More than a song...

Can you really get something for nothing? Can you have a great friendship without investing in it? Can you have a reliable vehicle without making sure it has what it needs? Can you have a beautiful garden without tending it? If we're honest with ourselves, the answer is no.

At church on Sunday, we started a series on sacrifice based on our word for the year, which is found in 2 Samuel 24: "I will not sacrifice to God offerings that cost me nothing." It got me thinking, "What do I bring as an offering & am I really sacrificing anything to do it?" My very next thought was, "I'm a worship leader so OF COURSE I'm bringing an offering... yeah, I'm good." Followed by the thought, "Who are you kidding?"

In the most honest of moments, I can say with utmost certainty that my worship is not always a sacrifice. For me, music is something that comes easy to me and there are worship songs that I can play in my sleep. It doesn't really cost me anything to sit behind a keyboard on a Sunday morning and sing. It's not that it isn't sincere, because it is... it's just not a sacrifice. Sacrifice requires something more than what's comfortable, something more than what comes easy. And worship is more than music, more than just Sunday morning.

As I embark on this season of Lent, which in itself is a season of sacrifice, it will be one of self-discovery. One in which I begin to figure out what part of myself will be laid upon the altar... where, just maybe, instead of bringing everyone else's song, I bring my own.

Top 5 Things I'm Thankful For

In honor of Thanksgiving tomorrow, I would like to stop and momentarily reflect on the top 5 things that I am thankful for.

Number 5: Southern California weather
Only in southern California can you walk around comfortably in shorts and a t-shirt in late November because it happens to be 75 degrees and sunny outside. Who wouldn't love that? Only crazy people who love the cold. I am thankful for the sun.

Number 4: My church family!
Since I started at NewHeart as an intern a little over a year ago, I have been embraced and welcomed into this church family. Not to discount the other churches I've been in over the past few years, but at NewHeart, I truly feel at home. A lot of the people have become an extension of my own family... and I have become part of theirs as they have welcomed me into their homes and their lives as well. Sometimes, it can be a daunting task to fit into a church body without a built-in family structure to accompany you, but it has been an awesome experience to integrate into this awesome family!

Number 3: My amazing friends!
I have never been more thankful for my friends than I have been over this past year. There have been so many people that have stood by me, talked me through situations and big decisions, people that I have been able to celebrate with and mourn with, people that I've traveled with and have made music with... it's been an amazing year thus far and I am so blessed to have so many awesome people in my life. YOU are AMAZING! Thanks for being great!

Number 2: Mi familia!
Family has always been something that has been front and center in my life, but I never really realized how much I took my family for granted until this year when both of my grandparents passed away. Something that had always come so easy became much more difficult. But I am thankful that we have walked through a very rough year together and slowly starting to see the other side. I am also thankful for the traditions and the legacies that my grandparents left, I've found that it is because of them that our family is truly great... let's hope we can hold onto that in the years to come!

And finally, [drumroll please!]

The number 1 thing that I am the most grateful for: MY LIFE!
It is probably not the life that I would have dreamed up for myself, but I'm enjoying every second of it! My life may not be perfect or what I ever expected, but I would not trade any of it for the whole world! I am so thankful for the opportunities that I've had in the past year and for the potential for the future. I'm thankful that I have been blessed with good health, a great family, fantastic friends, awesome colleagues, a host of other things I can't even begin to think of.

So as I approach this holiday of being grateful and giving thanks, I stop and I thank God and my family and friends for making every day worth living, and even if I don't always realize it or don't always express it, I am truly thankful. Blessings!


Top 20 other things from 2009 that I am thankful for that didn't make it on the list (not really in any order):
22. Shurie, Charles, Jake & Blaze - for being my adopted family
21. Paul Kuzma - for being the coolest pastor/ boss ever!
20. Glee - for being a fantastically written show that includes great music!
19. Lisa Kinney's brownies - because they're awesome!
18. the years I worked at Universal - even though they're over, they were enjoyable (for the most part) and I met lots of cool people (for the most part)
17. My youth group kids - when they're not running around and screaming, they're pretty cool!
16. Skype - so I can talk to my former roomie Jess when she's in Germany... then I don't miss her as much...
15. All the weddings I've attended - it's nice to celebrate other people's happy moments :)
14. Kids camp worship team - because they're some of the best young musicians I've had the opportunity to work with.
13. my bedroom - it's not that I didn't love having roommates in college, but it's nice to have space.
12. my cell phone - it keeps me connected to the rest of the world...
11. APU - for letting me graduate
10. Disneyland - because it's the happiest place on earth :)
9. David DuBransky - for being awesome... and our random trips (mostly to Disneyland)
8. my trip to Hawaii - which is directly related to #11 since I wouldn't have gone if I hadn't graduated!
7. Facebook - for giving me something to do when I'm waiting for the church website to finish updating or I'm waiting for people to show up to a rehearsal
6. NewHeart worship team members - for being willing to share your talents with others!
5. Katie Miller - for showing me the ropes at NewHeart and hosting our Glee parties! And being all-around fantastic!
4. Shane Roberts - for (almost) always answering your phone when I call, knowing that I'm (more-than-likely) going to ask a favor of you
3. Chipotle - for three reasons: 1. because it's great food, 2. because it has now become a default place when I go out to eat with friends and 3. because just the thought of Chipotle got Sherwin and I through many long shifts at the Mummy as well as mediocre lunches at Dine-O
2. Lisa Kinney - for being the coolest person I know... who bakes brownies, roadtrips with me, goes to see musicals (multiple times), gets me hooked on awesome shows and watches stupid movies with methat we get made fun of for (but we love regardless)!
1. all things chocolate - because chocolate makes the world better

Expectations

Do you know what I like best about my friends? I like that they are completely and uniquely them. They're totally honest and genuine about who they are and don't feel the need to apologize for it. But if the average person were to look at my friends, there are probably some people who they wouldn't expect to be in that lineup because of how they see me. And what they expect of me.

My friends come in a wide assortment of ages, races, sexual orientations, genders, educational backgrounds and socio-economic statuses. I have friends that are college graduates and some that are college dropouts; some that are Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, Asian, or some awesomely crazy blended mix of everything; some that love sports, others that prefer musical theater, and even more who would rather read a book above all else. I have some friends that go to church, some that are more "spiritual" than "religious", and some that are just trying to figure out what the heck is going on in the world. The list can go on and on, but in the end, they're my friends.

I can think of people that I have encountered over the past few years that have "cookie-cutter" friends and realized how that could have (and for many reasons, should have) been me and how thankful I am to have met and befriended many of the people that I have. Let me start by defining what I mean by "cookie-cutter" friends. When I use that term, I am referring to those people who may look different than you (i.e. race, gender, physical features), but for all intensive purposes dress, think, act, and speak the same way you do and rarely challenge you to step out of your preconceived notions about the world and to look at things differently.

My friends are the complete opposite. They challenge me to look beyond my slightly above-middle class, raised in the valley, conservative, pastor's kid who graduated for a Christian university and is going into ministry-life and see the world through their eyes. Do you, dear reader, have those people in your life?

All that to say, I had a conversation with someone yesterday that caused to figure out why my friends are so vast and varied. Because I choose to defy people's expectations... I refuse to live in a cookie-cutter world where everyone thinks and acts the same! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not an anarchist, but I do think that the world is so much more interesting if we're allowed to embrace our flaws and love people for who they are, not for what they can do for us. In theory, all of my friends should be overprotected pastor's kids with entitlement issues who are constantly trying to define who they are outside of their parent's shadow. Harsh? Maybe. But that is, in theory, the category that I should fall into. Do I? Not anymore.

Prior to my sophomore year in college, most of the people that I consider friends now, I would have ignored because they didn't fit into my idea of what I wanted my friends to be. I could have easily fit into my cookie-cutter life and missed out on all the awesome people that I've met and all of the fun experiences that I've lived through.

We generally have expectations of who people should be based on our first impressions - a look, a conversation, an assumption. I can say from experience, that isn't always a good thing. Get to know the person before you decide whether or not they're worthy of your time... they could surprise you. Or disappoint you. Either way, don't live subjected to what you think you are defined as. Be your own person! Make your own friends! Experience life for the beautiful cornucopia of differences that it is! (That was a little bit cheesy, sorry. =])

No Day but Today

Live Like You Were Dying. Rent. A death. A wedding. What do each of these things have to do with each other? Everything.

Yesterday I went to see the musical Rent in Orange County. It was the first time I had ever seen the show from beginning to end and I was blown away by the acting, the music, and the story. It was amazing.

Rewind to earlier yesterday as I sat in first service listening to Pastor Paul continue the series "Live Like You Were Dying" at NewHeart. He highlighted the aspect of loving people deeper by doing things that are unexpected and unaffordable and the importance of doing it NOW -- knowing that tomorrow is not guaranteed.

Rewind ever further back to Saturday afternoon as I sat and witnessed a friend get married. They each declared and promised their love to one another in a beautiful ceremony. They promised to keep Christ at the center of their marriage as the move together toward the dreams that God has placed in them individually and as a couple. The pastor then challenged us who were there to believe God for the dreams he had placed in us and to not let them fade away because they don't seem to be coming true.

And finally, fast forward to today. I had dinner with my friend, her sister, her dad and her fiance. This was the first time I had seen my friend since her mother passed away last week. There was so much joy and peace in their house and it blessed me to hear them speak of her mom and all that she had been through in the last couple of months with such hope and grace.

Once I got home this evening, I decided to watch the movie version of Rent because I had been so blown away by the show. Once again, I was enraptured by the story, but something happened as I watched it this time. All the pieces of the past week and, even more, the entire year started to fall together. By the time I got to the end of the movie, I was in tears as the cast sang "No Day But Today." I think that this is what I supposed to be learning all along.

If I were to write out the story of my life for this year, I could safely say that many of the themes would mirror C.S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed." For me, 2009 has lent itself to a perpetual state of grief - not that there haven't been good times, because there have been, however things were rapidly changing and people and places that had been constant were quickly disappearing.

I have spent my life trying to predict the future, to se what is coming next, avoiding risks until I could weigh all the pros and cons. I put most of my time and energy into creating to do lists and schedules and calendars. I've missed out on the deep relationships. I've missed out on the spontaneous moments. I've missed out on a lot of todays because I was always worrying about the tomorrows.

Tomorrow may never come. It's a scary thought but unfortunately it's true. How many days in this year alone have I had a conversation or gotten a phone call or text message or e-mail telling me about someone who didn't get a tomorrow? A lot more than I could've imagined. But that's life. No matter how you live it or what you make of it, this life will end. Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone. There is no day but today.


There is no future /There is no past/ Thank God this moment's not the last

There's only us/ There's only this/ Forget regret or life is yours to miss
No other road/ No other way/ No day but today...

There's only now/ There's only here/ Give into love or live in fear
No other path / No other way/ No day but today

Live Like You Were Dying

What would you do if you found out that you have only 30 days to live?

Deep question, I know. That question was posed to our congregation at church by our pastor as we started a new series, "Live Like You Were Dying." I don't know if it struck everyone else as hard as it hit me, but after all the deaths that I've been confronted with this year, it made me think.

I remember once, about six or seven years ago, my dad preached a sermon about how God took ordinary people's lives and made them extraordinary (thus the title of this blog). He used biblical heroes like Queen Esther, King David, and the apostle Peter as examples, and I remember, at sixteen, how I desperately wished to do something extraordinary. Something that, when I die, I will be remembered for. To date, I have done nothing truly extraordinary. Sure, I've done things that have given me a sense of accomplishment, but nothing that I could look back on and say, "Yes, that was truly extraordinary."

Which brings me back to last Sunday.

"If your past is covered by God's grace and your future his covered by God's care, where else can you live but the present?" Yeah, that one was for me. I live for calendars and schedules and for the future and so many times miss out what is going on RIGHT NOW, in the present. I operate in the "someday," knowing that it's a cop-out for not dealing with what is. The reality is that someday may never come and tomorrow is not promised.

So how does the ordinary become extraordinary? I'm not sure that I can answer that quite yet, but I can say this... The ordinary stays ordinary by staying where it is comfortable.