To Gather

Believe it or not, I am already expanding my knowledge of Italian and my lingua classes haven’t even begun yet! Many of the people in Urbino speak little if any English so I’m having to use as many gestures and crude forms of decision making with si and no. But I’m doing the best I can and learning as I go!

Today we had our first music classes with the Crafts where we got to study the Italian and English translations of our choral pieces and later our arias. We also did some acting coaching and worked with the Francois Delsarte acting movement technique, which was later the foundation for Martha Graham's dance method. I can't wait to start our language classes and my first voice lesson tomorrow! So many exciting things!

            There are some downsides to living in a small mountainside town in Italy. (Very few…) First of all, the buses don’t run until 2:30 in the afternoon on Sundays and most stores are closed. Now I for one, don’t see this so much as a downside because I see the benefit of giving workers the morning off to go to mass or rest with their families. Now I wasn’t quite sure how to walk myself up the hills to town, nor did I quite know where to locate a mass in English. So instead, Lizzie, Rachel, and I had our own service in my hotel room. Humble but powerful. We spent an hour or so refreshing our souls with prayer and thanksgiving. For Jesus promised us in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” We encouraged and challenged one another as in Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” We read aloud from the Word together and watched as it convicted and encouraged us in different ways, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

            We finished in prayer for one another, the trip, and by a reading of Psalm 27, or the Psalm of the day. As usual, the Lord knew exactly what I needed to hear and wow does he have a way of getting me to listen. I was challenged to truly see Him every day and say, “Your face, Lord, I do seek.” In the next verse the psalmists says, “Hide not your face from me.” Hiding in Biblical text usually means to be ashamed. When Adam and Eve were in the garden the Word says they were aware of their nakedness and immediately felt the need to cover themselves in shame. “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife HID THEMSELVES from the PRESENCE of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” (Genesis 3:8) They were conscience of their sin and they then felt shame for being naked which led to the first of many games of “hide and seek” with the Lord.

            I wonder how many times I’ve fled the Lord’s presence because of my shame or guilt. How often would I rather hide then be healed. I believe the lie that because I am broken I am worthless. If you’ve ever felt the same, let me share with you a little secret… The Kingdom of God is full of broken people not perfect people. Heaven isn’t full of good people and hell full of bad people. Heaven is full of FORGIVEN people.

            That’s all I really have to share today… The Lord is doing some wonderful things here, oh and then there’s AFTER the sunrise!