49 things

Each Sunday morning, I have the radio on in my bedroom as I get ready for church. I love the 8:00am "Call to Worship" music program put on by somebody somewhere. It has become an excellent way to focus my mind on where it needs to be early on the Lord's day. The music is not exciting, but is extremely "reflective".
(Casey and Abby say boring.)

This morning, right after my Call to Worship music, the next program came on and a preacher announced his 49th lesson in the series.
What?
49th?
There is a series with 49 lessons and (evidently) more?
I immediately felt sorry for the regular listeners.

I laughed out loud and wondered if I know 49 things about any one subject.

My knowledge about God and His things can be summed up like this:

The more I learn,...the less I know.

God loves me.

I love God.

He wants me to love others.

I used to think I knew more. Who knows, maybe in my other life I could have written a series with 49 points.

But surviving the scary shadows of death has, in a way, set me free. After being raised in the church (every time the doors were open!), you'd think I'd have some kind of idea of how big God is. A lifetime of sermons can obviously provide some prep for a Christ-follower to deal with adversity,..but the lessons won't stick until the student is given the test.

The test becomes the real lesson. Or it did for me anyway.

Last night, I was treated to my first Stephen Curtis Chapman concert. (In the rain!) I enjoy several of his songs and actually, one of them even made it to the list of songs I had compiled for my "music to heal by" (or as Ralph said,.."music to sob by") as I traveled to and from work in 2004 and 2005.

I have no idea how Stephen's concerts were before he experienced the home going of his 5 y/o Maria, but I am absolutely positive that his ministry will forever be changed.
He says the things I feel about death, life and God.
New passion from wonderful horrible new insights.
I also heard Stephen make no attempt to explain God's ways.

Psalm 139: 6 and 17-18.

This is too much,..too wonderful--I can't take it all in! Your thoughts (of me)--how rare, how beautiful! God, I'll never comprehend them! I couldn't even begin to count your thoughts of me--any more than I can count the sand of the sea.

(the Message)

I don't need to know 49 things,..I just need to know He loves me in more ways than the sand of the sea.

He loves Jae Lynn that way too.

It's good for this mama's heart to know that she's more in the middle of God's love than I am.