...across the room to expose myself....

...to get real, that is.  I'm thinking that if I put my thoughts down on this blog for anyone to read it might help me to sort out this topic and come to a place of rest.  The topic? Corporate Worship.  I have no trouble worshipping God on my own or with some close friends just in case you might read this and wonder if I EVER worship.  Oh YES!  I HAVE to worship my God.  He is my life.  He is my everything and I love Him with all my heart and soul and strength.  When you are really passionate about something you just have to share it and I feel that way about God.  I want to worship Him corporately with my brothers and sisters in Christ. That is where my dilemma begins.  This issue has plagued me for a number of years by now.  Those close to me know this full well.  I have been confused, angered, extremely frustrated to the point of tears (OFTEN!) and completely aghast at the type of worship I have been seeing in churches wherever I go.  For the most part I have not liked, or enjoyed, or been able to participate fully in a worship service in a very long time.  This journey has been wracked with pain and disappointment.  I know... it is a sad state of affairs but it's not over yet.

Throughout my life, whenever I have experienced real difficulties, I have made it a policy of sorts to go back to the basics, or the beginning.  I go back as far as I have to in order to find a starting point so I can deal with what I know for sure.  Sometimes I struggle for a long time before I remember to do this.  This time it took me a lot longer than usual to finally get there!

It seems to me that any time I have struggled through something, nothing happens until I get to the end of myself.  To get to that place where I finally decide that nothing matters to me more than a solution.  I am willing to give up whatever I need to and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to resolve the issue.  I don't know that I've arrived yet but I do think I am beginning to see a path.  Where it will lead, I'm not sure.  I believe it will be to a better spot than where I am now.

Often people don't like to hear anything beginning with "Well, when I was a kid...." but this is my blog and that IS where worship began for me.  Sunday mornings we would get dressed in our best clothes and go to "Sunday WORSHIP SERVICE".  Never did it enter my mind that only part of that service was for worshipping.  Worship included singing, praying, scripture reading which was often done by parishioners, bringing tithes and offerings, a sermon and quite often a sharing time where we were encouraged to share what was on our hearts.    Prayer time often involved several parishioners praying audibly.  Singing was led or directed by either the pastor or a song leader.  He made sure everyone was joining in and he made sure we were aware of the words we were singing.  Many times the singing was stopped long enough for him to either give some background information about the song or the writer, or to ask us to think about the words we were singing and I remember how that changed the way we sounded.  Suddenly there was LIFE in the music.

During my teenage years we moved and consequently attended a new local church.  These people would often meet thirty minutes prior to the worship service for a sing song.  They loved music and they loved singing together.  This did not keep them from singing more songs during the worship service.  The singing was hearty and there was lots of it.  This I know for sure:  I absolutely loved Sunday Morning Worship Service!

I checked my online dictionary for the meaning of worship.  Some of what I found included...THE REVERENT LOVE AND DEVOTION ACCORDED A DEITY..., THE CEREMONIES, PRAYERS, OR OTHER RELIGIOUS FORMS BY WHICH THIS LOVE IS EXPRESSED; ARDENT DEVOTION, ADORATION, etc.

Obviously worship is all about God...

Keep checking back....this is only the beginning.

...across the room for the birthday guy again....

You simply haven't celebrated your birthday properly until there are some little people in the picture and today was the day.  We simply placed a token number of candles on the cake and tried to keep them lit long enough for a picture.  It wasn't easy as you can tell by the death grip on little Miss Rowan who firmly believes that all lit candles must be extinguished immediately!

Tonight we feasted on roast chicken and potatoes, BBQ roasted veggies, asian cabbage salad, and banana chocolate coffee cake.  The little bouquet of fresh flowers and basil is compliments of Miss Rowan who cannot keep her busy little hands out of my flower bed.    I think she did a nice job of of colours! 

It's been a fabulous week of celebrating this amazing man who we all love, cherish and adore. Thanks Michele, John, Declan and Rowan for coming out to celebrate with us just one more time!  I can't think of how to fill those cake baking hours this coming week!!

