The alarm goes off crazy early. Wait, that wasn’t the alarm. It is my beautiful wife “Hey joel..it’s 6:20 can you come help me with the kids?”
I jump out of bed with a feeling that I am way too old before my time. Bones crack and throat feels like somebody slipped liquid sandpaper into my drink last night.
Ok I’m up and now it’s time to get Gavin (3 year old) to the bathroom and get him changed and ready to watch a little morning old school pokemon with the rest of the crew. My wife gets up Morgan (22 months) and gets her morning milk. The older guys, Tristan (10) and Collin (6) come running out a bit annoyed that they missed the start of pokemon.
The epic show about weird animal slavery in a 5 inch ball ends and we all head downstairs to get breakfast going. Breakfast along with all of our meals, as you will soon see here, start with joy and expectation then get periodically sprinkled with crying and frustration. How we make it through meals is a testament to the amazing grace of God.
The meal ends and it’s time for showers and getting dressed. The only problem is while my wife is in the shower my 22 month old daughter has decided she is going to do parkour in our kitchen by opening drawers, hanging from them and catapulting herself over the counter. She had better be in the 2025 olympics! Everybody calms down… I am dressed and the crew are ready to play and enjoy the morning before church.
I leave early and say my “see you at church” to the crew while leaving my amazing wife the task of herding four kids out the door without me. God made her much more remarkable than I could ever be.
I walk into the church an hour and a half early after grabbing a much needed triple grande at St. Arbucks. I am not always the first person there, but usually and today I am. I open the door, turn on the lights and drop my gear by the stage. It’s time to turn on all of the equipment, get the sound running, projectors lit up and bring up youtube. Yes youtube. I like to start off my mondays with projecting and blasting worship. It may be Hillsong, Sojourn, Sara Groves, Matt Redman, and Lately it has been my bro Mckendree Augustus. It gives me some time to soak in God before I get up to lead worship. Time to get in the right frame of mind. Time to lay my cares at the cross so I can be used by Him. Sometimes it doesn’t work and I have to throw up my hands and say “God you are going to have to lead worship today because I can’t” Days where depression gets the best of me or the frustration of Life right in that “hour before.”
Once everything is running I set up all of my gear and tune my guitars while jamming to the worship music blasting through the system.
Then… People start to walk in the doors.
It’s time to start the service…
“take my life and let it be…….”
———————————–
This post is part of the #thehourbefore series from Rob Rash and other worship leaders
Leave a Reply