i've just one wish on this christmas eve...

what a day this has been...
it started with a little trouble from the parents...i'll go into that someday. remind me. i just don't have the minutes right now...anyway, started a little rough, but it has turned into one of the most peaceful nights of my life.
i led the christmas eve service tonight. i've done that for the past few years...well, to get the reality of what happened tonight, i need to tell a little more. our church doesn't use a traditional or written liturgy for any of our services, so it's up to the worship leaders and pastors as to what happens when and such. i am the only worship leader here who really cares a ton about having a christmas eve service (the others really like it when we have one, but they don't wanna volunteer to do it, see) which doesn't really bother me...i think simply because i care about it so much. but the way it works is very unlike a regular service, too, because i think christmas eve deserves to stand apart from other services. so i write the service more like a long piece of music with spoken scripture and carols and other songs intertwined to tell the story of christmas eve and to then transfigure into the "big picture" of christmas eve and focus for a little while on the cross, which then leads into communion...anyway, it's just about an hour service very dimly lit and quiet (i only play the piano and sing with a couple of other singers) but needless to say there's a lot of planning, coordination, and hours that i put into it. oh yeah, i also decorate the worship center, and this year designed the bulletins, since i had a little more time. anyway, every year i do this, and every year i seem to get so overwhelmed just before the service starts. i get nervous for some reason, and i usually forget to do a lot of stuff (like last year i forgot to even bring the bulletins up from the office, so we wasted like 300 nice papers and stuff...grrrr.) and i just kinda go a little crazy.
but this year, something very different happened. one of my singers, who was crucially important to a trio piece we were singing, dropped out at the last minute (for a very legit reason which i respect greatly) leaving us shorthanded, and soon after i got a call from one of my scripture readers calling in sick. i momentarily got flustered, but suddenly was overcome with this strange peace that had to be from god...later, we found a singer who learned a few parts in about 2 hours and the other scripture reader was gracious to read all of the verses instead of just his own - and it was no small amount heh...minutes before the service i realized that where i would normally have been freaking out when everything was going *right* i was now just calmly trusted when everything was wrong.
god is good to me.
he also helped me and my dad patch stuff up today...there are times when i just understand what a heel i can be sometimes...and they usually seem to be the times i think someone else is at their worst.
the irony of life...
this is such a strange christmas eve. i am very much at peace with my life in this second...which is a blessing from god tonight, because i have been feeling all but peace the past week and a half. i am away from my best friends and lover, i am very out of place here at home, and there is so much up in the air right now concerning my future and well-being.
but the theme of our advent service tonight was peace. i chose peace as the theme myself two weeks ago. knowing that i was going into a very directly un-peaceful time. i kinda forgot what it meant until i remembered jesus was born tonight...
praise god for healing peace.

...i wish i were with you

(yes i realize it should be was...but i didn't write the song, and now was just sounds wrong to me...so...were it is.)

merry/peaceful christmas, everyone.