Last day of November!

Can you believe that November is nearly gone???

Hurricane "Season" ends after today! What an unbelievable year. And there's a named storm out there right now.

December starting means I'm in the last month of my current ministry job in Tomball. . . where we'll be after that only God knows! And I'm talking to Him about it more and more.

These scriptures keep bringing me comfort amidst my anxiety:
"Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done." Philippians 4:6
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Planning at Spring Woodlands went pretty well. Now to get everything ready for rehearsal tomorrow and then for Sunday. I stayed up late working on an arrangement of "Emmanuel" after it came up as a good song to use; I've got about six pages in Finale with maybe a page to go (and then lyrics, missing slurs, proofing, etc.).

I'm enjoying listening to the "Christmas Open House" on KSBJ radio. You can log on and listen too at www.ksbj.org

Here's our family on Nov. 12 at our church's annual hayride. BTW, we're sitting in current height order (Lani has now been passed up by two kids!). 

Lani & Levi this last Summer at Disneyland! 

The Dalzells all together last year at Christmas time in Bend, OR. 

The "Mak-Wag-Zell" Clan all together at Camp 18 during last year's Christmas vacation. 

Caleb & Levi at our favorite local park (we call it the "Wooden Park" because they have a huge area full of play structures). 

My first blog post!

Well, I finally did it. I started my own blog. Actually, I just wanted to post a comment on Ike Graul's blog and then I had to register and next thing I knew I was creating my own blog page.

Maybe this can be theraputic. I'm kind of stressing out a bit lately since I'm about a month from when my job ends and I don't have any job offers in hand yet. This might be a good place to just share my hopes, fears, wonderings, prayers. . .

I go today to plan a worship service at the Spring Woodland Church of Christ. I'll meet with Mark Moran, their preacher, this afternoon. Thursday night I'll rehearse with their Praise Team. Then, on Sunday I'll lead worship at three services. This will be my second time there -- sort of a "call back" thing. I'm just praying about this (and several other possibilities) and trying to walk faithfully each day.

I worked out last night after taking about a week off during Thanksgiving (I was busy with family stuff and painting the outside of our house). Ouch! It was really hard to run on the tred mill; I thought I'd have to quit at about the 14 minute mark, but gutted it out to my 20 minute goal. Life lesson: don't drop your good habits when you get busy; you'll pay for it later!

Enough for now. I'll see if I get in a habit of writing here or not.