I Pray Bingo Over Ye Cards!

Everything is hunky-dory: People lift their hands and sing with hearts full; the worship band is really bringing the house down; the sanctuary is simply skinny-dipping in the glory and the majesty of God. And then the scary part comes.

Worship is brought to a close and the pastor stands to pray over the children going off to their Sunday school classes to make art of Jesus in elbow macaroni and Elmers. However as everyone bends their heads to pray, you know that its not Lil' Jimmy they are thinking about but what awkward version of Pastoral Simon Says you are going to play today. Here are a few examples:

"Turn to your neighbor and hug them this morning!"

"Now go and meet someone new this morning!"

"Hold hands with the person next to you while we close in prayer."

"Tell your neighbor you love them!"

Its all good for the pastor up at the pulpit, smiling beatifically as he watches everyone shuffle and mumble apologies. Thats all fine and dandy for him, he got the lifetime pass from Pastoral Simon Says when he graduated seminary. The Catholics have it all worked out, too. Sometime in history a catholic got the bright idea of confession boxes. You literally get into a box and communicate through a wooden lattice. Brilliance.

Its not that i'm scared of people or anything. There was that phase I went through where i planned to become a hermit in Hawaii, riding wild dolphins and living on stockpiles of Reese's in my posh hermit cave. However even the most sociable person doesn't want to hold hands with a total stranger and then embrace them though. Actually...now that I think of it I know a lot of people who would do that. But they would do it expecting never having to see the stranger again. When you go to church with them you smile at them every week in passing and remember them as that one person with the sharp rings or sweaty thumbs.


While perhaps its my job to rise to the occasion and be more sociable when declaring love to my pew neighbors I have a new game suggestion for churches: Icebreakers. Why not give the congregation a hand next Sunday and give a specific question? Or better yet, play charades. Monopoly. ANYTHING.If the pastor asks the congregation to go any farther than shaking hands one Sunday I might just resort to a game of "Which Communion Cup if the Bread Under?" in the aisle.

Holy Hand Sanitizer,
-Hannah

"The Hiding Place", aka, "The Book You Must Read NOW"

I just finished reading (and theres no denying it, sniffling) Corrie ten Boom's book "The Hiding Place". I literally began to read and didn't stop until I had turned the final page of revelations. Well, that's a lie. I did get some hot chocolate. But still.

Corrie ten Boom

If you haven't read this book, You. Need. To. Right now. After you finish reading this blog. It is simply amazing and definitely now on my list of top 5 books ever. I'm usually a person who avoids war, horror, and depression in book genres and movies but this is the exception.Yes, unspeakable things transpired in this book and it paints the bloody picture of what it was like to live in the times where Hitler is on your radio and concentration camps are an everyday horror. It also is one of the most inspiring and hope-filled books I have ever read. To live at the lowest condition of humanity and to praise God...not many people could do that.

The secret room

For me I have to say that my perspective on life has shifted from page 1 to the back cover. It really begins to put what is "unfair" in perspective. The trifling, everyday nuisances don't seem like that big of a deal. The Bible looks different, too. The Bible seems like a cheaply produced book you can find anywhere. Bookstore, libraries, even seedy motel rooms. To Corrie and the other women at her prison and concentration camp, it was priceless. To think that the same words that I might skim before I go back to reading my action adventure novel or go to bed with little thought or insight are the same words that a group of people, barely human, risked their lives to smuggle and spread? I think I'm going to put a little more thought into what I read tonight.

Jesus is Victor,

-Hannah

"Hold My Crown - I MUST BOOGEY!"

I've been reading about King David in the Bible recently, and i'm constantly amazed. (I know you just read "Bible" and your interest just evaporated, but hear me out).When you say David, everyone thinks of this little kid with a sling-shot facing off a cartoon giant. The real David of the Bible was so much more, though. If you took James Bond, Indiana Jones, and the Prince of Persia and made them into one guy born into a Bible time family then saturated him in God's favor, you'd have King David. He was strong and skilled, slaying bears and lions and real-life giants when he was just a teenager. He was specially chosen by God to rise from a Shepard (a bit like being a fast-food employee or farm hand today) and was promised the throne of Israel, a powerful and influential kingdom of the Middle East. He was a dangerous warrior is battle, an anointed musician, and a man who would die in an instant to save his friend. Not to mention that the Bible takes the time to mention how attractive and desirable (aka, pulchritudinous out the back door) David was. Bond had nothing on King David's love life, either. David seemed to collect wives and concubines that he seduced, not to mention that he had one of the Bible's most scandalous affairs (not his best moment, for sure) that involved an indiscreet bath and murder. On top of all these achievements, however, David was a dancer.

