Last Friday, my best friend, Gulley, and I headed to Austin to go hear Priscilla Shirer at Great Hills Baptist Church. We had been excited about the prospect for months because not only were we excited to hear Priscilla, but for the chance to spend a little girl time together without our kids. It's amazing the conversations you can have when you don't have little people interrupting you every three seconds to tell on each other.
On the way there, we decided to go eat a late dinner at Z. Tejas after the event was over because it has always been one of our favorite restaurants. However, once we got to the hotel around 4:00 p.m., we agreed we were both already hungry and didn't know if we could wait until 9:30 to eat dinner.
I said, "Well, we could go to Z. Tejas right now instead of later?"
And Gulley, not skipping a beat, replied, "Ewww. That's lame."
So, not wanting to appear lame, we grabbed a small snack and then went to Z. Tejas at 9:30 Friday night and ate way too much delicious food.
The next morning Gulley said her stomach hurt from eating all that food so late and she really needed a Zantac.
Yeah. Who's lame now?
In other news from the weekend, I'll tell you who wasn't lame.
Anthony is Priscilla's brother and he and his praise team led worship for the Going Beyond event. It was amazing. Anthony and his team did such a phenomenal job of preparing our hearts for the words Priscilla was going to share.
And as much as I was ready to hear Priscilla speak, I was sad when it was time for worship to be over because I loved listening to Anthony sing as the women in the sanctuary worshiped.
Here's Anthony.
I took that picture after I walked up to him and said, "Hi. I blog for LifeWay. Can I take your picture? I promise I'm not a stalker."
Which you know in his mind translated to "Hi. I'm a stalker who is creative enough to make up something about a blog."
And just so you can hear a little bit of Anthony for yourself, here's a short video that I took during worship. I apologize in advance for the horrendous quality, but my videographer skills are limited at best and unbearably horrible at worst.
If I could've picked a theme song when I was 20, it probably would've been something by Amy Grant. I wore out my cassette of "The Collection" driving back and forth to college, and since I fancied myself a very deep and thinky English major, I loved analyzing her lyrics as I sang.
Nothing like some late teens / early 20s angst to give "Faithless Heart" a whole new level of meaning, you know?
And if I could've picked a theme song when I was 30, it probably would've been something from Nichole Nordeman's "This Mystery" CD (can I get an "amen"?). God was so gracious to do a whole lot of work in my heart between 27 and 30, and those songs are the soundtrack for that time. I still can't listen to "Home" without getting all teary-eyed.
So in the the interest of getting ahead of the game, I have made a decision. Even though I'm not 40 yet, I've already determined what the new theme song is going to be. Christy Nockels sings it, and oh, it is a good 'un.
Raise your hand if you want to stand up and clap when she sings the chorus.
It's a mighty good word for any stage of life, isn't it?
Dr. Phil show to re-air audience favorite, featuring encouragement from Bible study teacher Jennifer Rothschild
Don't miss this TOMORROW: July 2nd on Dr. Phil show!
Most of us find raising children is challenging enough, but imagine that your child could neither see you, nor hear you. Now imagine having three children like that. Liz is the mother of deaf and blind triplets. Her three daughters are now 6 years old, but one of the girls communicates at a 2-year-old level, and the other two at only a 10-month-old level. Liz's world is consumed with their 24-hour care, plus the care of her oldest daughter, who is 10 and often overlooked among the chaos of the triplets.
See this story on Dr. Phil along with our gal, Jennifer Rothschild, who's world was turned from light to dark at the age of 15. She's got a message for George and Liz. Don't miss this heartbreaking and heroic story!
After the Dr. Phil show, we'd love to hear your comments and stories. Let us know what you think and if you've done the new study, are doing it, or now plan to do it . . .
Last year at Living Proof Live in San Antonio, Melanie and I were about to leave for LPL on Saturday morning when Beth Moore and her daughter Amanda walked into the hotel lobby. They were as cheerful and kind as they always are, but I noticed that Amanda was carrying a pretty good-sized box that had definitely seen better days. I think my expression pretty much screamed "What in the sam hill is THAT?," and Amanda smiled and said, "It's Mom's fan."
Since Melanie and I had spent a substantial portion of the previous night wide awake because we'd both forgotten to pack our sound machines (ALL THE QUIET WAS ABSOLUTELY DEAFENING), I found some comfort in the fact that Beth likes to have a fan running when she sleeps. And while I thought that it must get a little inconvenient for her to haul that fan on a plane, I figured that given how much she travels, she must have her packing down to a science. And I didn't think anything else about it.
Until I went to Pittsburgh. And discovered the red box.
Because LOOK WHAT I FOUND INSIDE!
Beth's fan!
According to the event team, when they first started doing LPL events, Beth would arrive with a GINORMOUS suitcase even though she was only going to be in a city for around 24 hours. The event team wondered what in the world she was packing - how many wardrobe options could one girl need? - but then they realized her suitcase was so huge because SHE WAS PACKING A TWENTY-INCH BOX FAN IN HER SUITCASE.
So the event team decided that, in light of the fact that a fan that size pretty much wipes out any possibility of only packing a carry-on bag, it might be easier if they assumed the fan-transport responsibilities.
Beth has told the event girls that she really doesn't have to have the big honkin' fan, that something small and compact would work just as well. But I think that for the LifeWay crew, the big fan is a bit of a tradition. It travels in the red box to every single event, and it stays wherever Beth stays, and then it's returned to its red box home on Saturday mornings.
So there you have it. All of the red box-related information you never knew you wanted. Except for one thing that I just thought of right this second, and OH MY WORD I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner.
Do y'all think that fan is somehow part of Beth's secret for achieving maximum hair volume?
Melanie
Melanie
Sophie
Sophie
Pam
Pam
Paige
Paige
Kris
Kris