Beautiful Music.

Last night was my normal Wednesday night. I leave work around 5pm each Wednesday and travel to Clinton, TN. Before you go thinking I am making some long, hard trip I have to tell the truth. Clinton is only about 20 minutes from my work. However, even if it were an hour and 20 minutes, probably even if it were 2 hours - I would make the trip each Wednesday anyway. Well, except if it were 2 hours I would be late and wouldn't be able to make it into my destination.

Where am I going and why would I be willing to make that drive? Each Wednesday I get the wonderful opportunity to share my life, my love and Gods love with the women of Anderson County Detention Facility (ACDF). I am not exaggerating when I say a WONDERFUL opportunity. Just ask any of the other ladies that go into ACDF with me. I go in with Brandy, Lynda and Lisa on a normal basis. These are three Godly, funny women. I often say they are my favorite people in the world! I mean it. :-)

Last night was no exception to the wonderfulness (is that a word?). Last night was music night. We LOVE music. Brandy is our awesome DJ who takes an enormous amount of time (more than we originally knew about) and puts together about 10-12 of the most awesome worship songs, puts them on a CD, types out and prints out the lyrics for 15-30 women and blesses us with the most perfect put together group of songs - EVER! And I do mean EVER. The way that the music flows and fits together and kind of climaxes at the end just blows us away, every time.

I can't name you all the songs we worshipped to last night. Although, I can tell you it was moving. There was no dry face in the room of us. Some of us (me included) were practically bawling. I mean sobbing, hardly able to hold the sobs in. God was in that room and he was dancing over us and lavishing in our praises for him. We had our hands raised, our voices high and our hearts and eyes toward Heaven. I was sitting in the floor next to A. A is a lady who has been in and out of ACDF so many times in my 3 years of ministering there. I have come to expect this. Sadly. For the first time in my 3 years I seen A break down last night. I have seen her shed a few tears every now and then. Mostly for the dramatics, I was certain. She is most often very dry eyed. Last night while singing about what our God done for us she broke down sobbing. I just grabbed her and put my arm around her and we sobbed together. No words had to be spoken. Our hearts were talking to God. That is all that we needed. Not long after this the song 'How He Loves' by Kim Walker was on. If you have NEVER heard this song and the story behind it. Go to You Tube and look it up. I am telling you it will move you. (Edited to add: I have added that song on the bottom of my blog if you want to hear it)

How He Loves us talks about how God loves us. I lost it on this song. During the song Brandy shared with the girls just how much God loves them. After the song, I shared with them some of what I wrote in my last blog. I was crying and having a hard time sharing. I let them know just how much God does love them and how He chases us and wants us.

At the end, at the very moment the guard told us it was time to go, Brandy asked the girls some questions. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in satan? Do you believe in Heaven? In Hell? They all said yes. Then she told them even satan believes ALL those things. It is not enough to believe. It is all about the relationship that we have with God. She told them to talk to someone if they didn't know what she was talking about. Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!

As we were worshipping I closed my eyes and stopped singing. I listened to the voices of these women. Wow and wow. They are wonderful. I know that what I heard was beautiful and I know that what God heard was even more wonderful. God inhabits the praises of His people. What does that mean exactly? When we are praising Him. Really praising him, in music, in dance, in life, in anything. God is right there in the middle of it. God meets us right in our praise. Isn't that an amazing thought? Think about it....