Pop quiz. What have you not found on the Triumphant Chicks website?
a) Clever insightfulness
b) Warnings against using a tazer gun on your dog
c) A salute to admirable military wives, or
d) An explanation of why this blog got started in the first place.
The answer is d).
So I say, it's high time. A year ago, I was ready to take on glorifying God publicly. I had received and taken to heart many things the Lord had taught me in the 12 or so years since I'd become a born again Christian. I started to feel this itch to glorify Him, not just in my own family but out there in the world.
I thought He wanted me to sing Lead Me to the Cross in church. I practiced it for a year. It's in my limited voice range. And the words resonate with me. I argued with God for a year over this song, concerned that it was just my big idea and not His. And I was not sure that I was really ready to do something like that out of humility rather than pride. The last time I sang on stage was 20 years ago while I was living a sinful lifestyle. It would be like a born again ex-con going to minister in a prison for the first time. I wondered if I was worthy to sing in church.
I kept praying about it, practicing singing the song, and arguing with God. I finally said to Him, Okay okay I'll ask about singing the song. As my friend and mentor Pam says, when you are pretty sure the Lord is telling you to do something, you better do it. I got up the courage one Sunday to ask our church's music director if he would consider my singing Lead Me to the Cross in church. It's so embarrassing to ask something like that out of the blue. He'd never heard me sing before (he's not missing much). And hey, I get it, it's kind of presumptuous to ask for a solo in church and I'm not even in the choir. This is not karaoke. I got up my nerve though and asked.
It's the craziest thing but he had just prepared that very song for my friend Dede and she'd been practicing it already.
Song's taken, sorry. I was sad and felt like a goober for even asking. But I said to the Lord, "Okay I'm confused. I thought You told me to sing this song, I obeyed You and asked about it, I thought I was humble enough to do it, what's the deal. Does my life not glorify you enough? Is there something else you want me to do? What's going on here? I just want to do Your will and I want to glorify You."
My friend Dede was going to be singing that song and she had no idea that I had been praying about singing it. She still doesn't, until she reads this blog. I never told her I had asked the director about singing it. I accepted the answer "no" from the Lord and waited for Him to tell me what to do. The Lord bounced a message back to me in the following way. After church the following Sunday Dede said to me, "You should have a blog."
Other people had said that to me before, after reading the wacky five-page e-mails I send them. Dede had asked me about morning sickness for one of her friends. I had written her an e-mail about it really fast and didn't even proofread it, or inject an abundant supply of cleverness into it, and you girls will be proud that I didn't write at the end of it, "P.S. You stole my song."
No big deal to me as far as writing goes, but to Dede, she saw that I should write a blog. I just smiled and said maybe someday, and went home. Seriously, does the world really need another blog? Seen one blog you've seen 'em all.
But then you know how you get that warm feeling from the Lord in your heart? I prayed about it and thought He might be saying to me, "Let your light shine, don't hide it under a bushel."
God was saying to me through Dede, "I don't want you to sing for me. I want you to write for me."
So I am.
a) Clever insightfulness
b) Warnings against using a tazer gun on your dog
c) A salute to admirable military wives, or
d) An explanation of why this blog got started in the first place.
The answer is d).
So I say, it's high time. A year ago, I was ready to take on glorifying God publicly. I had received and taken to heart many things the Lord had taught me in the 12 or so years since I'd become a born again Christian. I started to feel this itch to glorify Him, not just in my own family but out there in the world.
I thought He wanted me to sing Lead Me to the Cross in church. I practiced it for a year. It's in my limited voice range. And the words resonate with me. I argued with God for a year over this song, concerned that it was just my big idea and not His. And I was not sure that I was really ready to do something like that out of humility rather than pride. The last time I sang on stage was 20 years ago while I was living a sinful lifestyle. It would be like a born again ex-con going to minister in a prison for the first time. I wondered if I was worthy to sing in church.
I kept praying about it, practicing singing the song, and arguing with God. I finally said to Him, Okay okay I'll ask about singing the song. As my friend and mentor Pam says, when you are pretty sure the Lord is telling you to do something, you better do it. I got up the courage one Sunday to ask our church's music director if he would consider my singing Lead Me to the Cross in church. It's so embarrassing to ask something like that out of the blue. He'd never heard me sing before (he's not missing much). And hey, I get it, it's kind of presumptuous to ask for a solo in church and I'm not even in the choir. This is not karaoke. I got up my nerve though and asked.
It's the craziest thing but he had just prepared that very song for my friend Dede and she'd been practicing it already.
Song's taken, sorry. I was sad and felt like a goober for even asking. But I said to the Lord, "Okay I'm confused. I thought You told me to sing this song, I obeyed You and asked about it, I thought I was humble enough to do it, what's the deal. Does my life not glorify you enough? Is there something else you want me to do? What's going on here? I just want to do Your will and I want to glorify You."
My friend Dede was going to be singing that song and she had no idea that I had been praying about singing it. She still doesn't, until she reads this blog. I never told her I had asked the director about singing it. I accepted the answer "no" from the Lord and waited for Him to tell me what to do. The Lord bounced a message back to me in the following way. After church the following Sunday Dede said to me, "You should have a blog."
Other people had said that to me before, after reading the wacky five-page e-mails I send them. Dede had asked me about morning sickness for one of her friends. I had written her an e-mail about it really fast and didn't even proofread it, or inject an abundant supply of cleverness into it, and you girls will be proud that I didn't write at the end of it, "P.S. You stole my song."
No big deal to me as far as writing goes, but to Dede, she saw that I should write a blog. I just smiled and said maybe someday, and went home. Seriously, does the world really need another blog? Seen one blog you've seen 'em all.
But then you know how you get that warm feeling from the Lord in your heart? I prayed about it and thought He might be saying to me, "Let your light shine, don't hide it under a bushel."
God was saying to me through Dede, "I don't want you to sing for me. I want you to write for me."
So I am.
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