Little Drummer Boy

I decided this year that my favorite Christmas song is The Little Drummer Boy. I don't have the lyrics memorized (but you can bet they will be before next Christmas). They talk about how there's this new baby King and we want to go worship Him but we are poor and have nothing to give Him. But by golly...we can play our drums for Him. Play our best for Him.

What a beautiful thought! Only because He is the King and is worthy will we be willing to give everything. Anything we have for Him. Whether it's gobs of money or singing or understanding computers or playing the drums or writing beautiful words or playing with kids...anything can be a gift. We give what we can. We give it joyfully.

What I did today

About 10:47am I finally decided it was time to get up and stop just rolling over and going back to sleep in my soft warm bed. I showered. Dressed (my favorite navy blue polo and some jeans that are too big! the one pair I thought I didn't need to try on because they are the same size as all the other jeans I wear). I'm having a great hair day, by the way. I ate a microwave burrito. Not bad. I wrapped a Christmas gift for my brother's girlfriend. I watched the first half of the Gilmore Girls episode I taped from the day before. It was a rerun. I decided I had time to go by Now We're Cooking to say hi to Johanna before I had to be at a doctor's appointment. I went. I said hi. I was weak and had to purchase three things. A small addition to Christmas gifts for mom, dad, and my best friend. Johanna was super cute in her little worker apron and showing me all the cool stuff they have in the store. It was fun to see her today. Then I went around the corner to Dr. Ng's office. He is the super special doctor who is going to do my jaw surgery when the time comes. He looked about 16 yrs old. I was finally convinced he wasn't a teenager when he started talking about his three year old daughter. He pretty much just scared me to death about what the surgery will entail. It won't happen for probably another 10 months or so. Still...I'm frightened. The only comfort was that he and his office mate are the state's specialists in this exact surgery. So at least I know I'm in the hands of the best there is to offer. Then I went to Wendy's and got a Jr. Green chili cheeseburger. I took it to the church. Downstairs to the basement. Into the resource room where I finished painting Merry Christmas in Navajo on a white 4x1 plank of wood while eating my burger. I gathered more items for the outdoor Live Nativity scene and sat and waited for someone else to arrive to help set it all up. We put out a manger with a baby Jesus. We illuminated the scene with fluorescent bulbs. We even got a small sheep hand puppet for the shepherd (Thomas) to watch over. It turned out really nice! I am very excited about how cute it is and how much fun it's been to put it together. Then I left the Nativity in the capable hands of Scott and went to work. Work is very slow since we're approaching the Christmas break. 8 of us from work went to Bennigan's for dinner. Desta drove in her Matrix. I am normally a very patient person. I was getting a little irritated with the amount of time we had to wait for a table and the circumstances surrounding it. Finally we got a table and I had the country chicken salad and a roll with butter. I ordered coke to drink even though I have normally been having diet coke. I feel guilty about this decision. We came back to work, and now I am about to inspect something on the SEM (scanning electron microscope). It's a really neat tool that fascinates me constantly. Now. And now. Even now, it still fascinates me.

On a scale of one to ten...my day has been a 7. It lost three points when I couldn't find any decent music to listen to on the radio or via cd because everything I listen to reminds me of a friend and it makes me sad to think of this friend. Also the points went down because of the whole Coke vs. Diet coke debaucle. But the SEM thing should compensate for that. Because even now...it still fascinates me.

Quotes

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world.
Peter Ustinov

A Life spent in the service of God and communion with Him is the most comfortable and pleasant life that anyone can live in this world. Alexander Whyte

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
James A. Froude

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Sir Winston Churchill

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
J. D. Salinger

Dreams

I was talking with a friend yesterday about dreams. The kind of visionary dreams you have for your life. Like I want to be an astronaut, or I want to travel through Europe, or I want to learn to play cribbage. Dreams that you actually have control over. It's the prioritizing of such dreams that is the key. To say that this is a dream I had today, and in a month if it's still near and dear to my heart, then I will continue to pursue it. How does it rank up against other dreams. Is it more important? Even nearer and dearer to my heart? If the answer is that it's not so important anymore, then it either gets put on the back burner, or it gets let go of. So I'm going to make a list of my dreams. I'm a list maker. I make lists all over the place. Shopping lists. To do lists. Lists of books to read. Lists of people to call. Lists of reasons to do or not to do certain things. And now I shall have a list of dreams. I don't want to be an astronaut, and I don't necessarily need to travel through europe, and learning to play cribbage well is very low on my list. Other things like finishing reading all the books I've started but haven't finished. That will go on my list. Learning to play the drums so well and be so comfortable with it that I will play in front of people other than my teacher...that's pretty high on my list. Other things I know I would like to be on my list, but aren't necessarily things I have control over or that I can be effective at. Things that effect other people. I have dreams for the people around me...things I know they can do based on the potential I see in them. Dreams that this or that person would know God better. But my list...it probably won't be very long. Do you have a list of dreams? Even if it's just in your head?

Yes, this is for you.

I've been thinking lately about how hard it is to understand some things. Like I don't understand why the sky is blue, or why we laugh sometimes when what we really want to do is cry, or when when someone misjudges us on everything. What I've really been wondering about though is why we can't quite do the things we know we should be doing. We can't be where we want to be. We can't be who we want to be. I know all of those things are the results of our choices, so we could choose to do those things and be those things. But even when given the opportunity we either don't see the opportunity, or we deny it, or we just flat choose not to do it. There are certain things I know for a fact that I should do. I should do them because they are beneficial, because they make me happy, because they bring me joy, because they make life easier. But when given opportunities...I don't do these things. Why is that? Or I want to be a certain way, a certain kind of girl, because that's the kind of girl that's pleasing to God...but when given the opportunity, I don't do it.

I know the simple answer is that we don't do those things because they are hard. It's the good things that are hard. It's easy to be mean, it's easy to be rude, it's easy to eat unhealthily, it's easy to just give up on that friend when they keep pushing and pushing, it's easy to sit in self pity and wonder why my life sucks, it's easy to go to bed at night without taking time to spend in the Word...to choose outside of all that takes a strong discipline. A strong will to make the right decision. So many times I choose the easy way out.

That's not the way to live. How many times this year have I had to learn the lesson and have it pointed out to me that it's the good things that we have to work for? It's the hard things that are worth doing because they push me and challenge me and force me to be something greater. It's the hard choices. The things I have to resolve to do even though they are hard or painful. Because I know that He's going to teach me great and powerful things. He didn't come to this world to do anything easy and He said our way shouldn't be easy either.

But oh how hard and littered with failure is that journey.

Does that mean we don't try? Does that mean we give up? Does that mean we throw in the towel and say I can't change...I can't be where I want to be...I can't be who I want to be? Heck no, she says. All it means is that we wake up tomorrow and say to God, "I'm going to try harder today to make those right decision, to be a better person, i'm going to love more, even though I was bad at it yesterday, I'm going to try today...if You'll help me."

There's a song on the new Third Day CD that I LOVE. It says...there's help for the hopeless...love for the brokenhearted...it makes me want to cry everything I listen to it, but it's a smart decision either to start crying when you're driving because it makes it difficult to see the road through the wetness. Like it's raining directly into your eyes instead of on the road in front of you.