Ranaldi Way of Life

Sometimes it is so funny to me how things work out. I swear God has a crazy sense of humor and I hear him laughing at me.  Not in a mean way but in the way that a father does when his daughter comes out having dressed herself, clothes on backwards and make up all over her face…its all wrong, but cute.

So often I find myself trying to control my life and  push in one direction or make something happen that’s just not meant to be. God knows better, He knows how I am supposed to do it. So we are trained to pray. Pray when we don’t know the answer, pray when we feel ourselves fighting for that control yet knowing He has already chosen my paths…pray pray pray.

Long story short, almost two years ago I went through a phase in my life where it seemed like doors were closing and I had to make a choice which direction to go.  Do I borrow a bunch of money from my grandpa and try to go back to school for my last 9 months of the HDEV program for APU, fighting through the incredible sickness I had from being pregnant, AND hoping that I could complete all the outside credits independently? I did not feel right about borrowing the money when I felt so overwhelmed with the tasks of the program added to my life at that moment, so after praying HARD I decided to drop the program.

A year later I jump into helping friends on the worship team and battling my inner fears at the same time.  We were meshing and bonding as a group; it was a beautiful thing.  I loved the feeling of accomplishing something that I knew was originally very hard for me to do. I loved knowing that other’s enjoyed my singing and that in some way it brought them closer to God.  I had a long way to go with my knowledge of singing, worship and being on a “worship team” but then something happened… My grandfather got sick.

He passed away and the idea of going back to school was right there in the forefront of my mind  My grandpa took care of EVERYTHING, including taking care of my school debt after he’s gone.  I adore him and miss him daily, but finishing this (now BSOL) program with Azusa is going to be my way of honoring him.

I attended my first day of class super excited that I was finally back, however I had to sacrifice something that had recently become a major part of my life; the worship team.  We were practicing wed nights and now my class for APU was on Wednesdays. I knew school was first priority right now but still prayed hard about the decision really hard. I felt like I was letting them down after fighting so hard to improve and blend with them as a group.  I didn’t tell them about my school until the last minute because I didn’t even really know if it was going to be a reality until then… It’s never easy to put so much of yourself into one area of your life thinking that’s what God wants only to then be directed in a complete different direction after hours, days, months, sometimes YEARS of hard work.

Nevertheless I trusted Him and confronted my friends, explaining to them I needed to pull away from worship to finish school. I want to honor my grandfather’s memory and make him proud by giving 100% of my time and energy to finishing this strong, once and for all.  But with that being said, my heart was still breaking.  WHenever life hits hard or I just need a little glimpse of peace, I turn to worship.  I am not the greatest singer in the world but I know that doesnt matter because I love it. I love to close my eyes and sing to the Lord and know that no matter what anyone else things, He thinks it is beautiful.  I feel comforted, i am at peace and I find my foundation again when I have been lost after I have taken the time to sit and go to a place of worship.  Knowing that it would be 18 months again before I could reunite with my friends in that place was cause to shed a few tears, even knowing whole heartedly that God was leading me away for right now.

so a few weeks into this first semester of class I was having a rough day. The kids were sick, I was missing Eric, I had a headache and oh yeah- my brother’s car didn’t start as I was rushing out the door to go to class. AAA rushed out (praise God) and got it started, I had let Peytne play in the front seat while I unloaded the groceries and she had turned the headlights on somehow.  Anyway, to say I was stressed on my way to class is a grand understatement.  So I went to turn on some music.  Because the battery had been recharged all the settings were messed up in the car and I didn’t want to fuss with finding a darn radio station so I checked to see if a CD was in the player…the music began to play and my heart melted.

Beautiful music began to play that I had never heard before…it was Christian music, a band called Rush of Fools…the name sounds familliar but let me be honest with you: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THEIR CD’s. MY BROTHER DOES NOT OWN ANY OF THEIR CD’s.  How it came to be in his car on that day I will never know but I truly believe it was a God thing.  I relaxed into my seat, tapped the steering wheel and enjoyed the drive to san diego although I was 45 minutes late and was worried the car would die on me again when i needed to come home.

As I sang and sang to these songs I had never heard before I thought to myself, “Man, wouldn’t it be nice if we had worship before class started?”  We have prayer and have a lot of theological conversations during class because we are a Christian University and my proffessor happens to be a Theology MASTER lol But we don’t do worship each class. I pondered in my mind when the Semester’s worship night was going to be for APU because I rememered the first class he said there would be one and all the programs would come together and sing, pray and praise God.  I hoped it was coming up soon because listening to the music was making me wish singing with my friends on the worship team… I was even getting a few harmonies down (something I was attempting to work on before pulling out of the group).

I got to class, actually I hadn’t missed anything because the dinner potion of class took longer than expected. We were discussing life and homework and events of the last week casually amugnst each other when our teacher said, “How would you guys feel if next week I brought my guitar and we had some worship.”

I couldn’t contain myself, I laughed. More like scoffed. It was a mixture of disbelief and joy.  Really? Did he just say we would have worship next week?? Apparently he heard my response and said, “okay everyone’s on board except Rabecca.” I backtracked and apologized. I quickly explained I would love more than anything to have a worship session before class and before I knew it I was blurting out the fact that I had been working really hard getting over my fear of singing in front of people on the worship team at my church and had to walk away from that in order to be in this class.

His eyes got wide.

“Well, I’ve got it then. Next week you will be singing with me.”

I was speachless…fear crept up in my belly again and my throat cramped up. I had no words to say; in agreement or not! He translated my silence as agreement and ended with,

“It’s settled then. Ill email you the songs this week.”

Oh God… I am continually amazed by my COMPLETE ignorance to the extent of God’s power and perfection in my life.  Again, I hear him laughing lovingly at his silly daughter worrying and stressing and trying to plan her life away and figure out which way to go and why…trying to see 5 steps ahead…when that’s not my job; its His. He’s got it all taken care of. Laugh away Father, laugh away… one of these days I’ll learn. 🙂

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XuwjKsj5lo]