The year of the mouth and the heart

And you thought 2008 was the year of the rat (whatever that means)...

You know how people say you're never put somewhere by accident, but rather, that God has purpose in all things right...ya ya, we all say it (and acutually, I guess to be technical, the Bible says it). Well, sometimes it feels a little more like that than others, don't start in on me about talking about feelings, I know I'm not to live by them, but God did give them to me and you know what I mean.

So, tonight I got to hang with about 300 of my favorite teens and listen to Rand Hummel from the Wilds Camp on the East Coast...his whole deal tonight hit me like a ton of bricks, it was a culmination of a lot of stuff I've been chasing after for awhile now, some times winning, more times losing.

Some of you reading this know me well enough to know my major struggles, the stuff that keeps me awake thinking, or crying, or angry or bitter or whatever, generally stems from something that's ran like a river from my oral cavity in the form of word garbage or more often, the things I'm chosing to allow my heart to meditate on. I'm a proud, unthankful mess more often than is pleasant to admit.

So, Rand had this verse he started and ended with which, upon my twice attempting to recite it to the now adult, former Christian school brats that I surround myself with, they both took up for my slack and elequently recited the whole thing, in Bible quiz team captain style. (It's good for my aforementioned pride to be surrounded by people that I will never catch up to, in terms of Bible know how, anyway...)

I decided it's a good verse for me, people are always talking about thier "life verses" and I've never known how a person goes about getting one, I never found a book or store or even a kiosk that touted "find your life verse here," but I think perhaps, mine found me tonight. Seems like if I could keep this one in mind that I could make some serious headway against my ever present personalized thorns of the flesh.

So ya, I found my life verse thanks to a teen program, that probably says something, but I'm ok with it, I know me.

Here it is:

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer."

Psalms 19:14

I don't mean this to sound all ooohh aaaahhhh, life verse, rather, just do me a favor and smack me with it when you see me or hear me or even think I might be about to do something in contrast. I'm totally not kidding right now, I mean it, and if you don't say it at least once every other time you see me, you're probably not doing a good enough job. Don't be scared; I'll thank you later...probably at least 24 hours later, to be honest. My poor Mark, on the other hand, will thank you before you can get to the "O Lord" part.