Life Lately

Spring Break

- Melody

I had an incredible start to my spring break. 🙂 Well, sort of.

About Thursday, my back had started to hurt again. (I threw it out really bad last semester and was out of school and work for several days.) I woke up that morning and remember thinking, “Ow.” It was a muscle right on my spine on the right side. It was really tender and I didn’t think much of it. Thought I just slept on it wrong and it would go away in a couple of days. Well, it didn’t. It just got worse. At Jason’s cousin’s wedding Saturday night I couldn’t get comfortable during the ceremony because my back was stiff and sore. Sunday afternoon, after church, I went out to the car to go pick up Jason. I sat down in the car, shut the door, turned on the car, and turned on my iPod. As soon as I sat down I knew something was bad. I told myself, “If you can just reach the seatbelt, you’ll be okay from there.” Needless to say, I couldn’t even reach the seatbelt. My back seized up like nothing I have ever felt. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream. It was all I could do to find the lever to lower the seat. I slammed the seat down so I could lay on my back. I was still in the driveway and called my mom. She came out there, all I could get out was, “It hurts,” and I started to cry. She ran back in and got my dad. He had to carry me with my legs dangling, into the house. I laid there, my back seizing for the rest of the day.

Today, we had our Engagement Session with Angela Kay Duncan Photography scheduled. Jason and I both thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. Somehow, I was able to make it through the entire session and felt great the whole way through. My back is still stiff, but I feel so much better than yesterday. I am SO thankful for all the prayers. Thank you all so much!

Happy Spring Break!

Melody 🙂

Awakening and a Smashed Finger

- Melody

Yesterday this came in the mail!

Awakening: Passion 2010!!

So excited! I was supposed to be at youth chorus (a choir at school for the local homeschool kids) at 2.30 and was 5 minutes late trying to upload it to my phone, and it didn’t even work! 🙁 But nonetheless, I finally got it on my iPod!

So, today I’d sort of been dreading going to work. Always happens on Thursdays after being off on Wednesdays. But it turned out to be really nice. The GORGEOUS weather really lifted my mood and my spirit and decided to meet sweet Jason at the coffee shop to hang and talk and just be together. All was well until I got out of the car and demolished the tip of my left pointer finger in the door of the car. 🙁 I hate to be graphic, but the force was so great it pushed the skin out from under my nail! So I sit here only typing with 9 fingers. It’s extremely difficult! But I shall survive. Jason bought me chocolate, band-aids, and neosporin. 🙂

Anywho, plan on going to KC’s woodwind concert in about 20 minutes! Can’t wait to see my friends perform!! 🙂

Melody

Gloria

- Melody

Hello! I’m on the school’s WiFi and let me tell you, it’s crazy slow.

Life is just sort of ambling on lately. Wish I had more to blog about!

Last night was our Chorale concert and we performed John Rutter’s Gloria from the mass, among other things. I’ve done a lot of Gloria’s in my days, what with being in All-Region choirs and just choirs in general. But this Gloria, was out of this world. I loved every measure of it. There wasn’t one note of it I didn’t just feel overwhelmed with praise and adoration for our Creator! We had timpani, snare, xylophone, trumpets, tubas and an organ. It was the most beautiful piece of music I have ever performed and I couldn’t help the tears welling up in my eyes during that song. When it was over there was a standing ovation and I couldn’t help but look around at my fellow performers and none of them seemed too impressed. I think they were more worried about just getting it over with and going out with their friends afterwards than they were living in the moment of that beautiful Gloria. Their faces were blank and unhappy. I felt like I was the only one smiling. I don’t care what we sounded like, it was the text of that song that I fell in love with from the beginning…

“Gloria in excels is Deo.” GLORY TO GOD!

Being a vocal major I can’t understand how an unsaved person could sing countless amounts of pieces written to praise the One True God and STILL not believe! All the oldest composers had to write about was CHRIST! (And anything written about something else was considered secular.) That in itself amazes me. God REALLY has been around FOREVER! And He always will be!

Nowadays secular music thrives over sacred music. Just looking at the number of Twitter followers MercyMe has compared to someone like A Fine Frenzy proves that. More people know about secular music stars because the media latches onto them and spills everything about their lives to us so we may live vicariously through them because our lives “aren’t good enough.”

Okay, I’m done rambling about that. Back to my original point. God should be glorified in the music that is made. After all, He is the one that gave those talents in the first place. Shouldn’t we be using them to praise Him?

Hope you guys have a great rest of the day!