Correction, David wasn't a dancer. He danced. He could have looked like a a spinning fool on crazy flakes when he danced, but he was so filled with the joy of the Lord that he couldn't contain it all. So he danced before God and all the people of Israel in celebration. One of his wives was watching from a window and later said to him:
"How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!"


(Aka: "How kingly you looked dancing today, David. Can't you keep a shirt on while you are gettin' jiggy? You're acting like a civillian, not royalty! You looked like a fool dancing all around.")


He shot right back at her: 
"It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel--I will celebrate before the LORD.Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes! But those servant girls you mentioned will indeed think I am distinguished!"


(Aka: "Yo, wife! There was no shame because my dancing was for God. Anyway, God chose me, NOT your father the last king, to rule over Israel. I will celebrate and thank God for what he has done for me. I would embarrass myself so much even I thought I looked ridiculous if it was for God. Oh, and those servant girls in the crowd watching me? They will only think I am being kingly! True story."

(By the way, his wife ended up being cursed never to have children to the day of her death. Better think twice before despising God's people.)




"So great," you're thinking. "He was filled with great joy and danced with no shame before the Lord. Great guy, good for him, time to go check Facebook." But there is more. Anyone can worship God with a thankful heart when life is going well, blessing and favor being showered, a new iphone 4 in their pocket. But what about when your To Do list is longer than your day? What about when you are depressed, an emotional wreck? When you don't have the new car you want and you just wrecked the junker you do have?

David faced one of the hardest times of his life shortly after his adulterous affair with Bathsheba, a military friend's wife. 9 months, to be exact. His newest wife was pregnant. However, in punishment for King David's sin, God told him that his son would die. David's confidant and cocky additude suddenly deflated. In utter misery and grovelling desperation, he tore his kingly robes and refused to eat, pleading with the Lord for his son's life. This is what happened:


"And they said, “He (David's son) is dead.” 

To someone who isn't a christian, stumbling on this story without looking at the rest of the Bible, they must think that God is a heartless, cosmic dictator. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God had to punish David, like a parent taking away a toy that their child had stolen, but it was perhaps harder for God than it was David. No father enjoys seeing their kid in pain, but sometimes the right thing to do isn't the easy thing to do. How easy would it have been for God to just allow David to live happily ever after, no side-affects after committing adultery and murder. But it wouldn't have been right, it wouldn't be the best thing for David. It can be so hard to understand from our point of view, but God was only doing what was best for David, like any good parent would. 

Never think that God didn't care about David, though. God did. The price of sin is death, and since no one is perfect we all are sentenced to death, no matter how many good things we do. God loved David, you, and me so much that he gave his own perfect son to die so that we could live. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice.


Right, back to King David.


"And they said, “He (David's son) is dead.” So David arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the house of the LORD and worshiped."

Wow. When I first read this I did a double-take. If you've ever lost a child, a sibling, or a family member you know what it feels like. Shock, disbelief, confusion; the feeling like someone has unceremoniously ripped your heart out of your chest and all that remains is a hollow place where all the memories and love of that person are supposed to be but never will. "How it feels when the sacred is torn from life, and you survive." The death of a loved one, especially a child, is an event that can destroy a family. It took months, more, for my family to return to a semblance of normal life after my baby brother died (another story for another time). So how, HOW, can David worship and dance before the Lord when his newborn son just died? Not to mention when David knows that it is all his fault?


Because David knew why God had taken his son, he knew God did it because he loved David more than the King could understand. He still knew, beyond the pain he felt, that God had saved his life and had made a way that despite David's sin he would see his son again one day. He knew that God is indescribable and worthy to be praised.


So he danced. I doubt that the same joy filled him, i'm sure he felt like a piece of dirt that had gone into the wash and became a shred of beaten lint. Not to mention he hadn't ate, washed, or slept for who knows how long. And yet he worshiped. David had enough wisdom to know that worship isn't just praising God when everything is thanksgiving and blessing, its about learning to dance in the rain.

So that is also why I dance. I'm no prima ballerina and i'll never be able to do a perfect grand je'te, but I will always strive to dance like King David. Unashamed, in love, with a heart of worship. Plus, have you heard me sing?

(Here is an incredibly subtle hint...)

There is always a story,
_Hannah


(P.S. Started writing this as my 20 minute blog post about why I dance, idea from Brianna's lovely blog. Here I am, two hours and some pretty heavy writing later...)

Training and Thunder

Psalm 81:6,7

(God)

I removed his shoulder from the burden;

His hands were freed from the baskets.

You called in trouble, and I delivered you;

I answered you in the secret place of thunder.

AND

Psalm 144

Praise be to the LORD my Rock,

who trains my hands for war,

my fingers for battle.

He is my loving God and my fortress,

my stronghold and my deliverer,

my shield, in whom I take refuge,

who subdues peoples under me.

Love, Hope, and Joy,

~Hannah Hoo