Deeper Than puddle Thoughts:Facing Reality

Tonight the Waddick Family Choir gathered downstairs in the basement to sing some songs, mostly to lighten the atmosphere up. We don't sing well and our dog knows it. First time we dusted off our old song books, Songs of Praise and Worship, he had to go runaway. When he came back he tried to cover his ears and was seen going round in little circles because we were driving him crazy. (now he knows how we fill with his barking!) but if I really wanted to talk about the horridness of our singing i'd put down some of my favorite ways to describe it. But in truth I want to put into words in a place were it can be seen and therefore hold me accountable for, the decsions these 3 or so songs have,-made me realize I have to make.
As everyone has probaly heard, a lot of people say 2008 is the year midnight will happen. Well, today is the 25th of December and there aren't many days left. But even if this year isn't the year God is going to some back, we still have to prepare. We didn't sing these songs, but they caught my eye. They got a message to me, one that I haven't been really willing to accept from people around me or in this church.
One night a couple of months ago, I read my Bible (something I don't like to do, don't want to do, an don't do) so I decided to take it easy and read the Psalms. I randomly picked a chapter and started reading. When I was reading I read something or the other that included Psalms 137:1-4. The songbook I was using has a song for it in called "Oh, Don't Be Led Captive."

Oh Don't Be Led Captive
Oh don't be led captive from Zion to roam,
Away from that city which God calls his own.
Abide and sing praises lest one day you see
Your harp hanging silent on some willow tree.

Oh don't be led captive by friend or by foe,
to weep where the rivers of Babylon flow.
And sadly remember the sanctified throng,
When asked by your captors for Zion's new song.

Songs of Mount Zion how sweetly they ring
In land of a stranger they never can sing.
The children of Edom all with one accord
Will mock you for singing the praise of the Lord

For me, that song was a waring. I don't want to be taken captive, forced into a land I don't, with people I don't, facing something that will undoubtedly be like the concentration camps for Jews. I know I don't have the strength to endure something like that and I also now it'd be harder for me to seek God in a situation like that, though I'd have even more reason then even now. I have a stubborn streak that really only appears when I'm forced to do something I don't like or am put in a situation I don't enjoy. It likes to boil in my soul, bringing back all remembrances of wrongs or the wrongs I thought they did to mind. That I can't do because God tells he forgives us as we forgive others. That leaves me asking myself, do I really want God to forgive me as I forgive others? That when I stand before the Lord when I die, that he's going to pull some strings and on the ends of them are the sins that I've asked God to forgive? I mean, I haven't released some of those strings myself. I like to appear that bygones are bygones, but if you back me into a small spot, I'm going to be tugging and whipping them in the person's face.
The next song that has impacted me tonight is "Father Awaken Me." (This song was in the back of my book, or the Secret Song Section, as we started to call those extra ones, started by the SS section in the new big blue song book, Singing and Making Melody in Your Heart to the Lord.)

Father Awaken Me
Father awaken me. Father awaken me.
Far the night is far spent
And day is at hand.
Oh Father awaken me.

Say not unto me, sleep on.
Say not unto me, sleep on.
For the night is far spent
and is at hand.
Oh Father awaken me.

As I was reading that my dad spoke and said, "When we sing these songs, we have to understand what we're saying and mean it." Well, that definitely meant I wasn't going to volunteer this song next. I wouldn't be able to mean what I was saying. I understand, it means that I would be asking God to give something to stir me, to wake me up. So in essence, I'd be asking God,"Hey, could ya send me some trials my way? Really hard ones too. I'm definitely a rotten person and I got to come closer to you. So if that means by embarrassment or a really painful, mentally or physically, I'm not going to be picky here, let it rain on down." That was really only way I could see God waking me up. I enjoy what I have right now, and I'm an optimistic, it's take a lot for me to see the bad part of what would be happening. But now I can sing that because I want to be changed, I want to be ready when Jesus comes back, bringing the destruction and pain that will turn people from the broad and wide path they're strolling down. I'm kinda hoping now, that I've really took on full consciousness as to what I'm saying, asking, and praying, that God can jist let this song be a good enough awakener. I like a roof over my head in winter.
Mostly though it was this song that made me chose which side I'd be standing on. When you all see, if you do, it's a Sunday, I have on a nice skirt, Bible all handy dandy, and can usually appear to be paying attention. But inside, I'm figuring out some way to step on Gabrielle's foot for swinging in front of me, clapping out of beat and loudly at that (which I find embarresing!) or for scooting over onto my side of the chair(which means it might include a really hard pinch), especially since she managed to snag the wall seat. And if we're in praise (the part I like best about church, next to the fact it makes me appear holy) I'm trying to think about what homework I have, how to get to the library, the fact I'm hungry and really hope my stomach doesn't growl loudly. My thoughts will go hilter skilter ad I'll only tone in and pay attention if it's someone who sometimes haves people read out of the Bible. Trust me, I'm thumbing along and trying to discreetly practice the versus the person's going to be reading, escpecially since I once had to listen to myself read aloud; it didn't sound good.

Choose You This Day
Choose You this day whom you will serve
whom you will serve whom you will seve.
Choose you this day whom you willl serve.
All the days, All the days of your life.

The song goes on, suppose to, for me at least in my eyes, be sung when you have made your decision. Today I chose God's side. No more dancing in the marketplace, dabbling at various stands in Vanity Fair, giving up a Gospel coin for something I want to have that, in all reality, will be gone, forgotten, and minescutely small when eternity takes it's beginging. I really didn't want to lay down the things I enjoy. The library e-mailed me this week saying I have a reserved book in. The fourth book in the books of Ember is in my room. I was planning on actually making some friends at my school. Yet tonight I decided, what my plans are can be forgotten and cast east from the west, what God has planned for me can incompus my entire stage of life. It reels back some of the things I enjoy or want to see happen, then it can re-enter, but if not it can be burned (and I'd rather have that burning then me in hell!) I must say, earlier, right when I started typing this, I was freaked that God might tell me to forgor humor. I didn't want to, but I was gearing up to write something Catholic repetitive mass boring. Yet when I it didn't seem right, especially since I wanted to be really truthful. So when I started over and got my Waddick Choir in, it gt better. I mean, God definetly has a sense of humor. He wouldn't have done some of the things he did if he didn't.
Oh, another song I heard that helped this process along was a song Sherri G. (I'm not even going attempt to spell it, I don't even day it right.) showed me. It's by Robin Mark called "Jesus, All for Jesus." You might not like the beat, you might not like his voice, but it's the words that got me.

if you want to find the song go to youtube and type in robing mark, find it from there. I'd put it here myself but I'm not allowed on youtube and don't feel like bothering my dad right now. It is 111:18 p.m.