Befuzzlement

This day went from uneventful to busy to painful to pleasant. Pretty much ran the gamut of emotions in less than 24 hours. Thank goodness it ended on the last one.

I ended up sleeping until 11:00 because I stayed up extremely late the other night talking with a close friend. The day was stodgy, with only a gourmet Sunday brunch to liven it up. Then I headed back to my room to work on a timeline for Computer Science, which thankfully didn't take very long. Of course, lab work immediately followed. I camped out in Riley Hall for three hours working on both my personal webpage and a spreadsheet application. The webpage remains a work in progress but at least the spreadsheet is nearly finished. Now I just need to figure out how to make those pesky column charts match up right with the data tables. Then I should be good to go.

Okay, this was the painful part. Praise team practice this afternoon. I knew going in that I couldn't attend the full practice because of dinner plans, but still, I hoped to enjoy what time I would have. I didn't. All at once, I felt the sickening feeling wash over me again. My voice was choking off in my throat; I physically could not sing. I heard sound coming out, but it didn't feel like my voice. There was no fire in it, no passion, no excitement. I can't figure this out. I'm still not really sure what it means, but I do know this. I can't be up there leading praise and worship if I'm not into it. I love my friends too much to give off a phony appearance. It's so strange. I've never felt this way before; I've been singing in praise bands ever since junior year of high school. So I don't know what's changed it now. Especially since I can listen to music either on my laptop or my car radio and I sing just fine, totally normal. It's very confusing, or befuzzling, I guess is a better way to describe it. But I have the sense that God is speaking to me through this; it could be that He's putting me through this for a reason I don't yet know. Maybe He's saying it's time for me to step down. Withdraw my spot and let someone else step up to the mike. Maybe He wants me in the audience for some reason, to lead people in the crowd and not on a stage or a platform. Maybe He thinks I can be a more effective witness when I'm actually among the ones we're trying to reach, not communicating on a piece of electrical equipment that is impeding it. I just don't know. That's the best I can figure out. So I'm going to try that for this coming Tuesday, which, ironically enough, is a Praise and Worship Night. I'm going to see how it feels to sing in the crowd, and let God decide what comes of it. I may not get an answer to these weird feelings I've been having, but if it's truly God moving in me, I want to act on it. So prayers for that would be appreciated.

But lest you forget, my day did end on a pleasant note. I had a great prayer meeting in the chapel with Chandler, Dawn, and Hilary; wonderful girls. After that, we had our first BCM Drama/Dinner Theatre meeting in a while; it was great to reconnect with the gang and get started on a vision for this year's production. It's going to be great; see Taylor's blog for more about this year's DT. Kudos to Michael Reddish for bringing Krispy Kreme donuts.

Song of the Day: Matt Redman - "The Wonderful Cross"

Verse of the Day: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." - Romans 3:23-26