Day 2 of the 4 day run so run with me

Well yesterday the show went great. We got to meet the real Doming and Lorie and that was really cool. I got home really tired and went straight to bed. Home on the road is where ever I lay my head that night. Today we travel to another town and do another show.

I have to make this the quickest blog ever since I am going to eat breakfast.
But just to let you know, I am doing great this morning and I still have the energy to perform. My team mates however have caught a nasty bug and have had a hard time performing. Hope they will get better soon.

The Life of Miss Mae

The first of the four day run and run with it.

It is this day that is the first of our four day run. So I am going to run with it.

This morning I woke up and for the first time in my existence, I came to the conclusion that I really want to grow up. I want to get to the stage where I am not afraid to come into what I was meant to be. Last night I had a talk with my billet about school and plans after tour. The previous night before I had a deep conversation with my little sister about what my plans are with school.

I guess I have been delaying applying because I fear that this might be my first real step into adulthood. It's the first real decision I am doing on my own for my own self and nobody is there to stop me from doing it.

It's a sense of freedom and the feeling has been growing into a rush in the spine. If I would have known this kind of fear I don't know if I would have jumped out on the boat. It is probably what love feels like if I ever felt that before. These emotions are so enchanting but present a sense of danger.

Fear, I have to get rid of it. Decisions, courage, bravery. Some where in t.v. land I once heard a comment on courage. Courage is doing something you are afraid of but still doing it because its the right thing to do. So that courage that you take to step into the unknown is bravery. I need to take courage so that I might enter my adulthood.

This year I will be 23 years of age and I need to start really focusing on how to become the best of what I am suppose to be. I must leave my peter pan syndrome behind as I leave it with tour and step into a new stage in life. In about 2 months I will receive my 23rd year with great anticipation as I arrive into the first step of making the decision that I want to grow up now.

It's time.
With love,
Miss Mae

A day off today a show tomorrow

Sometimes when given the opportunity to be lazy after months of pushing oneself to work to the bones, you are given that choice and that choice is easy. The past week on my days off I stayed in my bed sleeping. Although it was a very beautiful day I had decided it was my day to be very lazy. And lazy I was. I don't think an inch of my body went to work as it laid in bed just staring at the ceiling and then occasionally I would venture out to the couch to watch t.v.. That to me is being a very lazy gal and very unproductive. My mother would have never approved of my laziness as she would say that most famous saying, "idle hands make for the devils work".

 

However, after working hard sometimes your body just wants to sit back and let time waste away.

 

What I should have been doing is simply this: working on my project which will be revealed to the group soon. It's at the point where my creative juices just want to escape that point and instead it forces a complete stop of the whole process. Although it's just under half way to being done, the brain doesn't want to continue. I guess that's the problem with me at times. It takes forever to get into the creative mood, but once in it I can go on forever.

 

I have also been dealing with allergies. It seems the past few days they have put me into a fog, just like the commercials seem to state. But really it's just been annoying with the whole sneezing process and blowing my cherry nose afterwords. On top of that my sunburn has turned into a nice peeling stage. It's some what entertaining, I feel like a lizard and other times it's just gross. Like I would take my tank top off after I woke up from sleep to find it snowing in my shirt. Ewww gross eh!

 

So today looks like another fulfilling day as I head off to another town and then spend the night preparing for show tomorrow. Who knows how that will go.

 

Talk to you soon.

The life of Lizard Mae

Almost Home

Well it's the 20th of April and that means it's 23 more days till I get to hug my family and kiss my teddy bear's at home. Looking back I have really enjoyed my wonderful adventure in California. I love it here. If God asks me to move here I would say yes in a matter of mili-seconds. It's the most beautiful place I have ever been.

There is too much to describe about California. I love it all. The other day I was in Santa Barbara soaking up the sun, and just two days ago I was riding the Bat man ride at six flags. I almost made myself sick by looking down at the more than 200 feet drop. It was thrilling and exciting at the same time.

We have a couple more shows left and I am thrilled to perform them. Being my character Challinggay has taught me about things that I thought I already knew. Each night of performance there is something to be learned. The grace of God is really important in this show as well as his forgiveness and goodness. When playing Challinggay I realized that people see themselves in her. We are all sinners and by the goodness of God, we come to bow down before him and receive his riches.

