This is one of those days that surprised me every time I turned around.
So of course it's a blog post, but you'll have to bear with me 'cause every one of those turns is like its own little story...except they all go together into one very cool picture of how God does things....
Backstory: this is Tech Week for the one-act competition. The Flute Player, who currently is not playing her flute anywhere, is playing a villain in their entry. Due to a change in faculty, and the who-knows-why delays in filling the post, there was no drama teacher in our city theater performance magnet for about the first 6 weeks of school. The Technical Theater teacher selected a play and began casting it, so when the new teacher arrived he inherited a show that he didn't choose and didn't have a vision in place for, and no time to do anything else. So he went with it. Besides being new to the position, his wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago and he had a car wreck a week ago that cracked some ribs. So I am cutting him much slack in that I didn't get any word on any costuming help needed until Friday last week...and that was only Rebekah's costume. I got her jacket altered but didn't get the pants hemmed, then yesterday I got asked to also alter a pair of pants worn by the lead and a dress worn by the Femme Fatale character. I took the pants, but asked him to see if he could please get someone else to do the dress...it was bias poly charmeuse (beastly fabric) and needed pretty extensive alterations and I just didn't feel like I had time to do it. He said he'd try, but didn't sound hopeful.
So I fixed up both pairs of pants last night, and took them to work with me so that I could run them over to school about lunch time. I decided that if no one had been able to do the dress I'd just have to take it home and make up my work hours later in the week, as there IS a performance on Thursday. But I wasn't happy about that; it was really an intimidating project.
Now, on the way to work I pass by a building that is used by a non-Christian religious group as an educational/prayer center, and every time I drive by I shake my head and, to be honest, pray a prayer for those folks. Today was no different in that respect, but today I happened to read (again) their invitation to 'come pray with us!' and suddenly heard in my spirit 'These people pray earnestly without knowing Me, but those called by My Name are a prayerless people". Now, I know those folks pray from religious compulsion, but they do pray. By comparison, most Christians DO have a much more casual attitude about prayer. It convicted me and I pondered my own inconsistent prayer life as I drove to church for, of all things, weekly staff prayer.
I got my desk Bible and journal and headed to the sanctuary and found a seat, pondering the difference between last week, when I went to staff prayer earnestly expecting to hear from God, and this morning, when I was all in a swivet about possibly having to rearrange my work week to fix a dress I wasn't sure I could fix. I was really having trouble focusing...should I take the dress and do my best? Or just stand my ground that I really couldn't give it the time it needed to be done right? But what would they do for a costume for that character? And so I waffled.
But as I struggled with what I should do, one of the verses that I almost picked for the FFF verse from Colossians came to mind...and I took it as a direction and decided to look it up and record it. But when I flipped to Colossians, my eyes landed on 4:2 : Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
That didn't seem coincidental to me; I wrote that verse down, then wrote down the verse I was looking for to begin with (3:17, if you're curious) just as our Senior Pastor called us together for corporate prayer.
And he began to pray, and suddenly was praying passionately that we would all get a burden and anointing for prayer and pray without ceasing. He prayed in that vein for several minutes before moving on...and I was so impressed by the three reminders to that we are to pray that I stopped him in the hallway later than morning to share them.
I worked at my desk for an hour, then headed over to the school to take in the altered pants and find out if I had to sew the dress or not....and the answer was not! Someone else took it! I went back to work with a huge sense of relief...and found a discussion under way about some missing stage drapes. Our pastors' daughter is getting married this week, and some of the drapes they were planning to use for stage decor are not in their place. My sewing buddy Miss A indicated that we might have to do some replacement sewing in a hurry. Well, at least that would be something I knew I could do...but, the decision was to continue to look for the missing drapes...they were last seen in February and had to be around someplace.
I finished my workday and headed off to get The Flute Player from her bus. While I was waiting in the parking lot for the bus to pull in, I got a phone call from our Senior Co-pastor (that would be our pastor's wife, who also serves as senior pastor...husband/wife teams at our church). She said she had a big favor to ask of me and...I mentally began thinking how much fabric I would need to pick up at Hancock's and when I would get the panels serged....could I please teach her study class tonight? Wedding preparations had become undelagateable and were multiplying rapidly.
That was NOT what I expected to hear. I didn't know I was on the substitute teacher list. I'd lost track of which chapters of our current book (The Cry God Hears, by Barbara Yoder) we'd covered in class, since were were only loosley following the topics. We decided I should cover chapters 7 and 8, more or less, then let the ladies break up into discussion groups.
The Flute Player got off the bus and we headed home...we had 45 minutes before we had to leave the house to get her to school in time to get into costume and for me to head on to church.
And she wanted me to help her with her gangsterish accent (think of the head weasel in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit') in the time we had available. I picked up my book to remind myself of the topics in chapter 7 and 8 (and thanked God for prompting me to read ahead earlier in the week), and found that chapter 7 talked about positioning oneself for kingdom use and chapter 8 was about...travailing in prayer.
Wow. So prayer was to be tonight's emphasis. I scribbled some really rough notes, then talked like a New York gangster for all the way to school to get her used to it, scooted over to church and picked up the sign in sheet, then headed down to our meeting room.
And spent the next hour and a half pretty much only touching my notes now and again. That was the largest group of adults I'd ever stood before to teach. And I only sorta know what I said. I just pray that God anointed their ears so that they heard what He intended, even if it wasn't exactly what I said.
I did, however, end with a challenge to set aside some time to pray. Which I OBVIOUSLY need to make sure I do...I've been told often enough today...
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