The Count Down Has Begun!!

This year is my first year ever directing a Kids Christmas Pageant and it is just another thing to add to my list of firsts over the past 6 months!!! I am so blessed to work with the kids I work with!! There are about 25 kids who have been to every practice for the past month and a half and they are doing amazing!!! We have practice Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights for an hour. The kids have continued to blow me away!! These parts are not small easy lines they are paragraphs on top of paragraphs and they have them all memorized!! It just blows my mind how amazing they are doing.

The play consists of 8 scenes and 8 songs and we have two more practices left until the big night!! One tomorrow night and then a dress rehearsal on Saturday morning!! :)

The play is about a young Shepard boy named Zeke who wants to be anything but a Shepard. It is narrated by Zeke's sheep named Snowflake. Zeke has decided that he will be anything besides a Shepard until one night he realizes just how special being a Shepard is. After being made fun of by his class mates and being told he will never be anything more then a shephard Zeke is approached by and angel who tells him "Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For until you is born this day in the city of David, a savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." Zeke then makes his way to the stable where the baby Jesus is born and he finally realizes that if he wasn't a shepard he wouldn't have seen an angel or the baby Jesus. God had something special in mind for Zeke and for all those who are in the right place at the right time.

One of the songs we sing is call "Where I Belong" and the chorus says...

When I'm where I belong God can use me, When I'm where I belong I won't fail. There's work to be done and I am the one so I'll stay right where I belong, right where I belong.

Over the past week God has been really using this song to speak to me. I have been beating myself up a lot lately saying that this play is going to turn out horrible and that I am going to look bad and the kids are going to look bad and what will people think of me then. But every time these thoughts come into my head this song comes to mind and God reminds me that I am where I belong and He won't allow me to fail.

Then the first verse says, "There's only one me unique as can be no ones else can do what I can. Whenever He calls I'll give Him my all I'm part of His wonderful play." This is what I say back to myself. It might not be easy and it might not be the best play or lesson or objective lesson but no one else can do what God has called me to do and I am part of His wonderful plan.

I praise God that even when we are in the midst of the buisness of the season that He takes the things that we are doing and teaches us something! :) How great is our God!! :)