The choir director from my home church called a few weeks back and asked me to sing "Orphans of God" during our annual Christmas program; which conveniently takes place tonight. I got home just in time for the dress rehearsal. On the way home, I popped the choir CD into my car stereo, and practiced my song a few times. I got bored with it after a while, so I decided to listen to some of the other songs on the CD. I let each song play about 10 seconds before I hit the "next" button, until I landed one called, "This is Our God".

I started weeping in my car.

Now before you laugh at how much of a cry-baby I am, let me explain myself! Being an ex-English major, I pay attention to lyrics. Poetry is one of my most favorite forms of expression, and music is poetry as far as I'm concerned. Let me hit you with a kitty wig (confused? its just my slang for "check out this ball of AMAZING!")
________________________________________



Verse 1:
Who is this child asleep in the manger?

Tender and mild, this intimate Stranger?

Recklessly, wildly loving a dangerous world.

Who is this light invading our darkness?

Glorious might, the sun rising for us.

Conquering night, He captures the hardest of hearts. We sing:

Chorus 1:
This is our God, living and breathing.

Call Him courageous, relentless, and brave.

This is our God, loving and reaching,

Scandalous mercy and mighty to save.

Hallelujah! This is our God!
Hallelujah! This is our God!
Hallelujah! This is our God! Sing praise.

Verse 2:
Who is this One who will not condemn us?

Why would He come to shoulder our sentence?

Nothing we've done will keep Him from giving us grace.

Who is this One we watch and we're speechless?

God's only Son embracing our weakness.

He overcomes all death and He frees us to live. And we sing:
Chorus 2:
This is our God, suffering and dying.

Call Him the Hero redeeming the lost.

This is our God, love sacrificing,All that is holy, accepting our cross.

Hallelujah! This is our God!

Hallelujah! This is our God!

Hallelujah! This is our God! Sing praise.
________________________________________
I took the liberty of bolding and greening (is that even a word?) my favorite lines. I think I love these lyrics so much because they're not the common phrases used in contemporary Christian music. Adjectives such as: reckless, courageous, relentless, brave, scandalous, mighty, and heroic; are not words I would normally group together. Yet, they describe His love for us so wonderfully!

I mean, take the definition of reckless:
________________________________________
"reck⋅less"
–adjective
1. Utterly unconcerned about the consequences of some action; without caution; careless (usually fol. by of): to be reckless of danger.

2. Characterized by or proceeding from such carelessness: "reckless extravagance."
________________________________________

Isn't that just like God?! He doesn't withhold any of His deepest affections for us. His love, in so many ways, is entirely extravagant. How He could love every one of us with so much passion, so much reckless extravagance, I'll never understand. But He does, and its beautiful.

The King of Kings, Lord of Lords, courageous Lion of Judah...loves me.

I hope I never take it for granted; though I'm sure I often have. Doesn't matter to Him, He still pursues my heart.
He pursues us all.



Sorry if this post is long, I get super excited about God's love. May His peace envelope you this Christmas season, wherever you are in your journey.

I know you can't see me, but I'm sending "blogger-love" in your direction!


-Lil E



Today at lunch I did a very child-like thing.


In order to get the full effect of "child-like", you'll need the complete situation.

Gang 408 (Room 408 plus a few extraordinary individuals) decided to eat at our college's swank-fest, known as the Faculty Club.



It's not a black tie affair, just a finer dining experience than the student union. I ordered Grilled Tilapia Napoleon, with a Tomato Basil soup starter...it was delish. Everyone seemed to be enjoying their food. Then came the dessert tray. Deutsch and I decided to split a strawberry shortcake. We both like our sweets, a lot, but when it came down to the last morsel of strawberry goodness...the claws came out.


Were we fighting over who got the last bite? I guess you could say that. The loser was the unlucky soul to have the last spoonful.

Deutsch took what he thought would be his last spoonful and nudged the remaining shortcake in my direction, saying "yours". I spooned half of the the morsel, nudged it back to him and said "yours".


Deutsch has these moments where his eyes flash, his grin turns up, and his head cocks to the side like he's about to tell the best "yo mama" joke you've ever heard. It scares the crap out of me. For our purposes we'll call this the "hit 'em with a kitty wig" look. If you're confused, it's best you stay that way.

Anyway, he spooned up half of the half I left on the plate, nudged it back, and said "yours". In astonishment I looked at him and said "are we really gonna play this game?", to which he responded with the "hit 'em with a kitty wig" look. T, Rascal, Ash, Libbs, Baum, and Battle Axe knew my goose was cooked, but the battle lines had been drawn; I had to try.


It got pretty disgusting. We eventually began fishing for crumbs in the strawberry syrup; ending each conquest with a smart elic "YOURS". It seemed this exchange would never end, until T and Rascal devised an evil scheme to end it.

Ok, neither one of them know evil; "clever" is likely a more appropriate adjective.

The crumbs kept getting crunchier with every turn. I thought is was strange, but brushed it off for the sake of the game. Until I noticed a rather large chunk appear in the midst of the syrup, one that had obviously not been there before...Deutsch was hovering over the plate. I immediately thought the disgusting chunk came from him. Let me just tell you, I thought I was going to die. Maybe that's dramatic, but there are few things that put me in that state: snakes, loud/surprising noises, and bodily fluids. I count the "chunk" as the last one. Grossed out yet? You should be, I don't think we could be friends if you liked that sort of thing.

Deutsch looked at me with surprise, he apparently thought the same chunk came from me. Across the table I could see Rascal shaking as if something was pretty darn funny. T informed me of their plot to end the childishness, they were throwing Rascal's pie crust in our syrup. Tricky, tricky little women!




I folded in the end, too much for me to handle. I maintain that I would have won, had I not been interrupted by the gross body flake I thought was floating in my field of destruction. We shall war again Deutsch, we shall war again.

-Lil E