...across the room for the birthday guy....

I love to celebrate birthdays .... especially my guy's birthday.  He is happy with anything I arrange for his birthday, never asking for or demanding anything.  It's so easy and it makes me want to try harder every year to celebrate "properly".  So this year was an extra special birthday and by this morning I had baked my third cake.  The first one was to celebrate with his buddy whose birthday was Monday.  I brought this chocolate sheet cake with chocolate pecan frosting.  YUMMMMYYYYY!  Then there was the cake for the co-workers (at his place of work you bring the cake for your birthday and that way nobody is forgotten!!). Tonight I made a special dinner for him (BBQ New York Strip Loin topped with a jumbo cajun spiced prawn, mushrooms on the side, pan fried potatoes, asparagus with lemon dill sauce, and spinach strawberry salad).  I had to stall the dessert because I had invited some friends to join us for 'cake number three'.  The look on his face when friends Wayne and Celine showed up at the door and said "we just thought we'ld come over", meanwhile handing him a card was priceless. He still didn't realize they were invited.  The next couple Keith and Helen showed up on their Harley, making all kinds of noise outside but he didn't believe it was a motorbike....he thought he heard a helicopter!!  They came to the door asking if we wanted to join them for a ride on the bikes which he declined because our other friends were here.  By the time Brad and Lois arrived he had it all figured out.  What fun for me!!  They all helped us eat cake number three as we talked our faces off, laughed a whole lot and just celebrated one absolutely amazing person. Happy Birthday Baby!!

....across the room for the tail of the dragon....

Every year we spend a few consecutive weeks riding our motorbikes through a somewhat predetermined, hopefully foreign (to us) area in Canada or the USA.  Every year when we arrive back home we say the same thing "That was our best trip so far", and this year was no exception.

Crossing into the USA through Manitoba we headed east until we reached the Straits of Michilimackinac which divides Lake Michigan from Lake Huron.  We pointed our bikes southward and continued through Michigan, Ohio, and down to Kentucky.  Our best roads had to be through Kentucky and Tennessee and the picture you see here is at the end of a stretch of road known as "Tail Of The Dragon".  If we look a little worn out it's because this eleven mile road sports 318 curves, not to mention the hills and switch backs!  Definitely the most challenging ride I have ever done.  I'm surprised I have any footboards left on my bike for all the blacktop they had to scrape!

Whether riding the Smokey mountains, Kingdom Come Parkway, Cumberland Gap, through Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas,  or crossing the mighty Mississippi, wherever we rode the roads and scenery were unlike anything we had ever seen.  To top it off we were blessed with people like the lady fueling her truck while we were having a snack beside our bikes.  She stretched our her arm to us and hollered "I just prayed God's protection on y'all!"  Music to our ears!

Four weeks of pure bliss with the sun shining down on us almost every single day may be hard to beat next year but I can hardly wait to see what else is out there for us to enjoy!

PS...the other picture was taken in my favourite hotel bathroom, from the throne!!  A lake view is always nice but you just don't ever expect to see it from the bathroom!

...across the room for shattered dreams...

I can't believe I forgot to mention the book "Shattered Dreams" by Irene Spencer!  It was one of my favourite books this summer.  Another page turner.  I could hardly put it down long enough to ride to my next destination.  She is a polygamist's wife and tells her life story.  It really is a must read if you would like to find out what that is all about.  I can't wait for her next book.

I do not consider myself a religious person but I am very passionate about my faith in God and was reminded through this book that there are many people who feel very strongly about their religious convictions and will do almost anything to defend them...even things that they don't feel that good about doing.  When something is taught to children, re-enforced throughout their lives, it is difficult be freed of those teachings to make personal choices.  This is a good thing when you are taught Truth.  "Raise up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" the Bible tells us. This book illustrates very well what happens to a person who is taught religion rather than Truth.

...across the room for some summer reading...

