock so water gushes out, but he can't give his people bread and meat."  When the Lord heard them, he was angry.  The fire of his wrath burned against Jacob.  Yes, his anger rose against Israel, for they did not believe God or trust him to care for them."


Ya know - I truly believe that it must hurt my heavenly Father when I don't believe he can supply all my needs or can't trust him to care for me.  I can believe that we'll have enough food and clothes...but like the children of Israel I doubt that He can go beyond the daily needs to the bigger things.

Yep - I've been busted.  Again.

"Lord, I believe.  Now help my unbelief".

How have you seen God meeting your needs?  I'd love to hear your comments.