Goosebumps and Tears

I knew that WMU had had a huge influence on my life, but I didn't realize just how much it had formed me until I began worship preparations for a retreat over the weekend. I think the biggest--and most humbling--thing that I realized is that it is because of WMU Camping (specifically Camp Mundo Vista for me) that I love to lead worship. The worship leadership bug bit me while I was on staff, and thankfully the bite has stayed (unlike the many red bug bites that I have received over the years!).

My roles in leading worship have been vast over the years, and the number of services that I've planned is numerous. Sometimes the planning comes together nicely. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes ideas come quickly. Sometimes they take hours--or days--to come. And every once in awhile God's voice speaks so clearly that I'm left with nothing but tears and goosebumps...but that doesn't happen very often.

The first time it happened was over ten years ago while I was planning a staff worship service. I was reading the gospels when I noticed that Jesus served communion, sang a hymn with his disciples, went to the garden and prayed his heart out, was crucified and resurrected, and then served his disciples breakfast. As I read, I wept because I realized that we could, to a certain extent, take that same journey from communion to the cross and beyond. And we did. And the service was very powerful.

As I was preparing for this past weekend--taking in information, thinking of songs and choruses, looking through books for litanies and prayers, imagining how the parts of worship would flow--I didn't expect goosebumps and tears to show up like they did. Yet each time I heard a song or read a scripture or found a story or prayer that was right, I was overwhelmed by God's presence and my eyes swelled up with tears just as the hairs on my arms stood up straight. For all three services, God's direction was clear, and I was taken aback by how perfectly everything fit together. When I sensed that a reading would flow nicely into a song into a story into a prayer (or something like that), I had no idea just how tight the fit would be. But the fit was snug--and warm--and comfortable--and seamless--and I dare say that it paved the way to true worship.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by God's guidance over the weekend. And I'm not really. But I am surprised at how obvious God's guidance was--and not just once--but over and over again. If I read something that wasn't right, nothing happened inside me. But as soon as I came across it, the right thing spoke to my tear and goosebump makers and I knew I had to look no more.

As I sang, "Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art. Thou my best Thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light," God must have been saying, "Okay, Deanna. I'll do that. I will answer that prayer like I am answering all prayers. And I will speak to you...through goosebumps and tears."