Sabbath means giving my work over to God

I found this today when I opened up my prayer journal (which lives on Google Docs) for the first time in over a month. I thought about sharing this right away, but I kind of didn't want "only had 3 days of rehearsal time" to deter anyone from attending the concerts... :)

Shino arrived safely one day after I wrote this. And the concerts were pretty good!

I hope you find this encouraging.


Tuesday, March 1

Shino was supposed to get here yesterday… but Sapporo winter happened. Now she’s rescheduled to come tomorrow. It’s a good thing it wasn’t today because the flights for today (which was yesterday in Japan) all got cancelled too. Praying for better weather tonight. It looks like the snow is supposed to be lighter today… don’t pull anything stupid, Jetstar.

All this has been very stressful for me. I imagine it has been for Shino as well. We’re losing 2 rehearsal days when we haven’t played together since last May.

But somehow as I was praying and griping to God about Shino getting stuck in Sapporo, I was filled with a sense of peace and the thought that this situation is an opportunity for faith in God’s strength--and I kind of got excited. Three days of rehearsal before a concert doesn’t seem like enough, but we are doing this in God’s strength, so even the impossible can be done.

Then there’s the CD project. I don’t know why I thought releasing the CD at our concert was a good idea, since it meant I got very little sleep last week. I waited to long to order labelled CD’s, so we ended up having to do lightscribe at home. That was really the only option without buying a whole new printer. But it’s old technology… and not compatible with Windows 10 as advertised. Suffice it to say, I spent about 4 hours yesterday trying to get the stupid drive to talk to my laptop. It wouldn’t. Thankfully Dad has Windows 7 on his computer, so he has it working. 2 discs successfully labelled! 98 to go… One of us will be sitting by the computer all day feeding it discs.

But last night when I went to bed, we still hadn’t gotten it working, and in the process of updating settings on my laptop in a vain attempt to get the lightscribe drive to work, the keyboard stopped working for a while, and then some of the buttons got messed up. With the whole project up in the air, I didn’t sleep well.

(Actually, the whole project was not up in the air, just the possibility of having the discs look slightly more professional than writing the title on them with sharpie. My pride was at stake, that’s all.)

Worry crept in again. What if Shino’s flight gets cancelled again? We’d have to cancel the concert. Anger, too, directed at my stupid computer’s inability to talk to the lightscribe drive. Desperate for sleep, I forced myself to pray, repeatedly giving Shino’s flights, our rehearsals, the concert, the CD, the lightscribe drive, and everything else into God’s hands. I repeated Deuteronomy 31:8, which is also the lyrics to one of the songs on the CD, over and over in my head: “It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” I reminded myself of the peace I had felt the previous evening.

In the midst of worrying and wakefulness, this thought came into my mind: “Sabbath means giving my work over to God.” Yesterday was Monday, which is usually our day off (Sabbath). I would not have had a day off if Shino had been here, but I was getting one, to my surprise--the silver lining in the cloud. Sabbath is about resting, of course. But I’m not going to be able to rest without allowing God to be Lord over my work, and over the rest of my life too. I can’t do this alone. I lack the strength. I drifted off to sleep as I gradually relinquished control of my various tasks and stresses.