There have been many wonderful people I have met on my journey. So many of them have touched my heart, from the people I stayed with to my wonderful team. Even though at times dealing with them might not always be a welcoming feeling, at the end you see how God has used ordinary people for extraordinary work. It takes a lot to join this ministry. Some people can handle it quite well, others are quit at the first sign of trouble but those who preserves are the ones that get to see God's blessing in all of it. You can't count on yourself to survive but you can count on God to take you through in one piece.

As I look back on my three years of tour, I am going to miss it a lot. I love this life I lead. It's not a normal one with a steady income, a steady home, a steady routine, but that's what makes it great. It's anything but normal and that's the way it should be. Why should I have a life like everyone else when I was made for something different. It's just like the ugly duckling, can you imagine what life would be like for that bird if he thought his whole existence was to stay in that duck pond. He was made to live a life of a swan and so are we all. We are not mere mammals forced to live out our existence on this planet as evolutionists believe, but we are human beings with souls given an eternity to live out.

There is so much I want to say about my adventures, not just the people, or the places but of all the stories that make tour unique.

With 23 more days to go, I am in the same boat as my team mates are in and have come to the conclusion that I will have to figure out what is next. I am not sure what is next but whatever it is, I know my God will be with me whatever the season may be.

In Him,
Mae

Toasty Brown....and a side order of Sun Burn

Well it's been a while. The buzz of the group has settled down as we returned from our days off and back into our work week. With 13 other strangers, it's hard to sit back and just escape the noise for a while but we manage. Even on our off days we are a "we", as the caravan gathers to play beach volley ball on the the beautiful Santa Barbara beach. The sand is clean today and the beach is radiant as we headed out for some fun in the sun.

The first thing I go for is not the nets of the volley court, but I run where any normal praire dog would run. Straight toward the ocean. Man did that feel good as the waves rushed up against my body. I was in paradise. I couldn't ask for a better day off. I spent most of my time, thinking on the beach about the story I am putting together for my devotion for our daily devotion time. I also ponder and try not to get too carried away of thoughts of this guy that I thought was cute and had potiential. However being realistic, I know I will never see this handsome almond eye guy ever again. That's what happens on the road....you could meet a potiential but you know even if he is the right guy for you fate has a funny way of waking you up and telling you "it's not going to happen!" Fate is a very humorous character in the book of life.

So anyway after the full day of volley ball and beach courts, I enjoyed the sun and stripped down to my bathing suit. Forgetting that there was no sun screen on my back, I burnt my back into a wonderful sun burn. I never had to deal with that before. Commenting this to my tour manager while in our billets hot tub, she said "well that's cause you don't get that much sun in Canada". Well not true, I sure don't go sun tanning much in my city cause it's not much of a season. Plus if you are from Arkansas you tend to tan more being in the south.

To wrap up the wonderful day at the beach I was happy to say that I got to go out to a nice restraunt and eat till my belly was well rounded. Funny thing about the relaxing day, I didn't gain weight but lost 5 pounds in the past few days. Hahaha that's what you get for having a good running youthful system. Wait till it all catches up and I balloon......

Anyway the next day I went to Solvang, but spent my day in Santa Barbara but that too was a great day as I returned to a wonderful hot tub. One of the benefits of going to Santa Barbara was that I managed to find, after months of searching, a journal with blank and rule pages. It's terribly hard to come by. You are either left with blank or just rule pages. I almost want to create a journal that's suited to my needs and make a business out of it. I am sure others are out there who want a journal like that. So I was pleased with my findings, now I can put my pictures, or sketches of my next big travel adventure.

And finally, today I spent my time wastefully relaxing in the hot tube and treated myself to a facial and a hair treatment. Today was a pamper me day. I am preparing my body for the next show where I will be tossed around like the waves on the ocean floor. I really should stop tanning cause I have become browner than toast should be or at least how I eat toast. My stage makeup finally matches me and doesn't pop my face out on stage. This however is probably not too great for my skin for when I am older I am sure to feel the results of destroying my skin. Pleasure now....pay for it later.

