Palm Sunday, circa 1997

{Palm Sunday 1997}

Last night at Choir practice, we went into the sanctuary to practice for Sunday.  We don't usually do that, so I knew whatever we would see that night would be more than just a song.  I was right!  

We started singing "Prepare Ye The Way," and little children, dressed like those above, started coming down the aisles waving palm branches.  And then a long-haired Jesus came in after them.  The best part was when he sat down at the front of the stage and all the kids sat around him.  It was such a cool image of "Let the children come to me..." Matthew 19:14.  

Palm Sunday is one of my favorite Sundays of the year.  I think because it is so joyful just before so much sorrow of Jesus' death, I just really like it.  And then there's the biggest celebration of all--Easter!  Love it.  Love it.  Love it.  

As the kids were coming down the aisles, I remembered that someone had posted this photo on Facebook a while back.  As you can see from the time stamp, it's from 1997.  I'm standing in the back in the blue "dress" (or whatever that thing's called!).  That's "Jesus'"real hair.  It always fascinated me growing up that a man's hair could look pretty that long, ha!

This photo brings back great memories of growing up in church and being in Children's Choir.  And I am still friends with all these people in this photo, believe it or not.  All the kids are either in college, graduated from college, engaged or married, and one has a kid!  Funny how life happens so quickly!

Hope you are enjoying this Easter season.  

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."  Matthew 19:15

Also, if you are reading along, I'd love to know you've stopped by!  I'm curious about who actually reads this thing, ha.  So, if you want to leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you!  In the words of Molly Piper, "You may be a stranger, but you're not a stalker."  :-)

Three little words

If you've been reading this blog for a bit, you might have read my Ode to Papa back in January.  If not, welcome. Let me introduce you to Papa:

I just got off the phone with him.  We're squaring away some plans for later this week.  I get to see him tomorrow night at choir, and we might even have dinner together beforehand--we do that sometimes.  Love it. 

Papa's not one to tell you how he feels very often, although he is never short on words.  :-)  But my favorite thing is when we say goodbye, and I say "Bye Papa, I love you."  And he pauses about five seconds and then says,"I love you TOO."  Like he really means it.  And it makes me smile. 

Last weekend, I babysat for this family.  I put the big boys down for bed, and then the youngest, who's two and a half, I cover up with a blanket and kissed his forehead.  I said, "Night, Night.  I love you." (Because I really do love them as if they were my own).  He said right back,"I uff oo too, 'Aye." Seriously melts my heart.  If I melt at this, can you imagine what I'll do when it's my own kids??

And as Palm Sunday and Easter approach, I am reminded that no matter how much I am loved here on Earth or how much I love others, there is nothing that compares to the Love of Christ, and I am humbled and so grateful.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:6-9

Entertaining THE Band

Well, this week sort of felt like a Spring Break to me--except I had to go to work.  Bummer.  Talk about culture shock--working your first Spring Break when everyone else is off.  It was especially challenging since the Roomdog is a teacher and my brother was home.  But I made the most of it.

And just so you can feel a part of this week, we alway refer to Troy's band as "THE Band," as if there are no other ones on the planet.  And you have to say it like "thuh band" not "theeee band."  Just sayin'.

I already blogged about it, but Sunday night was Troy's show, with THE Band.  It was fabulous, but you might say I'm biased.  :-)  Here are a few more pics with THE guys.

{Theo, Alex 1, Alex 2 and Troy--after their show in Deep Ellum}

{Roomdog's beautiful hand modeling}

 The stamp they put on your hand after paying was Martin Luther King, Jr.  A little out of date, perhaps, in March.  We thought this was funny.  It took about three days for it to wear off!  Crazy.

{The Biggest Fan}

Dad's face always looks like this when he hears Troy play or me sing.  Seriously.  It's pretty great to know that our parents back us up 110% and let us go for our dreams, however far fetched being a Rock Star may seem.  :-)

Monday & Tuesday nights, my dad grilled out, and mom made all the sides.  I walked in the first night to this:

{Red Meat, anyone?}

The steaks were delicious and we had chicken the next night.  THE guys were quite chatty at dinner, always offering up their opinions about everything.  Very entertaining.  

