Dreaming. Barfing. Singing.

Sometimes God makes sure that I believe what I sing

This quick blog is along the lines of my "My Ebenezer" post, except that it's more of a joke than a spiritual revelation that I had.

I try to stay true to the words that I worship the Lord with, whether it is in prayer or in the songs that I lead others in proclaiming. It's important to mean what you say! The very first time I led worship vocally was at Davis College, and God used (among other things) the words to the song I was singing to convict me to step out of my comfort zone and trust in His purpose for my gifts. So, right from the start, this has been a theme. Mean what you sing.

Last night I had a dream in which the night never ended; though I was sleeping in reality, I forgot that I had ever found my way to bed and in dreams I continued the exhausting night as circumstance after sleep-preventing circumstance kept me from getting any rest. Finally, around dream-world 6:00am, I overcame all synthetic obstacles and in my dream, I fell asleep. In reality, I woke up at 6:30.

The brief moment of confusion in which dreams and reality overlap did not treat me very well, as for a minute or so I was convinced that I had only been asleep for a half hour.
As I realized incrementally that 80% of my recollection of the previous night was a mirage, I remembered that today is Sunday, and I had to get cracking in order to be ready to lead worship at both services. Exhausted, I wandered into my kitchen.

Being the health-concious person that I am, I drank a large cup of water right away. After that I forced myself to eat some oatmeal, and poured a cup of coffee that I held firmly in front of me as I summoned the energy to drink it.

Drink. The coffee. I stared blankly ahead of me. I have to drink this coffee.
No motion.

My parents walked out the front door and called out "We'll meet you at church!"

Once left alone in my kitchen, I became very conscious of my catatonic state. Sitting rigid at a table is a bad excuse to be late to church.
I stared purposefully into my cup of hot brown energy, and got ready to send it down the hatch.
I need this coffee to get through this day.
The show must go on. I took several gulps and triumphantly placed the empty mug (still warm) in the sink. For good measure, I drank another full cup of water to keep from dehydrating. Then I left my home housing an epic battle between two liquids inside of my gut.

When I pulled into my church's parking lot, I felt that the battle was about to be taken outside. I tweeted, asking my twitter followers for their prayers against my sick-feeling stomach. No sooner had I sheathed my cellular than the need to hurl came upon me like green olives on a pregnant lady's cereal. (What?)

Jake and I were discussing only yesterday what our favorite word for "vomit" is. I like the phrase "tossing cookies". Jake likes "Blowing chunks." What I did was more like "shooting fluid." Whatever you want to call it, I felt like Squirtle.

Autocorrect really wants me to leave SQUIRTLE in all caps. As you wish, Apple.

Anyway, immediately upon supersoaking my tires in the parking lot, I felt worlds better and walked into church ready to strum some Jesus Jams.

During the service, I was playing the song "Hosanna (Praise Is Rising)" when I came to the line "When we see You, we find strength to face the day"

In the middle of singing, I flashed back to the moment that I slugged a hot cup of coffee in order to find strength to face the day. As I reflected on the fact that coffee can't equip you for a day the way that He can, I remembered casting my coffee back into the overworld only an hour earlier.

I'm not implying that God caused me to vomit up my coffee in order to recognize Him as my source of daily strength and mean what I sing, however it was a funny moment to recognize the irony and I almost laughed in the middle of the song and Kim Walker'd that jones.