Establish

So, my "word for the year"  is ESTABLISH.  That's it.  And I've know this since the last week of 2010, so I'm convinced that this is the year to "establish".  Working on Bible study. Working on Mozart and Bach. Working on Baby Music classes. Working on more time for family relationships. Working on teaching more effectively. Working on more effective ministry.

Job 22:28  You shall decide and decree and thing and it shall be established for you, and the light of God's favor shall shine on all your ways.  AMP

James 5:8  So you also must be patient.  establish your hearts [strengthen and confirm them in the final certainty], for the coming of the Lord is very near.  AMP

These are my first two verses for memory with the SSMT.  Thinking about that established heart this week.

So blessed!

Remember the Wednesday morning "Joy group"?  Yesterday we danced before the Lord. Well, it ended up for Him, but on the way it was a room full of funny, giggling women trying hard to command the sides of the brain and the left and right sides of the body to cooperate to learn four steps--just four--to dance with a DVD for about two minutes.  It got pretty hilarious and was a fair marker of just how loosey goosey we become with one another.

Finally we got serious and did the lesson for the day in the "Belonging" study.  During the study I was enlightened. Not by the study, but to an awareness that one woman did not have a book.  The Lord told me that she did not have money for the book and that I should buy it for her.  So, just before leaving I tried to do so discretely and leave. But Amy, our fearless leader, is all about transparency and she took the book to L and said, "Joyce wanted you to have this."  Busted!  But, this is where it gets really good!!

L came to me to hug and thank me and she told me that God spoke to her as Amy handed her the book. He said to her as Amy said my name, "She's always so obedient to me."  I was just dumbfounded.  L said she got chills to know that God would say that about someone. I got blasted by a Holy Spirit brick that He knows my heart so well.  I rarely deliberately disobey when I know what He is saying to me.  And now I KNOW that He KNOWs!  Awesome!

Nannie updates

This is a difficult season for my Mom, The Nannie, Matriarch of the Allen clan.  First of all it's winter, which messes with arthritis and other bone and connective tissue ailments that settle into elderly bodies.  The bones sit there, happy in heat and certain barometric pressures, functioning well and pretending to be 30 years old until the weather changes.  Then they whine, cry and even scream and rage, "No, No, I'm old and delicate and have been through so much in my lifetime that you can't even imagine!  Remember when you fell riding that bicycle in 1940? Remember when you sat down really hard on your tailbone playing basketball in high school?  Have you forgotten that sprained ankle or knee emergency or the times you braced yourself on your wrists too hard?  What about the 53 years of playing the violin?"  Or, in Nannie's case, "How about I remind you of those years you worked really hard in a school cafeteria lifting pots of spaghetti and pans of bread dough?  I'd like you to think all day about those years you helped lift your parents into and out of chairs and bed?"

In addition to the winter season with its biting cold, Nannie takes it hard when her friends and family members suffer anything at all--even a cold or pink eye. Lately Muffin had a bronchial bout with upper respiratory infection while we were on vacation and she worried about that.  And Roo had pink eye and allergies in both eyes and she fretted over that too.  And Joybear hasn't been feeling well, so Nannie asks every day if I've heard from her.  But the big event on her mind is that my Aunt Nonie, my Daddy's brother's wife and Nannie's best friend since childhood, fell and broke her hip.  Aunt Nonie also has a degenerative sight disease and doesn't see well enough to read anything but very large print now.   She hasn't used her muscles much in the last 20 years so when she fell, it wasn't the surgery, but the rehab that was the big challenge.  There is an additional blood problem as well.  So, she has been moved to a nursing home because she was unable to complete the required five hours per day rehab at the hospital rehab center.  My two cousins have health issues of their own to care for, so she is on her own for several days at a time. Nonie has her cell phone, so Nannie calls her every night and they talk, as is their custom.  It's heartbreaking to see and hear them;  friendship of over 80 years reduced to a few minutes on a telephone at night with both of them feeling helpless for the other.  We've offered to take Nannie to visit, but her own back condition prevents traveling more than a few minutes.

This kind of pain and suffering is not located in the body, but is in the soul and spirit.  I remember too well the day that my two grandmothers said their last farewell.  They were both living with Nannie and Dubbie and had been for three years.  Pickle (Dubbie's Mom) became so crippled with rheumatoid arthritis that she could no longer move by herself.  Grandmommy wasn't too far behind suffering with other symptoms.  When Pickle sat in a wheelchair at my parents' house and prepared to move to the nursing home (where she passed away just months later) Grandmommy cried like a little child.  Pickle was brave until then.  They had been friends for almost 80 years too.  When both of them cried and said "God knows when we will see each other again,"  I lost it as well.  That scene has been replaying on the DVD in my spirit for a few weeks as I hear Nannie talk about Nonie.  But the truth is that God alone knows when each of us will see the other each time we part ways.  He is our refuge and our help in times of trouble.