{Yogurtville: a whole new world}

Dad, Theo, Alex 1, Alex 2 & Claire

Tuesday night, we took THE guys to Yogurtville.  They LOVED it.  It's all the rage here, and you get to fill your own cup with as many flavors of yogurt, then add toppings to your heart's content.  They charge by the ounce, so sometimes you get up to the register and are surprised at how much you spend!  I got a gift card for there for Christmas, so on Wednesday nights after choir I'll go there for a late-night treat.  Pretty great!

Wednesday night I went with Claire and some other friends to Primo's downtown--great Mexican food.  I got to meet Tony Romo there.  He's dating a girl I went to High School with, and I said hi to her, and then he was just kind of standing behind her and introduced himself.  When he said, "Hi , I'm Tony."  I wanted to say, "NO DUH!" But I kept my cool and didn't squeal until after they left the building.  I think.  :-)

{Love my T-Roy}

THE band left Friday, so Saturday night we had dinner with the four of us and my grandparents. (Are you counting the THREE free meals I got this week?  Love it.)  It was so fun just to hang out and all be together.  It was such a blessing to have everyone at the same table.  It made my little heart very happy.  Troy left at 6:15 this morning, so I said goodbye to him last night.  Kind of bummed, but I'll get to see him more at Easter, and I'm looking forward to that very much!

Later last night, Claire and I met up with some friends from Bible Study at Cowboys Red River in Dallas. We two-stepped all night and had a blast.  I'd never been there before, and it was great--not smokey, and they had a live band that played cover songs.  I only knew a few people, but guys just come up and ask girls to dance.  It's really fun, but quite a stretch out of my comfort zone!  

And lastly, Sic'em Bears!  I am so stinkin' excited that THE Bears are in the Sweet 16.  It's not often that we get to celebrate a win, and getting this far in March Madness is really great--let's keep going!

Lesson for Today

I really like studying the Bible.  I love taking a part of scripture and learning about each little part (It's called Exigetical teaching, just in case you're curious!).  I had the privilege of attending a school Seventh through Twelfth grades that we got to do this often.  Bible class was my favorite, many times, espeically when I had particularly great teachers.  I wish I could go back and sit in those classes again.  I appreciated them then, but I think I would appreciate them even more now. 

Here is an excerpt I ran across from John Piper's Desiring God Blog.  I just had to share it.  The link to this specific post is called Theological Reasons for Wordiness. {Anything underlined, bolded or italicised, I added for emphasis}

I just read Numbers 7 on my annual way through the Bible. I read every word. It is one of the longest, most repetitive chapters in the Bible.


From verse 12 to verse 83 Moses describes the offerings that each of the twelve tribes of Israel brought to the tabernacle when it was first dedicated to the Lord.

But here’s the amazing thing. There are 93 words in the description of what each tribe brought as an offering. And all 93 words are repeated verbatim for each of the 12 tribes. Twelve times he says exactly the same thing. Twelve times! Exactly the same 93-word description for each tribe’s offering!

Why?

Gordon Wenham answers: “It seems likely that a theological purpose underlies his wordiness.”

The purpose he says is “to emphasize as strongly as possible that every tribe had an equal stake in the worship of God, and that each was fully committed to the support of the tabernacle and its priesthood.” (Numbers, p. 93)

Yes. But let the method of emphasis sink in. Moses could have used Wenham’s words and saved time, space, and tedium. He could have said, “Every tribe has an equal stake in worship and all are to be fully committed to the tabernacle.” That’s 18 words. But he used 12 x 93 = 1,116 words.

Here are some lessons:
There are times when you look into every child’s eyes and say the same important thing. You don’t say the precious thing to one and then sweep over the others: “That applies to all of you.”  {I like this a lot...makes sense!}

These tribes are not equal. Some are larger. Some have sordid legacies. But everyone heard every word of God’s plan for their approach to God. Every one. Every word. Identical.

Efficiency is not always the highest value. Slow, long, repetitions are sometimes the best way to make an impact. {Sometimes I need to be reminded of this--efficiency is not always best.}
Patience in reading God’s word may be a test of the frenzy of our pace and our demanding attitude toward the Bible that it be the way we want, not the way God made it. {Think about it.}

Scripture Memory & Stuff

Just a few things of note for today...

