Learning Experience.

Most people who know me well, know I am a cryer. I bawl over songs, movies, cute babies, ugly babies, weddings...you get the picture. In normal everyday life, it can be embarrassing but in a professional life, it can downright be a sign of weakness.

Today I had a breakthrough. Yes, I had a real opportunity for tears and they never came! Had they came, thirteen of my friends would have had to maintain their composure while watching me loose it. I am still patting myself on the back.

Now, for the reason I should have been in tears.....or not. We get up to do the Christmas Cantata this morning in our Christmas program. We are doing the Christmas cantata to a DVD that is showing a movie while we are singing. Half way into the first song, three of our choir members make it clear to me that they can hear the people singing on the DVD. Everything is unplugged that is supposed to be and there are no reasonable explanation for what is happening, but the plain bitter truth is, it's happening. As we go on, I get to thinking, while directing the current song that we have one song that I have changed DRASTICALLY to fit the needs of our choir. I finally realized at the end of a song, that there was nothing else to do but quit, tell the congregation we are having technical difficulties and start over using a different media.

We lived through it and I feel the presentation was better because of it. After I had stopped the DVD and announced to everyone we would have to start over, found the CD, got it in and got back on the podium; that was the second I felt tears start to well up. Then I thought, "Really, this is the small stuff. The people in front of me are my friends, the people behind me are my friends and we are all here to honor God." I also had a flash run through my mind of something major that happened this week at work. A little senior citizens couple now have heat that they didn't have at the beginning of the week because of a joint effort of several of us at work. That was the big stuff, this wasn't. This was for God's glory and me falling apart was not the best way to glorify God.

Tonight, as we are walking through the halls of a nursing home, singing Christmas carols to the residents and them waving to us as we walk by, my son caught the "Christmas Spirit". He came running to me outside of the nursing home and said "Now it feels like Christmas". That's the big stuff. Christmas to my son is showing God's love to others, not thinking about what is under the tree. I got in the car considering what I had just received for Christmas.

Today has been a very eventful day, not exactly as I had planned but had it went as planned I would not be feeling anymore accomplished, or wiser than I was when I got out of bed this morning. Some of God's greatest gifts come in the oddest packages.


Now I'm crying.