Me Without You

It's been a full week, a busy week. I've had a tough time grounding myself in regular routines.

My daily Bible study has been off. I've been reading Psalms instead of sticking with my regular going through the Bible habit, which would have me reading a combination of 1 Kings, Psalms, and 1 Chronicles right now in a study of King David's life and ministry.

My exercise routine has been off. I've only gotten in two days of strengthening exercises and one day of biking so far this week.

My writing routine is totally out of whack. I've only revised 5 paragraphs for Champion in the Darkness this week. 5 paragraphs!

My blogging routine has obviously been missing it's usual rhythm.

It's been a week of new school and activity schedules, a week of worry, a week of heavy prayer, and a week of minor distractions.

My kids are in their second week of homeschooling but the first week of homeschool co-operative and activities: dance, volleyball tryouts, a science study group, an afternoon recess with homeschool friends. We threw a small wrench in all that with a strained neck (one of my daughters), and we managed to be late, early and occassionally on time to all that stuff.

I worried over everything: my teaching abilities for my homeschool co-op classes, my daughter's neck, the schedule, my sucky writing, and other stuff.

We had friends going through a huge storm in their lives, and we spent time in prayer over them but it didn't seem like enough. They needed just to be a family together in the hospital, but I wished I could go hug them every day. For those of you who read my last post, Jessica is out of the ICU but still needs prayers. Her CO2 levels are climbing and if they don't go down, she'll have to go back to the ICU instead of onward to rehab.

On the minor distraction front . . .well, you can well imagine what that means. When I could have studied my Bible, exercised, made leaps and bounds in revision, and visited blogs, I chose to listen to music, read, and watch some really old Japanese anime that I haven't watched since I was in college.

So, last night would have been a good night to get myself together and hunker down and get some work done, right?

Well, no. Instead my family and I went to see Toby Mac in concert at the Puyallup Fair (the biggest fair in Washington state). (pronounced pew-all-up).

We had an awesome time and I felt renewed when I woke up this morning. Ok, I slept in a little, but I was a little tired out from jumping up and down at the concert.

Praising Jesus to Toby Mac's lyrics, dancing, and having fun with my family was just what I needed to find the way to get back into real life again . . . a life made real and full by my relationship with the Lord.

So, I highly encourage you to give God a chance in your life, and if you don't know who Toby Mac is, then I suggest you listen to his song, "Me Without You." It started out at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and remains up there, along with Toby's new album Eye On It.