Encouragement, Tickers, and Recitals

I was reading in 1 Samuel this morning and the Lord ministered this verse to me: "And David was greatly distressed . . . but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God" (1 Sam. 30:6). When I looked up the phrase "encouraged himself" in my Bible's lexical aids, it said that the Hebrew word for "encouraged himself" meant "to be bound fast, be attached; to make firm". It is the same phrase used in Exodus when Pharoah hardened his heart against God. In David's case, it was a positive thing. He put himself close to the Lord. He determined steadfastly that He was going to trust in God, just like Pharoah determined that he was not going to obey God. Since I have the choice, I want to be like David and encourage myself in the Lord!

You can "google" anything these days. I wanted to put a ticker on my blog so I could have a countdown of how many days it is until I leave for Haiti. I googled and found a site where you can make tickers for any type of event. So, down at the bottom of my blog you can find a ticker of how many days it is until I leave!!

The weather here is finally feeling more like spring. I'm so glad that it is back in the 60-70s! Our creeping phlox have rallied and they are the beautiful purple they were before we had our cold snap.

Today I'm studying for my microbiology test that is in the morning. Actually, I should be studying . . . instead I'm searching for tickers. he-he.

Tomorrow evening is the kids' spring piano recital. Every time we go to one of their recitals I just breathe a sigh of relief that my recital days are over. Our piano teacher has a spring recital and a fall recital and almost all of her students participate. She has around 35-40 students. By the time you get their families and friends there, the crowd is rather large. Of course, when I first started doing recitals the crowd was a little smaller, but I don't think a little crowd makes you any less nervous. The kids always love it when they are done with recital!! Actually, we have talked about how you are SO nervous before your turn comes, you're nervous when you first start to play, but about midway through your song you start to enjoy the experience. Even though your whole body feels like it's shaking, there is a certain amount of satisfaction and enjoyment that comes from memorizing and performing a song. Satisfaction or not, I'm still glad I don't have to do recitals anymore!