Hellooooo out there! I have not abandoned you, my loyal blog readers. No abandonment here. But as Fresh Prince once said..."my life got flipped-turned upside down." Had a chica-niece weekend, followed by my bathrooms being renovated, with a few redesign projects thrown in there. It's been nutty.
Somehow in the midst of the mayhem, I found time for a few most excellent concerts. The first one being my favorite Georgia boy with a huge heap o' flava... THE Trent Cory. He sang for the third anniversary service of a church in Longwood a few weeks back. This man is truly gifted. Not only can he belt out some soul; he belts out the truth.
About halfway through the music, he broke out into a spontaneous message that made my mind explode. It was thought provoking, yet simple. His message boiled down to this: Forget the checklist of good deeds and just fall in love with the one who made ya. That's all we need. Why are we not calling on the supernatural powers that are so available to us? In times of famine, He will feed what fuels us.
After that night, I started thinking about the word famine. Most of us think of food (or the lack of it) when we hear famine. As an average plump American, I can't even wrap my mind around a food famine. I was curious about the other meanings of the word, so I looked it up and learned that the word famine isn't only related to food. It also means overall lack, want, shortage, deficiency. Or my favorite definition --- an acute insufficiency. That one really hit me hard. My typical reflex for fueling acute insufficiencies is to fill them with emotional and spiritual toxins. And I had been struggling with this reflex all week, and that very evening.
Interestingly enough, a very similar message emerged from the Tenth Avenue North show I saw one week later. The lead singer is incredibly dynamic. He talked about how he grew up in the church and a Christian school, and while he was thankful for his upbringing..he was still recovering from the legalism and the 'list of rules'. He said one day he finally realized that God's glory was not in opposition to his satisfaction. He spoke of how we often get so caught up in religion and rules that we don't fully experience the person God is. And that once we truly experience Him, the toxic crap we run to simply no longer satisfies us. Even if we screw up and check it out again (just in case it might cure what ails us)...forgiveness is right where we fell. We are not our mistakes.
Anyhoo, I could go on and on about how both evenings impacted me, but I think you get the drift. I love that I got exactly what I needed when I needed it. God's cool like that.
Here's me and Gaybrielle with our secret crush, Trent Cory. Guess it's not a secret anymore. Isn't he adorable? He's such a funny, down to earth, sweetheart. ; )
