thursday's ten or so: to make me laugh

i have a quirky sense of humor.
meaning you may not find any of this funny.
but i'm laughing a lot these days thanks to several sources. so the least i can do is share :-)
here's a very few of the things making me laugh.


i can't help but laugh when i see this. until i'm at work, and then it seems like every child in the building is lining up behind this one!

this one cracks.me.up. anthony also laugh-approved it. 

i don't use pinterest just for recipes and home organization tips (but i'm always trying something off my boards!)


it has other uses too. one of my bff's natasha and i constantly send each other gems we find that we would never post publicly...but there are a few exceptions that i'll share here.

 (the next one pretty much sums us up)

(oh and this one too)

the amazing amanda shared this with me when she was at our house for dinner the other night. we laughed our butts off, so i HAVE to share it with you.



all those "hey girl" memes make me giggle a lot. but THIS one is just extra-special.

replace "men" with "everyone"...

natasha sent this one to me too. if you work with children (your own or someone else's) you'll relate to this at least a few times!

this one makes me laugh and cry simultaneously

and finally...

which leads right into this. you HAVE to watch this. and just know that i WILL instagram it.





***photo/video credits...all of these have been found on facebook, twitter, youtube or pinterest. :-)

LOVE this

enjoy!

tonight's gonna be fun because it's our youth group outing to buy items for Youth Encouragement Services holiday store...followed by a little party. time spent with middle schoolers who are passionate about making a difference? that makes a pretty good night.

what about you?

lost

last night i found myself helping to lead worship at a midweek service

which is always a nice pick-me-up

especially when i'm leading with some of my favorite people :)

michael, my friend who lead the service, found this video on youtube and played it at the beginning of the service.

he began it with simple words on the screen:

"a guy walking the streets of new york just can't stop himself from praising"

and then the video. WOW.

there's such simplicity here. a guy walking around listening to his ipod...but there's something rising in him that's so organic, so fresh, so come up to the top, that he can't stop himself.

it made me wonder. as i looked around the room and watched people react to the video

when did they last get so lost in worship that they just couldn't stop themselves from praising?

when's the last time *I* did?

what's wrong with us if we don't lose ourselves more often?

it doesn't have to look like anything spectacular. in fact, it often doesn't.

for me, the last time it happened was monday night at a 20s/30s worship event i attend every week. at the end of the service we all went forward to pray and worship just...happened. i found myself singing at the top of my lungs--some unknown song--and not caring one bit if anyone heard me or didn't.

i've seen people take different postures of worship, use different languages to praise, and just stand and silently weep.

i'm known to lose myself in worship in my car...which doesn't always work out financially but it always brings me to a new level (seriously: go read the story. it's especially meaningful for me to remember it now with the events of the last few months...)

all of this to say...lose yourself today. or tomorrow. or sunday morning at church. or...whenever. just spend some time being so carried away by His presence that you can't.do.anything.else.

and then...would you share with me or someone? it would be a great encouragement!

(oh yeah, and here's the video--watch! conveniently located right next to my music player so you can turn it off...i SO planned that...ok, i didn't :)

Amen

Yesterday morning I was leading worship at my church, as I do regularly on the "3rd Sunday" praise team.

It was a powerful worship, and we ended it with the song God of This City. You may know it (I'll include a youtube video and lyrics at the end of this post if you don't). It ends on a powerful crescendo of "greater things are yet to come; greater things are still to be done in this city" followed by the softer yet powerful truth of "there is no one like our God...there is no one like our God"

In an acapella setting, the voices linger and resonate throughout the sanctuary for a few moments after the last note is cut off. As we basked in that moment a small child's voice, no older than 3, echoed through the auditorium:

"Amen!"

Amen indeed. There is NO ONE like our God! If the smallest of children can feel that so powerfully in her soul...who am I to question?

And yet sometimes I do.

Help me to be like a child on her Father's knee...
to grasp the most awesome and complex of truths
in the simplest of ways.

AMEN




(lyrics are included on the video--and it is the original version from Ireland so they are slightly different, so it's definitely worth a listen)

*God of This City was written by a worship band from Ireland (possibly why it's so close to my heart!) on a missions trip to Thailand. They set up the band in a brothel and sang worship songs right in the heart of the sex trade district...and this song came to them than night as they witnessed the brokenness that surrounded them--that the God they were worshiping was STILL the 'God of these people' and the 'Lord of this nation'
Makes it all the more powerful to know the story...*