So with one more month left of tour, I have to say that I have really enjoyed my compaions. They are amazing people....sometimes the boys are imature but I still love them very much like brothers that are not always wanted. I will miss all of my sisters and brothers once this month is up but I am ready to go home and see my family.

Ok well I am ready to hit the hay. California dreaming.

I am out.
Talk ta later,
Adventures of Miss Mae

A weekend of real fire...our God is a consuming fire

"Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good." ~C.S. Lewis (from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

Have you ever looked around you and really wondered why aren't we thinking more? In this day and age where technology has transformed our livelihood making our lives faster, and more modernized from the early era of when people actually had to work hard for a living, have we become consumed and stop thinking? Or at least thinking less about the more deeper and important things that make up our existence.

So I have a lot of catching up to do. To start off from when I last left off, I was in desperate need of a good sleep. As the past few nights had left me un-energize, unmotivated, and drained. It was like living the beginning of the movie the Matrix where Neo is discovering maybe this world isn't as it seems...follow the white rabbit Neo.

These past few days I haven't been here, since I was plagued by the previous night time events. The dreams of horrible circumstances occurring replayed over in my mind like a bad black and white movie of the olden days. It has pulled any sort of deep sleep that a person needs to fully recover from the days events. So I woke up and walked through that day living my nightmares in a physically awakened body but mentally my mind wandered as it drifted through that incredibly hard day.

The after thoughts brought me to the conclusion that the devil is always at your heel. The times you are ready you defeat him in battle, you end up not noticing how hard he has been aggressively attacking but when a soldier is drifting in another state of mind the attack seems a lot more harder even though it's the same battle. It's the battle position of the soldier that makes the difference. It's this battle position of a soldier that makes them human.

This weekend has made me realize all the events of the past week has been for the purpose of learning more about God. Even though it's been in reality a matter of days, it feels as if a few weeks has dawned upon me and the knowledge I have gained has been benifitual to my well being.

So this whole week I have been trying to fast from noise and trying to listen more on what the whispers of the Holy Spirit has taught me. It was hard since living in a large group rarely gives you the opportunity to dwell on these matters, especially with many socialy active butterflies, but even this being said, God still manages to speak above the noise of the crowd. So on April 1st was the first lesson.

The day started out with an un-startling dream about my dear friend. Because of what happened in the dream, my mind was left in a questionable state. This however lead me to be in prayer about all the past so called nightmares, if you can call them that at this age. I went on throughout the day with it's lingering presents attached to the back of my worried heart. The funny part of the day was that it was a fool's day being April first and being that day at least as far as I know in North America, Aprils Fools day is a day of pranks. This being said, my tour manager decided to prank us.

It's funny how some of your distrust senses are on a wider range these days. So when me and this other team member got the memo to put on our WDT shirts, my mind directly went into "warning, you are being pranked" mode. I told the girl of my suspicions and we decided to play it by ear. The whole time before the joke was revealed, another nagging thought of this is a prank dragged along at the back of my mind.

The end results played out as follows. Yet another member of the team was a part of this prank dragging the whole team in a frenzy saying that we had a last minute show. A well done performance on her part. All of the veteran team members who have been on more tours knows to expect the unexpected and followed through these protocol. Getting us to believe it, made the newbies follow through with the joke. As the prank was in full motion I still figured that it still could be a joke. Checking the tire gage as part of our co-pilots job, I thought well I guess April fool, fooled me as I thought it was a joke and the real joke is on me that it's not a joke.

Anyway point figures it turned out to be a joke and some of us were amused. However when the other part of me thought it was going to be a show, I began praying, knowing that God would some how take us through it since it was already 12:30pm and if we are to be on time we needed to be there at 1:00pm. Case figure that would make some of us worried. Some of the girls started to sing "Blessed be the name of the Lord" and well it reminded me that God was in control and to praise him in all circumstances.

So the weekend started off as the biggest Aprils Fool Day joke I have ever been a part of, and only big because of the amount of people pulled into the joke. The lessons however brought up was about servant hood and faithfulness on my part to God. Rumors and worries were about the following day in effect of the so called show day. Will we stand by our commitment to serve if it meant getting in at 12:00am to leave at 3:00am to be ready for acquire the Fire conference?

