A Real Worship Service

The service Sunday night was beyond anything I could conceive. It was as if the Lord descended in a cloud and we were overcome by His glory. It was all Him - nothing to do with any of us present. We were all just privileged to be there.

I drove home from Cali - I left on Friday night. I ran into a little trouble in Utah. You can read about it in my previous posting. To sum-up, I spent a good portion of Saturday baking in the desert trying not to worry that I wasn't going to be able to pull together the things I needed to for the Sunday night service. I got home Sunday morning with no sleep. Carol graciously talked to me on my cell and kept me awake from Frisco to home.

I slept for a few hours and then jumped up and started work furiously on getting ready. God intervened and everything went wrong. Everything to the point that it got ridiculous. I was sobbing in the shower when Carol came to pick me up. (My car wouldn't start) We prayed and God said, "No music." We called Tami and left her a vmail and headed to the church to get the Children's Church sanctuary ready.

Carol had lots of great ideas and the place ended up looking better than I would have believed. Ian showed up was not thrilled that all of his music choices had been cut by the Lord. :-D I'm sure he was thinking "What an excuse!" Then Carol and the team went in the back to pray over Dawn and Al. I was gatekeeper praying and singing out front and getting the programs printed up. Holy multitasking I guess. Bernie, our only guitar player, hadn't shown up. I started to feel bad and get worried again. Fortunately, I had too much to do to give this worry much energy.

At 5:50 the folks were meandering in from the prayer session. Carol said it had gone well and I was so grateful about that but dreading what I was sure would happen next. I hadn't been able to do any of the usual preparation and how could it go well without my efforts? I had let everyone down. We didn't have music, we didn't have slides, we didn't have anything we were used to having. Go ahead and laugh, I am.

At 5:57 Bernie walked in. Mark, our music minister had been there for the Al & Dawn prayer and he walked down to his office and got a guitar. We decided we could do Awesome is the Sight since it didn't need a slide and the Lords prayer.

We started at about 6:10. Brad opened with prayer and from that second the Lord's glory shown and just got brighter. As we started the opening song - Awesome is the Sight - we knew we were on holy ground. We followed the liturgy, we sang choruses as the Lord directed, we worshiped.

At one point Brad invited us to be on our faces before the Lord. I laid there, crying with gratitude for the day in the desert followed by this overwhelming cool drink, this filling of His spirit. There was no way to grasp the incredible honor and privilege that we were being given, that I was being given. All I could do was to soak in it and be filled beyond overflowing.

Just in from Utah. My opinion hasn't changed.

I used to send out a picture of a lovely desert sunset viewed in the rearview of my car. It was titled My Favorite View Of Utah.

Saturday, the hottest part of the day and I was crossing the section of Utah that looks like the Grand Canyon - it is 50+ miles either way to the next town. I pulled into the Ghost Rock Viewpoint to take make a pit stop. (They really were pits, ugh)

When I got back to my car it wouldn't start. Since I am on the Suckulair network (now a part of the new AT&T) I had no cell signal. I asked some folks from Cali who had cell signal but no jumper cables if they would call AAA for me and they did - bless them. AAA then proceeded to take until 10 pm to get there.

I had my hood up. All I needed was a jumpstart...

A couple of retirement age folks from Kansas in a big truck looked at me, turned away and drove right past without stopping. Let's hear it for the Midwest

God takes good care of me so I had a whole case of bottled water on ice in the cooler. I took a sweaty nap, worked on my computer, drank A LOT of water and eventually watched the typical gorgeous desert sunset.

Then the Perseid meteor shower started. It was so dark as the sky rained fireballs. I felt so safe and cared for - that God would make sure I wouldn't miss this incredible show of his creation. I'd wanted to get out of the city and see it so many times but never made it. Now here I was, a command audience.

I fell asleep looking up. I was wakened by the sound of a tow truck. The driver was an off-duty cop working his side job. Huge like a muscle mountain and so sweet. He apologized that I had been out there so long but I was kinda grateful.