The Story

I will post pictures from yesterday's advent activity tonight when I get home along with today's activity :) I am only 5 days in and already behind! Par for the course for me though...I do have a good excuse--I didn't get home until after 10:30 last night!

Last year, in the midst of our Advent activities I received a phone call from World Vision. I talked about how we sponsor a child last year on my blog. Anyway, they called me to see if I wanted to volunteer that night at The Story concert. I was super excited and told them I would have to get back to them. I really wanted to go, but I had to be there early--I can't remember the time exactly. Needless to say, it didn't work out with finding childcare and whatever it was we were doing for activities. I was really disappointed, but figured I could try again the next year. The reason I really wanted to see it was because many of my favorite Christian recording artists were doing it, and it reminded me of when my dad used to take our family to see Handel's Young Messiah tour with all the popular Christian artists at the time. It was a yearly tradition that we loooooved!

Fast forward to this year. My dad asked my sister and I if we wanted to go see The Story when it was in town. The tickets were pretty expensive as was parking and we were in the midst of doing our kitchen, so I just couldn't justify the expense. We also would've needed to figure out childcare because it was on a Tuesday night which is the night that my mother in law works late. So, I told him no. Then I checked to see if they needed volunteers because I thought I could maybe swing it with some notice this year. But alas, they were full.

Monday night I was in a bit of a funk. I had my less than stellar craft and it didn't receive the rave reviews I had hoped from the children. I started to doubt my whole calendar of events. Last year the kids didn't know what to expect, so they were even excited about the bakery cookies we got. Everything excited them. This year they had EXPECTATIONS. And I feared I couldn't live up to them, that the things last year that they got excited about were going to be lame. And worse, I feared they weren't getting the important point of Christmas and what I was trying to do. Granted they are 7, 5, and 3 so we clearly have a different perspective on the world. Anyway, I was feeling down and a miserable failure. So, I prayed. I prayed that God would encourage me and energize me to get through this. Simply that. When I got up to go to bed, my cell phone was beeping in my purse (does it make me old that I don't just say phone, but say "cell phone"? I often forget it in there and miss calls and messages. Anyway, I had a message from my friend Leslie telling me she had two free tickets for the Story and would I like to go with her the next night?!!! I looked at Bill with hope in my eyes. He didn't hesitate and told me he would take care of Tuesday's advent activity which I told him I would have all set up for him. So, I got to have my very own Advent Activity! And it was wonderful!! Thank you, Leslie, so much for asking me--you probably didn't know that you were God's tool in answering my prayer. It's amazing to step back and see God work.

I loved every minute of the show. The artists were so talented and I love to listen to people who can REALLY sing! Do you know what I mean? How some radio artists, when you hear them live are, well, not so good? Not these people. They gave me goosebumps and made me envious of their talent. It was a wonderful night, that refreshed my spirit and renewed my determination to teach my children to keep their focus on Him. I love it when God does stuff like this. I feel like I am really learning, as an adult, that when we ask Him for things, like encouragement, He will give it to you, just like He says He will. Our God is faithful!