A Song

This is the most excited I've been in a loooooong time.

MPC's fall festival is tomorrow, and there is a post-event concert (and bonfire? - I don't even know.  I should, but all I've been thinking about is the concert.) at 5:30.

And I get to play.  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-) 

So tomorrow evening is the fall festival concert.  (I'm about to ramble.  Don't think I've ever 'rambled' on my blog.)  It'll be on a stage outside, and the sound system is supposed to be really good, and we've been practicing an awesome line-up of music, and we have acoustic, electric, bass, drums, piano :-), a little banjo here and there, and... I could go on and on.

I am so excited.  Almost embarrassed at how excited I am.

I've been thinking this morning about my life's purpose.  I know (and believe) from the Westminster Shorter Catechism the answer to the question 'What is the chief end of man?' Answer: To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

So what's my purpose?  Me - wife to Jason, mom to Elijah, Levi, Missy, Seth, Elliana, and 4 little glories I've never held.  Me - this girl who now runs at least a couple miles at least every other day, has a part-time job, likes jewelry & pretty purses, and spends time at a cemetery.

I think I have a few purposes.  Wife and mom are 'givens' - I'm here to love and take care of my family.  Happy to do those things, by the way.  :-)

But I think - and I don't know why I'm so hesitant to say this with certainty - that doing what I'm doing tomorrow night at 5:30 might be one of my 'this is why I'm a human being on this planet' purposes.  Playing, singing, communicating through music and song.

I think that this is what I was made to do.

I think I was made to help lead worship.  As Louie Giglio puts it, 'leading people to an encounter with Jesus'.  I think I was born for this.

I absolutely love it.

It feels somewhat contradictory - hypocritical, even - that what I absolutely love to do is to help lead people in worshiping the very God that numbered my daughter's days.  The God that I'm still pretty angry with.  How is it possible to enjoy leading worship so much and at the same time want to take a sledgehammer to the communion table that sometimes sits in the same spot as her casket did?

(Did I just say that out loud?)

I am not thankful that Elliana had such a broken little body or that she died.  Those things are not good. They are awful.  They're a result of the curse, and I SHOULDN'T like them, and I SHOULD grieve the fact that she's not here with me.  This ISN'T the way it's supposed to be.

But I do know that my Father will take the horribleness and the awfulness, and somehow, He will redeem it (tears).  What has happened is not beautiful.  But I think that today, I can see a little bit of beauty somewhere.  Can't describe it very well.  The concert tomorrow night might describe it better.

A song can rise from the ashes of a broken life.  Even if I don't actively, wholehearted, enthusiastically believe all the truth in the song, at least for today, there is a song.  A whole bunch of them actually.  And I can't wait to sing them.  :-)

I've read through this several times, and I still don't feel great about hitting 'publish'.  But I'm gonna.  Because this INSANE worship leader/grieving mom is so excited about tomorrow night.