Wednesday Morning "Joy" Group

It was 27 degrees at 9:30 AM yesterday.  That is an important fact pertaining to today's post.  The lovely women in the photo are my sisters in Jesus. We have learned and experienced many deep, gut wrenching, tear squeezing, soul searching, spirit invading and body crushing mornings together in the past couple of years. Originally we were a group of women who met together from several churches to study God's Word with an out of town teacher.  That lasted one semester. But we had a destiny and we knew it. Part of that destiny was to show hospitality to other women and to teach.  So we eventually became a prayer group, then a Bible study. We studied most of Beth Moore's available Bible studies on DVD. We covered CD's by Bill Johnson. We did a VHS series on the Father's love by Jack Frost that changed our lives completely.  Three members of our group left us to live eternally with Jesus. We buried one woman's husband.  We went to conferences together and bought books and shared them and had lunch together and talked and talked about what God was teaching us through those meetings and books.  We cried and laughed and prayed and started all over.

Eventually we became very transparent with one another as we studied healing, sozo, deliverance, freedom for the body, soul and spirit.  Our hearts' deepest hurts, dreams, confessions, and joys were laid out to one another.  This semester we began another study: Belonging.  We are now at the point where most of our studies are for the purpose of learning how to assist those in deep need.  Belonging is a cry of the heart for most women.  I know. I am one. I have four daughters who are now grown women. I have three young granddaughters. I teach violin students who are lovely young girls.  It is a deep need for men as well, but I don't know as much about their feelings, having had no brothers or sons.  I'm learning continuously about male minds from Muffin and from my grandson, thankfully.

Today I heard a remarkable story that touched me deeply.  I hope I never forget it. We were discussing how we felt being silent in a group for 2 minutes.  Most of us felt peace, because we trust one another.  We began to talk about the issues that drive us away from peace--negative talking, for example.  Then one woman in our group, Ms L, told us that she remembers the story of the African man who wanted to own only one pair of pants. His reasoning was that two pairs of pants would only cause him to spend unnecessary time making a decision about which to wear and thus steal prayer time from his life.  Mrs. L's daughter is with YWAM, and took with her two pairs of pants and her Bible and one shirt.  She called her Mom to thank her for giving her the experience of living with little, being formerly homeless, and moving often from hotel to hotel so that she would appreciate the gift of being in a mission group with time to minister and pray.  Then Ms. L told us that she came to class today without a coat because she doesn't own a coat. She said with great joy that it simplifies her life because she doesn't need to think about finding her coat when she goes out. God's provision for her is that she doesn't get cold!  Really!  She doesn't feel the cold air on a morning when it is 27 degrees and even the room temperature seems uncomfortable.  Just like the man with one pair of pants, and her daughter with very few possessions, she finds joy in Who she has.
Wow.

More gigs!

Last Sunday morning as I stepped out of my car in the church parking lot and looked up, I saw, over the silhouette of the church, this full rainbow ring around the sun.  Every color was visible in the ring. It was amazing! A kiss from God as a promise to me that I could actually do what I was there to do.  

After playing 16 hours in rehearsals and programs last week I was unbelievably tired and just aching through my ribs and back from lifting my arms so much.  Our quartet had been hired to accompany this Methodist church choir and soloists in singing The Messiah.  I love to play The Messiah!  I really love listening to it as well, and usually turn up the volume while I clean the house or do the Christmas baking.

The Messiah is quite a change from the selections for the Christmas Pops Concert with the symphony.   I've heard many, many compliments for the concert, with its soloists, dancers, UNT Chorale and bling. But playing The Messiah trumps the bling for me.  Even when there is plenty of pressure with the quartet being a-l-o-n-e. No orchestra. The organist used the digital settings to play "harpsichord" with us. 

Today wasn't really a gig, but I played with my two adorable students at a music club.  We bake goodies for our audience, the local community, prepare instrumental and choral music for them, present donated instruments to the school district, sell poinsettias to raise scholarship money to give students for summer study, and then, after we perform we clean it all up. Whew!

These two played four traditional carols with me. We did three part harmony and they were wonderful! I love it when my students shine.  

In Memory of Lucy

Lucy Dog, I loved you because you were Michael and Becky's second "child", our fourth "granddog". I loved you because you watched after me when we kept you without your parents.  I love you most of all because you took good care of my Grands, especially Gracie.  I will miss you.  You were a good dog.  Go run and play and jump high over the Rainbow Bridge! Thank you for your service to our family.  

Let the gigs begin!

 I love The Messiah!  Both the oratorio and the Lord for Whom it was written.

   I love doing Baby Music!  This is a tribute to my parents and grandparents and all their extended families because the songs and activities are songs and nursery rhymes taught to me by all of those who have lived before me.  I feel an extension to my heritage, to my own daughters as Mothers, to my grandchildren and to generations to come when I am engaged in the curriculum.   I actually remember the sounds of my parents' and grandparents' voices saying these rhymes, singing these songs.  I feel connected to my elementary music teachers and my college teacher who taught elementary music as well.  "Pop Goes the Weasel" and "Six Little Ducks" were always fun action songs in a classroom.  "Pat a Cake" is a generational favorite in almost every family in southern states.  When I'm singing and playing with the children--my grands, the infants, the toddlers--it's as if all my ancestors are playing with them too.  We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses!