A jumble of thoughts

I have so many things on my mind lately. Yeah, I know your just dying to hear about all my problems in life! ;) So if you made it past that 2nd sentence, I will share with you some of my thought lately.

First the IN HIM 2012 music conference
This was the best year I have ever been to.  To be honest, I didn't expect more than just the joy and fun of being able to sing with other people and to learn music related things. I am not big on solo-ing. I love the beautiful blending of voices in perfect harmony, being able to sing alto while the leads sing their part and as an alto I get to do all kind of different things, but at conference I was able to be a "Soprano" for the first time and used a part of my voice that I don't normally use. okay enough rambling.....the best part of the Music Conference was the spiritual encouragement, I have not been in a service where I felt God so close in a personal way in such a long time. I wouldn't have missed it for anything and it was worth going without sleep  and the drive There and Home every night.
I watched and listened as a "group" got up and sang "Waiting In the Water" by the Isaacs a song that speaks of the promise of healing and walking on in faith even when that healing doesn't happen right away, and I cried. Because I knew that only the week before one of them had been in bed for a week, unable to move without  pain due to an incurable kidney disease and the treatments to help the disease causing as much if not more pain.  Yet they sang "I'll walk on and Just believe, He hears my prayer and when I get there, the miracle promised by my father......is waiting in the water"

I listened to a "family" sing about "Learning to Lean on Jesus" and knowing that in the past year, they have had to do that in ways they had never expected. And once again, I cried. I cried not only cause my heart broke at the trial they faced but, I cried at the humbling thought of how amazing God is, how in the weakest moments of our life, He provides the strength to make it through.

It struck me, as it has before that, as a congregation or  average church goer who has never had to minister to others, or been brought up in a home where ministry was your or your parents life, sometimes we  don't really understand what it costs the person who gets up and sings to you, We don't know the reason they can sing the song with such a brokeness or such a burden is because they have or are still going through the trials they are trying to encourage you through. Or the preacher who preaches the Bible and the why's and the how's of living a Christian life.
They are singing of a God who can heal, while their body is in pain, they are singing of a God that mends the broken heart when their own has been broken in two. They aren't just singing words or beautiful melodies they are singing their faith, they are saying to God, they believe he is working things for their good even when it seems impossible.