God in His Sovereignty

I help create our worship services at church and when I'm leading worship I select the songs that we are doing. Sometimes it is a quick process and other times it takes significantly longer. There are times when I don't know why I picked certain songs, but it makes sense to me later. Tonight was one of those nights.

It's New Years Day and I scheduled a rehearsal for tonight. Crazy, I know. But I have amazing volunteers who stepped up and made it happen. But why would I rehearse on New Years Day especially since we normally rehearse on Wednesdays? Because, I realized last week that my husband was feeling the burn of his job and the stress of Christmas, and we just needed to get out of town and reconnect as a family. So we are leaving tomorrow, Wednesday afternoon, and are headed to the Santa Barbara/Solvang area. It should be fun. But to do that, I had to rehearse tonight.

Before rehearsal tonight, my daughter and I had another "challenge of the wills"...which left me depleted and not feeling like I was a good person, let alone a good mother. To reassure you, Haley and I are fine...we talked it out, we've loved and hugged, and she is at Disneyland (on a previously planned trip) with my parents. But back to this afternoon....It was pretty brutal, and it is hard to see the worst parts of you portrayed in your children. Ugly...ugly stuff.

Now, let's get to rehearsal. What I planned on being a time to learn parts and learn a couple new songs, ended up being a beautiful, cleansing, and healing time of worship for me. God is so good. He knew I would walk into this room broken tonight and he had me choose songs that I needed to sing. Songs that I needed to hear to remind myself of how constant and unchanging God is. Songs that brought to light all the hideous parts of who I am...but all the beautiful parts of who God is. He reminded me that I am his kid and I mess up just like my kids. But He forgives me. He loves me. I don't deserve it. And I know I'll mess up again. I'm quite certain I will walk in this very room, broken again....and God will pick me up, hold me in his arms, forgive me, and tell me He loves me, just like any good Father would.

Here are some of the words that God used tonight to speak to me...

Come home, Come home, you who are weary come home....Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling...calling o Sinner come home.

Create in me a heart that's clean, Conquer the power of secret shame, come wash away the guilty stain of all my sin. Clothe me in robes of righteousness. Cover my nakedness with grace. All of my life before you now, I humbly bring.

You're the defender of the weak...You comfort those in need. You lift us up on wings like Eagles.

God is sovereign. These songs weren't chosen by accident. God knew that I would be here on a Tuesday night, that I would need to hear them and I would need to believe them. I hope they will touch people this weekend the way the moved me tonight.