A Moment

I heard a song today in the car that brought back some memories, made me think, I had "a moment"! Last August, I went up to Hartford with my mom and sister-in-law for the Women of Faith conference and we really had a blast! We started our weekend at the Yankee Candle flagship store, had a great lunch then checked into our hotel. The room we ended up with was more like an apartment!! There was a kitchen, living room, dining room, plenty of space in between and two bedrooms with their own bathrooms!! We felt like we'd definitely hit the jackpot!

To top it off, we were one block from the convention center, so we had a short walk over to the conference. Because of this, and the quick dinner we had grabbed, we arrived early. Not knowing what to do, we decided to head down to the floor level where WOF had set up their store. When we got to the end of the escalator, a man in a bright yellow T-shirt came up to me and said, "Do you know who Avalon is??" I said, "Yes, I believe I have one of their albums." He then said, "Would you like to meet them?" My first thought was, "And I didn't bring my camera - not even my camera phone!!"

After a bit of manuevering to get my mom and sister-in-law in as well, we ended up waiting in this little room with some "winners" who had called in to an online radio station (?) for a chance to meet Avalon. I had not called in, but they had extra CD's (free!), and I was early so I "won"! After waiting quite some time, the two men from Avalon showed up, looking a little haggered. One of the women was on maternity leave, the other was almost 8 month pregnant. What she was doing flying up from Nashville to sing is beyond me - I mean, that's dedication!! To make matters worse, they described what their day had been like. At the airport at 4:30 am, only to find out their flight had been cancelled. They had to rebook everything, finally arrived in Hartford at 4:30... then soundchecks, showers, changing.... need I say more??

During the concert that night, they made NOT ONE mention of the hoops they had to jump through to get to that show. I was a little surprised, I mean, if it had been me, I'd be playing the "you all are so lucky we love you so much to have gotten our butts here today!" routine! Nope, not one word. And they sounded amazing, especially considering they were one member short, filled in with one of the WoF worship singers (Jennifer Thigpen). One of the songs they sung was Everything to Me. I loved it when I heard it live, but today, in the car, this whole story came rushing back to me. And the song made more sense to me. And so does Avalon.

Everything to me
He's more than a story
more than words on a page of history
He's the air that I breath
The water I thirst for
And the ground beneath my feet
He's everything,
everything  to me

There are a lot more words to the song, but these are the ones that keep flashing through my mind today. "He's more than a story - more than words on a page of history". And it's more than the actual tune, which I also love. Is Jesus everything to me?

Would I travel, almost 8 months pregnant, all day. leaving my little girl back home, to tell a group of women that Jesus is everything to me?

There are a lot of things in my life that are crowding my "everything" right now. Most of them I won't get into, but many of them are just temporal, stress-filled busyness and the truth is that I don't want them to be my everything. I don't want to be about all the stuff in my life. I want my everything to be Jesus, for Him to be what I'm all about. That's kind of hard for me, but it's really what I want.

And looking back over my
life at the end
I'll go to meet you saying you've
been...

I am completely aware, although extremely forgetful, of the fact that life on earth is temporary. There is an end, and what will I say when I meet Him? There was a time, shamefully, when I would have said, "Where's my daddy!??" Not angrily, but I missed my dad so much that I really just wanted to be with him. But for real, I think I do want to be able to say to Him, "You have been everything to me!" I want to say that and mean it, that simple. Not, "You have been everything to me, along with my family, my friends, my volunteering, my work...." I want it to be just that simple - He's everything.