Pain in the offering, blessed be the name of the Lord. Yes a 3:00am start time would be hard, but I figured it would really mean pain in the offering and I would have to pray about that one. As the play goes on, God didn't make us arrive at 12:00am the next day but a good 6-7pm that day. However having such fun billets, I ended up staying up till 11:00pm, one hour before the 12:00am shift. Our leave time for acquire the Fire was only at 4:00am so instead of getting up at 2:00am I was up at 3:00am. An hour time difference can do exactly that.

So I ushered that day and it was motivating. Even though the day started out for me kind of day, it ended up as a for Him, sing glory to Him day. The conference was directed at junior and senior high students but even a old gal like me pulled out stuff that challenged me.

It also brought back to mind a servant-hood to God attitude. If there is no real sacrifice in the offering, are we offering all that we can, or are we holding back? What kind of Christian am I if I am just doing what a really good sinner would do? So at the end of the conference, I was moved to want to make a change in my life. It's hard because sometimes it's easier being a really good sinner than a true soldier of God.

As it turned out, we were challenged that night to serve after the long day and to help our brothers and sisters in Christ out or to go home and sleep. My decision was clear, if I am going to offer this day to the Lord, I am going to offer this day. There was real pain in my offering, I wanted to sleep, go home and relax, but more so I wanted to bring all that I had and give it to God. Through this He has taught me a little more about what it meant to give until it hurts. To offer like the widow, a genuine offering. Through that blessings come. That night as we helped the acquire the Fire team tear down, I began to realize how blessed I was to have a team that helps each other out, and really loves on each other. I was blessed to have a less complicated stage and job to deal with and for that matter a lot smaller amount of work. I was blessed to have 10:15pm tear down times, 10:00pm on good days instead of a insane tear down of 12:00am.
Most of all I was bless to know that this ministry is giving a lot out from it's heart and doesn't need all the splash of technology to make a message reach people. It was a heart-filled message. Genuine, right down to the core.

So after all of that, more heart soared high like a eagle, it roared like a lion, it moved in like a tidal wave, and I was on fire through out the night. The spirit had moved me in more ways that I can imagine.

I returned to my bed at 3:30am this morning. Needless to say at 7:00am with a one hour time zone change, so really 6:00am, I was rested. I only rolled out of the bed at 11:00pm and had a real peaceful day; not only in spirit, but in mind as well. I followed that through with an evening church service. It was beautiful and well done. God continue to speak to me through out the service. "Beautiful things in the universe are rugged, dangerous and wild," the pastor for today said.

Beautiful things...Rugged, dangerous and wild? As he continued, God spoke and my heart poured out "Why, what have I tried doing....God, please forgive me"

Holding back from Moses His full awesomeness, He allowed His created to view only his backside. God's full glory would have killed Moses, this the Lord knew. However, God's love for his creation allowed him to see a glimpse of what would one day be given to man kind for all eternity. It wasn't about me this weekend, it was about His fire. His glory to be fulfilled in my heart.

"We are all theologians and our belief dictates who we ought to be...our actions will reflect who are God is. True fear of the Lord adds to life. Fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom." As the pastor said these words, I being to question myself. All this time of praying to get rid of fear. I once heard a quote about fear: There is nothing to fear but fear itself. Psychologist say that as if it was only a state of mind, but if you look at the creator of the universe, there is something great to fear. Who should you fear? Fear a God who can not be contained, a God who in a moment can take away the next breath you are about to inhale. The same God who we try to put in a box when things of the world seem so big to us, but in reality is nothing to the God who created the world. The same God who made the most beautiful things in the world a reflection of His character, rugged, dangerous, wild, untamed by any. For an universe as vast as ours, we need an untamed God, a uncaught, un-boxed who is not a puzzle but a full blown mystery. "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good." ~C.S. Lewis (from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

That's the God I met this weekend, that's the God I want to be on fire for. That's the God I am in love with and that's the God who only deserves my worship.

~End of weekend~
Miss Mae