Stupid Van January 25, 2008

Well, I was planning to come on here and share some thoughts I’ve been having about worship.  Then I got aggrevated.    I just don’t feel right talking about a lifestyle of worship when I’ve got steam coming out of my ears.

See, I’ve got a van.  Of course I’ve got a van.  I have six kids.  I’d be unwise not to have a van.  So anyway, this stupid van has issues.  It started shaking while I was driving down the road.  Not good.  So this morning after my meeting, I had a new tire put on the van.  It’s still shaking.  Stupid van.

While leaving the meeting this morning, Cary pointed out that I’m leaking gasoline from the front end of the van.  One of the kids had mentioned that same thing last night.  That causes fires.  Not good.  Stupid van.

And then there’s the battery.  More specifically, the battery cables.  Sometimes they lose their connection and I have to “jiggle” them.  It’s a stupid problem to have, but it is a problem.  It’s a pesky and sometimes embarrasing problem.  Stupid van.

And now my van won’t start at all.  At this moment, I’m supposed to be picking up one of my kids from school.  Instead, my mother (God bless her!) is picking him up and I’m sitting here fuming mad.  Stupid van.

I haven’t even started in on the cd player that eats cd’s or the radio that I have to tune by pushing the tuning button over and over and over again, or the upholstery at the top that the kids pulled down, or the rear-view mirror that just fell off one day, or the back tail light that we’ve already replaced three times, or the heater that only works on defrost, or the air conditioner that doesn’t work at all.  Stupid van.

So I was gonna talk about something important and meaningful.  Instead, all I can think about is that I may have nowhere to go but really really really want to go somewhere just because I can’t.  Stupid van.

But the truth is, when it runs, I’m so grateful to have that stupid van.  It holds my whole family all at the same time.  It’s a pretty convenient place for lunch sometimes.  It holds all the stuff we keep forgetting to take out of it.  It carries us from one place to the next and back home again….when it runs.  Stupid van.

Worship Pre-fessional January 25, 2008

Last night was our worship team practice.  Since the hotel was already booked for last night, we had to practice at my house.  This poses a unique problem.  Since we haven’t yet been able to practice in the new location, we weren’t able to try out any of the sound equipment, nor were we able to see how we would need to be arranged.  Hopefully, these things will come together easily on Sunday morning.  It’s pretty frustrating waiting until the last minute though.  Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do about it this week.

Practice went well last night.  Bro. Keith (our pastor) even stopped in, visited and prayed with us.  Everybody seemed to have more energy than last week, so that was helpful.  Raymond meshed well with the team and turned out to be even more talented than I had originally thought.  He taught us a new song…written by himself….that we will be doing as special music Sunday morning.  Fun!

I’m going this morning to meet with Bro. Keith & Bro. Curtis at the convention center/hotel.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get a good idea of how to set things up Sunday.  The better prepared we are, the more smoothly things will flow before & during worship services.  After that, I’m hoping to come home and have some quiet time alone with the Lord.  That’s hard to do during the day with toddlers running around, but I’m hopeful.  If not, then I’ll have to wait until the kids are in bed tonight.

That’s about it for this morning.  Now I’ve got to run so I can get the kids taken care of before leaving.  I’ll be back on here later today.  There’s something that’s been on my mind regarding worship and I wanted to share it with y’all.  See you then.