My Perfect Day

So we'll call this my first informal blog post. The past few weeks I have felt so convicted to write short devotionals instead of carrying on about what is going on in my life. In most cases those posts were directly related to a specific situation I was going through. And typing those out has been a sort of healing process for my heart. So thanks for reading and if you got something out of them as well, cool.

And now my day today...

When I think about it now today was kind of a perfect day for me. It's sort of what I want my life to look like when I finally graduate. I woke up this morning at 9 (not so great) which was remedied by a trip to Starbucks for some much needed caffeine (yessssss). Then I took the 35 minute commute to Greenville for church and such.
I was late for Sunday school, but it is a pretty laid back crowd of some college kids and a few older high schoolers. We were discussing James 1:19-27. The themes we talked about focused on living out the call of scripture and ridding ourselves of all the "pollution" thrown at us by the world.
'Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will blessed in what he does.'
-James 1:23-25 NIV
That is such a great bit of imagery from James. The point of reading scripture isn't just to read it so you can feel better. We are supposed to apply everything we read to our lives. So many Christians hide behind their 'faith facade' and think that they are covered. And even if we do apply it, that does not mean that things will be perfect in our lives. But we will be "blessed." John Piper talks about the different translations of the word 'blessed' in his book God is the Gospel. He uses the words 'happy' and 'joyful' to define the Greek word for blessed. I think there is a strong distinction between those two words. In this verse in James I am leaning towards the word 'joyful' to describe this blessing. While things in our lives may not be going the way we planned, we are still blessed because God is on our side. Joy, to me, is elation from within; happy seems to be a more external emotion.
Regardless of the details, the point is to live out what God is calling us to do. One of the women leading our discussion this morning threw out a wonderful line that, I will admit, I need to apply to my life:
"Be confident in what God called you to do."

At 11 I walked over to the chapel with Noah for the contemporary service. I love this church. Everyone is so friendly and there are always different events and studies for everyone going on. For the service we sat with Brian, one of the cool college interns at Christ Church. He also plays on the music team with us, and we recently decided to start writing music together. I love sitting with people who love to sing. It makes the worship so much more intense for me. Again, the theme in the Gospel reading was to live life in the way God intended us to live, always being ready for the day Jesus returns (Matthew 24:36-44).

After church Brian and I went to Coffee Underground, a really cool little independent cafe in downtown Greenville, for lunch and to try to write some music. I let him read some of my stuff and we talked a lot about our lyrical styles, where we get our inspiration, and kind of where our lives are now. He actually wanted me to talk about the stuff I had already written. This is something I have been dying to do for a very long time: talk about lyrics and write!
It was really the first time I had been able to spend time with him to get to know him. I always love hearing people's stories and having God-centered conversations. They have been so far and few between down here. We ate and started working on a new song. By the time Nate joined us at 2, the page was kind of a mess, but I'm really excited to see what happens with it. All three of us were throwing out ideas and sharing stories. Again, just part of my perfect day.

At 2:30 we had music team practice for Amazing Bible Race that evening. In the band was me (violin/vocals), Nate (guitar/vocals), Heather (vocals), Brandon (bass) and Noah (drums). With the exception of a few tangents (which was to be expected and were actually pretty fun) practice went really well. For once in the time I have played my violin, I felt like a part of the band. Nate kept communicating with me about what key we were in and where the song was going. He even suggested a lead part for me to play instead of the guitar. This practice was an answer to quite a few prayers from the previous weeks. We were worshipping together!

From 4 to 6 we had Amazing Bible Race large group and small group meetings. We played our worship set which was really wonderful, then we all talked about the readings from Exodus in the previous week. Joel pointed out some David Crowder Band inspiration in Exodus 8:10 (one of my favorite praise songs to sing). We focused mainly on the plagues God sent to help Moses convince the Pharaoh to...all together now...LET HIS PEOPLE GO!! I can't believe how ego-centric one man could be that he could witness all of those plagues and, for fear of losing his power, continue to say no, until the plague of the Firstborn. And even after the Israelites left, Pharaoh pursued them. It's crazy how power can go to some peoples heads...
Grace and I were the only ones there from our small group. We decided to read through the next day's readings, Exodus 15-16. Chapter 16 focused on the ever re-occurring theme in my life to trust God and His Word. Moses told the Israelites to only gather what manna they needed, but they still disobeyed. And that extra manna was reduced to maggots. Eww! Then even after Moses told them to gather two portions on the 6th day because of the Sabbath the next day, the Israelites went out on the Sabbath looking for manna. And DUH, there wasn't any! This just proves that when God says something, He means it.
We also talked about how selfish this world today can be. Grace's sons had been volunteering at a local homeless shelter and were so moved by the people they met and the things they saw. They told her that they wanted to change the world for these people. Some people are too afraid to see those kinds of things for fear that they will be changed by their experience. They don't want to admit their own selfishness and possibly give up the material things they covet. It's sad.

Then at 6 after everyone prayed and departed, I got to run through 'I'm So Sick' with Noah. I recently decided to audition for the Keynote summer project through cru. It's a music ministry project that sends 5 bands out to tour for 2 months and share the Gospel. In my audition tape I have to sing a rock song. When I told Sam about it, she screamed and said that I HAD TO sing a Flyleaf screaming song. And it just so happens I that have a karaoke track for 'I'm So Sick.' Noah is going to make my tape for me, so I wanted him to hear me sing/scream it just so he knew what to expect.
All I can say after running through it twice in front of Noah and Joel is that I am SOOOO EXCITED to make this tape!! My screaming is a lot stronger than it was this summer, and a lot less painful. Yay for vocal pedagogy, haha! Joel and Noah were head banging to it and they liked the way I sang/screamed it. They just said it was funny and scary to hear me scream, considering what they are familiar with from my voice. I really hope I get picked to do Keynote!

So I left Greenville tonight at about 6:40, drove back to Spartanburg, grabbed some Jimmy Johns for dinner (yummmmm), came back to my room, ate dinner, watched the BCS selection (still bitter about losing to Pitt...but WVU is going to the Fiesta Bowl, so its all good), starting watching the Steelers game (so far we are winning).....and then Bryan Lilly imed me to make my evening complete.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1dr0d-Rk-jo
This is quite possibly the COOLEST thing I have ever heard. This metal/classical band Judgement Day calls themselves "string metal." Their band consists of a violin, cello and drums. NO GUITAR. Seriously! I suspect that the violinist uses an effects pedal...hmm...haven't I been begging to use one in bands all year? I'm listening to their myspace and their music sounds so sweet. I would love to see these guys live and pick their brains. Speaking of which, their music video in the link above has zombies...come on, who doesn't like zombies?

So this was pretty much the coolest day I have had since coming down here. I had coffee, read scripture all day, wrote music, practiced with my band, hung out with some cool kids, performed one of my favorite Flyleaf songs, watched the Steelers, and fell in love with a string metal band.

God is so good to me.