Birthday, Bad Day, and Lifesong

This post is going to be long...can't you just tell from the title...but I need to catch all 3 of my readers up on what's being going on since my last post.

Let's start with "Birthday"...My 38th birthday was April 25th. For my birthday, Ryan took me, and 38 of our 4th-6th grade buddies to the State Bible Drill competition. The kids did great. They are so amazing. Take 25 Bible verses, all the books of the Bible, key Bible passages,memorized verses and find/recall/recite them in 10 seconds. Over 30 kids passed the State Competition which means they got at least 20 out of 24 answers correct. Sweet Baboo was one of the participants. Last year she was a state participant, this year she was a state winner...and next year...we are going for state superior! After the competition, we loaded up the vans and headed to CiCi's pizza with all the kids. My BFF, Ash, surprised me with a yummy birthday cake with 24's on it...I told the kids I was 24 but I'm not sure that I had them convinced. They all know that I'm a 24 fan, and that I was headed to Talladega on Sunday so that may be what tipped them off.

So, on to "Bad Day"...Big T, J, Ryan and I headed to Talladega on Sunday the 26th for some good ole redneck racing fun. I tried to explain the difference between Atlanta racing and Talladega racing. Big T thought it certainly could not be that much different...Man, was she in for a surprise. First, our cutie-patootie matching driver tank tops.

I tried telling Big T that even with these somewhat revealing tank tops and our walking shorts that we would have on more clothes than 99% of all the men and women there. I'm not sure that she believed me until we saw more cut-off t-shirts, shorts, bikini tops, hairy backs, backs with a sunburned 24 in them, men in full body paint, etc. than she ever wanted to see.

We had a GREAT DAY...filled with awesome tailgating, racing, and laughter, however, our drivers, 24 and 9...had a BAD DAY...on lap 7 they were involved in the BIG ONE...

At this point, Big T looked over at me and said "We just paid a lot of money for 6 laps." Yep, one thing that you never want to hear over your brand new birthday race scanner from Jeff G is "We're done!" That's Kasey in the bottom left (#9) and Jeff G (#24) is just to the right of him head on colliding with the #26. Yeah, you are seeing it correctly, the #26 is going the wrong direction. But eventually, Jeff and Kasey were able to come back out on the track with cars that were basically duct-taped together. However, we did get to hear some really funny radio chatter from Steve Latarte, Kasey, and Jeff. Head over to Big T's blog for some funny race chatter. Of course, the first BIG ONE did not compare to the REALLY BIG ONE from Carl Edwards on the last lap of the race...

And right after his pic was taken...in true Ricky Bobby fasion...Carl ran to and jumped on the start finsh line. This was one the the most amazingly scary crashes I have ever seen and heard. It was crazy bad. But nobody had the best/worst day as the woman on I-20 who gave birth to her child as Talladega race traffic was filing by. In the wise and simple words of JS, "And the minute that you think you've seen it all on race day, you see a baby being born in the backseat of a Buick on the interstate." We wondered - Will his or her name be Walker, Texas Ranger, Dale III, or Talley Dega?

Some other funny comments from our Talladega experience:

Driving down I-20 we see an advertisement for a rib joint called "Butts N Ribs"...Big T wants to know, "Can you really serve ribs at a strip joint?"

An ethnic motorcyle group called the Buffalo Soldiers rode by us...JS and Mel saw one thing, Ryan and Big T saw another, but Big T asked "So, are they considered a gang?"

A man was driving to the race in his 1988 Chevy Silverado pick-up with his window paint (notice I said window paint) proclaiming that Dale Jr was the only driver to consider rooting for...however, this window paint, was used directly on his truck bed and tailgate..."That is wrong on so many levels."

Another lovely display of window paint writing was a Dodge Mini Van with the slogans of "Don't Waste Cold Beer on Gordon" and "Dale Jr. was conceived in Victory Lane". My you just can't hide class when you see it. "Maybe they are just simple people" according to Ryan.

And now, on to Lifesong. The 1st-6th grade choir performed the muscial Lifesong on Sunday, May 3rd. It is amazing to watch kids praise and worship God. They sang their hearts out and the actors pulled out the performance of a lifetime. Ash and I were really worried on Friday and Saturday during and after the practices, things just weren't coming together like we had hoped. We both bathed the kids in prayer and God answered our prayers in a powerful and wonderful way. He is amazing!!!

These words of the song Lifesong (by Casting Crowns) speak the loudest to me:

LORD, I give my life, A living sacrifice, To reach a world in need, To be your hands and feet, So may the words I say, And the things I do, Make my lifesong sing, Bring a smile to You!

I can't say it any better.

Here is a link to Sara H's photobucket pics from the musical: http://s95.photobucket.com/albums/l141/sarabhorn/LifeSong%20TSC%20Musical/

There's 248 pics, they are all fabulous, I couldn't decide which ones to post!!! But I had to post this one of my Sweet Baboo doing her "I'm Very High Maintenance!" line.

All of these kids are precious to me...I'm gonna need a copy of every pic!

Let me close by saying this: Lord, I thank you for all of the blessings in my life. I thank you for my precious husband, I thank you for my sweet children, I thank you for parents who took me to church, I thank you for all of the friends and family that wished me a Happy Birthday, I thank you for the gift of friends like Ash, Big T and Jeff that helped me celebrate my birthday, I thank you that Jeff, Kasey and Carl were all kept safe and free from injury from the Big One's at Talladega, I thank you for the 1st-6th graders of TSC that I get the honor and privilege of working with and serving on a daily basis, I thank you for allowing me to have awesome co-workers/partners to share in this ministry with me, I thank you for giving your son, a living sacrifice, to take a strong-willed, hard-headed kid like me and turn my life around!!! Lord, I want my Lifesong sing to You and to bring a smile to You! Amen.