So much to say yet so little I can say with certainty. My CA trips are feeling normal now that I have completed the second one within the month. So much happened. Today I put up a journal topic for my journalism kids. They have to make pretend news stories and this one said “Woman’s travel changes her life” or something of the sort. But it has. Do you ever wonder if you could erase one choice, one moment, where you would be? What if I had not bothered to see Darrell on March 12? What if I, in my sleepiness and apathy, had decided as I was tempted to keep driving through the Valley and into Hollywood or wherever to shop? What if? But I decided, almost because it fit the theme of trip more than because I cared to stop by and say hi. I had originally planned to attend church there that night but had even decided I did not care about that. I was probably an instant away from deciding NOT to go. But I did. I went. And I have never been the same again.

So the next trip… well, either May 30 or June 19, depending on airfares, but I just made a executive decision. I decided NOT to buy a rental car in New York. I have a free airport shuttle. If I can figure out where to leave my stuff while I spend the day in Manhattan, I will not buy a rental car, but instead fly back to LA. So again I spend my free time on travel websites. One of these days tickets will drop again and I will pounce. I feel like a person watching stock, but in many ways I am. Only mine is more valuable .

Yes, the trip was obviously good. It was not carousels and cotton candy; it was reality, but wonderful reality. Not the whirlwind of last month but wonderful just the same. My students kept asking me what I did in Los Angeles this weekend. “I went to church,” I kept telling them. That about covers it. Of course when your friends are the pastors it does lend itself to spending time in church. But Darrell was working on a big project so he was there almost the whole time, so Terry and I were there a lot. Saturday we spent a long time there not just visiting but in the sanctuary just worshipping together, dancing and enjoying the presence of God. Sunday of course we were there half the day. I had a neat time. More in a minute on that. Monday we went back and after the three of us prayed in Darrell’s office, Terry and I went back in the church and prayed til we had to get ready to take me to the airport. We prayed at home Sunday night which was so powerful I could barely talk—or walk—afterwards. So when the kids ask me what I did in LA, the only truthful answer is pray and go to church. What OTHER reason would one want to be in LA for anyway?

Church was great. We arrived at 8:30 for Terry’s rehearsal and left around 2:30 after church and talking and I could have stayed hours more. It was great, just not long enough! Terry had told me over and over to be FREE—she said even if in rehearsal God put something on my heart to just do it. So there I am watching the choir as they rehearse “I Can Only Imagine” and I want to dance. My heart is racing because I am thinking, hello, I don’t even KNOW these people and I am going to fly across the floor! But I kept hearing Terry’s voice in my head. Then they did it again and my heart was still racing, so I slipped off my shoes and grabbed a streamer and did it anyway. I could not believe it, but actually it seems much more unbelievable NOW that I am not caught up in the Holy Spirit moving in me that way than it did when I did it. Afterwards Darrell teased me and my automatic fears went up, but I realized that was actually a compliment, not anything bad—just old paranoia from the past years. Then Pastor Dan the worship pastor said how it blessed him that I did that. Later I met two girls—they are from Texas, and God sent them to the church so I had wanted to meet them. Well, they told me they were up in the balcony praying when I did that and they could feel the Holy Spirit all around me. It was very reassuring to know I was in the Spirit when I THOUGHT I was!

In Sunday School Terry—who teaches the class—introduced me. She said some of them might remember me (just a few people were still there that I knew), but I am not the same person, but that I am “full of the Holy Ghost.” Then we went into church. Terry also told me to be free and to play the tambourine, dance or whatever. I am almost surprised by how comfortable I was! It was EASY. And then most amazing thing of all is that when I picked up that tambourine, scared to death in my head, all that studying I had done for the last month came out of me and I found myself playing the pattern I could not get for anything—with the foot movement even! I was amazed, and then of course I knew it was God, so I got higher! I played and played and played and it was not hard. At another point I knew I needed a streamer for a song but it was so crowded in the front, so I got mine and slipped to the side where I made enough room that I could keep it suspended. Well, I got caught up in a spin and went around and around in worship with this thing. When I stopped I was not even dizzy. I get dizzy even when I spot in something simple like a chanais turn. God again. Then after that I was kneeling while Pastor Darrell was ministering, and then I just sat. And I thought, how absolutely incongruous this seems. I am sitting casually on my rear end on a Sunday morning in the front of a church where I know barely anyone and I do not feel the least bit weird about it. There was such an atmosphere of freedom in there. But even more amazing is as hungry as I was for that worship, I think the Word was even better! It was just awesome.

Afterwards we went to lunch with the associate pastor and some others in leadership and I felt like I had known these people forever. It was so familiar and comfortable—like that freedom extends out the doors of the church. Major wow!

These people are wonderful. I can’t convey it in a blog—it was unique and special. I felt so at home. It was neat. Anyway, that was a big part of the weekend—church and prayer. We ate out at some trendy Burbank restaurants, and that was nice, but there is nothing like sitting around praying for a couple hours to make everything fall into perspective.

Of course I slept little. I had to go to work on about four hours of sleep today and I was barely conscious, but I took a great nap this afternoon and I am fine. This Sunday will be great too because it is Easter and there is no holiday I love more. The next weekend I am gone yet again (surprise, surprise, huh!) but only to Dallas. God and I have an appt. for the weekend. But I might actually be here for three or four weekends in May, until I leave for New York. Once Memorial Day weekend arrives, my life changes a lot. From the NY trip on, I am traveling and changing.

The trip was great and wonderful and glorious and every other adjective English teachers are not supposed to use so much. The parallels of my life to 1997 when the God stuff first started are amazing. I see God bringing it full circle. All I dreamed and hoped, all I believed then was from God, it needed its fruit to ripen and the season to arrive. But now, as Terry and I keep saying as a reference to the song I am dancing to, but moreso as a metaphor for our spiritual lives: Winter is gone and the springtime has come.

On a lighter note, NEVER wear overalls on an airplane or you will set off the detectors multiple times and have to be searched!