Melody

Snow..Again!?

- Melody

Yes, little babies! It’s snowing like crazy again!! Not sticking yet, but Crowder*Band posted a pic on twitter and there were about 5 inches on the ground! Excitement all around!

As finicky and strange Texas weather is, I don’t know that I’d understand the weather anywhere else. It’s just… unexpected here. 🙂

Well, that was real short but it’s time for me to head home!

Yeehaw!

Melody.

Something Beautiful

- Melody

I had to blog this as soon as I could.

I was at work this afternoon looking through my Twitter and saw that Bethany Dillon had a new blog so I hopped over and looked then commented and went back to my blog and started reading a couple of my most recent blogs. (Unfinished and Ramble). I read them with fresh eyes. I only wrote them a week and a half ago at the most and already I am changed and think a little differently. (This is why I’m glad I started this blog.) My “Unfinished” blog talks about how I just pine for something to happen inside of me. That ‘happen’ to be somehow becoming this worship leader I see in my head and doing all of these things everyone around me is doing. Well, I think God has a prerequisite plan for me.

With and without my knowledge God has been showing me just how much pride is rooted in my heart. These blogs are about how I want to be a worship leader. How I have this passion and how I just want to do what I do. Well, coincidentally, (but really it’s God working) we’ve been reading John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life” in college Sunday School–it’s so deep, we’re still in the preface!–Dad’s (our teacher) been talking about how we should plug into the church and find what our spiritual gifts are. We, as a church body, are to edify the church. The church does not edify us. So, if I think my spiritual gift is music, then I should plug into our church’s worship team or church choir. My goal, as a Christian, is to edify Christ in the church. To glorify HIM alone. My goal should NOT be making a record or recording music or joining a record label. I should just long to glorify God alone with my singing and music. And if He chooses to lift me up and allow me to do those other things then GOD BE PRAISED. I am a meek and prideful human being. God, this past week or so, has been showing me my pride in a very real way. I never consciously knew I was prideful. I just wanted to sing and be on a stage. But God is showing me that my heart is in the wrong place. I now catch myself when I think a prideful thought or want to say something that will edify myself. I ask that God help me in ridding my heart of this disease.

When I reread my “Unfinished” blog I almost wanted to delete it. I felt so ashamed that I would put prideful things like that for people to read about me. Now, I leave it. I want proof that I have changed. I want to come back and reread this blog in another week and see just how much I’ve changed.

To finish the reason I started writing this blog..

I was on my way home from work after reading Bethany Dillon’s blog and rereading mine, when Needtobreathe’s “Something Beautiful” came on. I was at the intersection on the highway before my house and just started to cry. Something strong had a full grip on my soul. It was covered in the Holy Spirit. I’ve never felt anything like it. It was the most incredible thing I have ever felt! I was driving and crying and mascara was running into my eye and it started to burn so I couldn’t cry a whole lot more lest I have a wreck but nonetheless I cried. When I pulled into my driveway I just sad and soaked it in. The thoughts running through my head the whole time were, “I don’t care. I just want to glorify YOU LORD! I love you! God, I glorify YOU alone.” Everything prideful fled my heart at that very moment and I was able to see Christ and His infinite love burdened on my heart in a way that I can only hope will happen again. I wanted to jump out of my car and scream and raise my hands to the heavens. It was so phenomenal.

As for now, I’d like you to pray that God continue to break me of this pridefulness and continue to show me His love and how much I should glorify Him instead of myself!

:)Melody

Ramble.

- Melody

Well, I’m up way past my bedtime so I thought I’d just hop on over here and chat a little with the few “readers” I have!

More and more I find myself committed to just making it through the week without any sense of being. I suddenly look up and it’s Friday and think, “…What just happened?”

Feeling ashamed of not accomplishing anything I deem worthy of counting as successful doesn’t really help the Friday surprises either. I know this seems like a re-hash of my last post but it’s something I just can’t get over, yet can’t really get to stick in my mind.

I. Am. Unfinished.

That’s my new theme of life, I guess. Though I know I’m unfinished I seem to over analyze and obsess over my unfinished-ness until I get so downhearted and depressed I can’t wait for some air!

I wish I was better with words and I wish you all could just read my mind.. It’d be so much simpler that way! But such is life!

Anyway, some good news.. Wedding planning is going great. Whatever I seem to obsess over and seem to not be able to find, there is suddenly this beam of light that fits perfectly into the plans I had. That sounds like someone I know… (hint! It’s Jesus!)

Goodnight. 🙂

Melody