....ahhhh....those lazy days of summer beg to be spent with book in hand and so it was for me this summer again.  This is my collection of reading material these past two months.  I devoured "The Shack" by William P. Young in no time at all and loved it.  It's not that I agree with everything (do we ever, in any book?) but I did absolutely love his way of looking at the Trinity. Young wrote the book most of all to explain his long and painful journey of suffering and consequent healing to his six children.  I think he did it very well indeed.  The story is about a person who, like most of us at one time or another, asked the question "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?"  If you can keep yourself from getting hung up on some of the controversial theology you can't help but love this book.   Next book I breezed through was "An Irish Country Doctor" by Patrick Taylor.  A most enjoyable read of the life and times of a recent graduate in a small town in Ireland.  Love his writing style.  "The Memories We Keep" by Walter Zacharius is a page turner about a young woman in Poland struggling to survive World War II.  I surprised myself at my response to the ending of this book.  Mia, the main character, re-connects with the man she always loved and could not forget.  She never married but he did and he also had a child.  In the end they get together for a three day passion filled weekend (it's gets pretty graphic!) and you find yourself being happy for them.  Then you remember that this man has a wife! ... and a daughter! ... at home and what business does he have behaving like he does not?  And what about Mia?  How would she feel if the shoe was on the other foot?  Such a great book spoiled by the ending!  Sorry but I just like people to be strong and do the right thing!  Next I read "Walking With God" by John Eldridge.  Some of it was a little tiresome but a good read none the less.  My favourite quote from this book was:  "The only safe place for my heart is in God.  Understanding or not, that is where I have to land".   Learning to hear from God and learning to talk to Him is what he focuses on in this book.  It's a kind of  'year in the life of John Eldridge book'.  I really related to a section titled "Make It Happen" because that is who I am and I'm always needing to step back and see what it is God is really asking me to do and more importantly, in what kind of time frame!  Mostly He seems to direct moment by moment and not "this I want you to take care of next Wednesday at 2:15 PM!!)  I'm glad I read this book.  Then I made my way through a book called "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan, subtitled "Overwhelmed by a relentless God".  There is no room for complacency in the life of a Christian.  He says that everything changes when you are wildly in love with someone and therefore if we love God "wildly" we will be living a very radical life with Him as our focus and final authority.  It's inspiring, thought provoking and yeah, even a little uncomfortable!!  Good timing for me to read this.  Finally, but not lastly, I read my Bible.  Not from cover to cover.  In fact, I concentrated on the Psalms.  Psalm 17 caught my attention this summer.  I noticed how confidently David prayed and why he could pray that way.  We often hear comments like "Yes, I prayed but..."  David says to God "I am praying to you because I KNOW you will answer, O God!"  How can he be so sure?  God has tested his thoughts and examined his heart in the night.  Wonder why he says 'in the night'?  Could it be because we think we can hide from God in the darkness?  That in the night He won't see those little secrets, those little sins we try to hide?  Things no one else could know about us?   David says that God has scrutinized him and found NOTHING wrong.  He knew that his relationship with God was clean.  He had kept his heart pure and he had not wavered from following God. His prayer came from HONEST lips.  This Psalm changed my praying this summer.  I enjoyed every book I read but none of them can hold a candle to God's Book, the Bible.  I LOVE to read it!

What did YOU read this summer?  

....across the room to re-connect again.....

I'M BACK!  I hardly know how to 're-enter' this blog after a five week hiatus.  So perhaps I should do a little mini series?

For today, just know my vacation has come to an end and I'm ready to connect with my friends and family.  I came home to a basil plant that looked like it had been feasting on a hormone diet and the ivy in the urn and surrounding foliage was unrecognizable as mine as well.  Our gardener once told friends of mine that not only did I not have a green thumb, mine are black!!  I'm so glad there are good people out there who can keep my plants alive while I tear around the country on my Harley without a care in the world!!

Next time I'll share with you my summer reading adventures so STAY TUNED!!