Scripture Memory
If you want to jump in and jot (ok, type) down a memory verse you'd like to memorize, feel free!  I missed posting this yesterday, but I figure it'll still work.  :-) 

Hanging out with the Band
Last night Claire and I spent the evening at my parents' house with the band.  My dad grilled steaks and mom made all the fixins--mashed potatoes, fruit salad and Sister Schubert rolls.  It was delicious.  The guys were thoroughly entertaining, and they even asked our opinions about if we liked a song or not!  (This never happens.  Ha!)  I tried to educate these non-southerners on the finer points of Dr. Pepper and Blue Bell Ice Cream.  I think they really loved the Blue Bell (who wouldn't?).  Tonight we might try to take them to Yogurtville so they can see what all the fuss is about with 15 flavors of frozen yogurt and all the toppings you could imagine.  I love having my brother home.  It just makes me so happy.  I love me some T-Roy.

Blog Stuff
On another note, I've been meaning to blog about my blog.  I chose the backgound from shabbyblogs.com and then with the help of one of my Baylor blog friends, Wynne, I was also able to make a few more changes, editing HTML code (not as daunting as I thought!) and doing a little PhotoShop work.  Hopefully when I have a bit more time, I can make a few additional changes as well.  But I just wanted to give a shout out to her and let you know that she as a very helpful section of her blog called "Blog Help."  Check it out here!

That's all for now.  Happy Tuesday.

Band photos...

I've been working on editing the photos from the show that my brother did.  I'll leave you with these for now...

Roller Derby...

Remember roller blading as a kid?  Well, I'm not athletic (at all), but I do balance pretty well, so skating and skiing are things I'm fairly good at, and I have good memories of doing these things growing up.  I'd been thinking of trying to roller blade recently, so while I was at Target yesterday, I ran across some Schwinn Roller Blades and bought them.  To my surprise, they ended up being $10.48!!  They were in a damaged box, but they work just fine, so it was a great deal.  

I went to my parents' neighborhood yesterday to try them out, and it was SO FUN!!  I may be thin, but I am not in shape, by any means.  Seriously, though, rollerblading is almost a full-body work out, because you have to balance and move your arms and legs.  It was absolutely gorgeous weather this weekend, so I really enjoyed being outside.  Claire went to Target today and got a pair and rollerbladed on Katy Trail in Dallas, so I think that's next on my list!  

I knew I needed to find something to do that I enjoyed in order to get excited about working out.  I think this may be it.  Ha!  Who would've thought.  I also have 10 weddings to go to this summer, so I thought it would be a good excuse to get fit!  :-)

I took our dog Skippy along for the first run, and he did pretty well.  But, we ran into these two little crazy dogs that were barking their heads off, and I was trying to get away from them, not watching where I was going, and the road was a little bumpy.  Well, I fell right on my butt...really hard.  It still hurts!  But I got right back up and kept going.  I did keep saying, "ow. ouch. ow." for a good minute after I fell down.  I promptly dropped Skippy off at the house and went around on my little route again.  

I got a few funny looks from some people out in their yards, but I've decided not to care...too much.  :-)  It really was just fun!  I'd been wanting to find some way to work out, but I knew running wasn't an option.  I don't really enjoy it, but my dad just ran a half marathon today (way to go, Dad!!), and he's just learned to love running, so I thought that might work.  It didn't.  Plus, I had physical therapy for whiplash that I got in a jet-ski accident two summers ago, and the doctor told me that was the worst thing I could do for my neck.  So...running was pretty much out.  Onto rolling!  

Did you see Whip It when it came out last summer?  I can't remember when I saw it, but I know I liked it.  It has Ellen Page in it (from Juno), and she learns to roller blade and compete in roller derbies.  I don't think I'll be entering any competitions, but it really was a fun time!

Hope you are able to enjoy this beautiful weather.  I'm off to hear my brother and his band play in a show tonight.  They're in town recording this week, and I'm so excited to see him!!  You can check out their music here:

http://www.myspace.com/troycartwrightmusic