blessed be that benediction.

"Cheese. I would like some cheese. But what kind? A little dill havarti sounds good. Ooh oh, or Irish cheddar. Mmm. Or some of that mushroom and leek business we had at that winery last year. Yeah, that'd be good. What about Fatboy Slim? How come I haven't heard anything from them lately? I mean, come on...Praise You?!? GREAT song! I wonder what Lindell's favorite cheese is. And if he's ever heard Fatboy Slim..."

Such was the devolved state of my thought processes during the third and final sermon point at tonight's Joyce Meyer conference. I have dead relatives with greater mental acuity and focus than I had during that last stretch.

It wasn't her. She was great! She was fine. I just hit the wall. I had clapped and whooped enthusiastically through the front end of the thing, controlled my eye-rolling and brow-wrinkling for the benefit of the constantly roving cameras (they tell people not to chew gum so it doesn't mess up the TV shot!), and even considered joining the standing section for Matt Redman's worship warm-up. I was tired. Exhausted. Done.

Mostly, I was just thinking, What the h**k am I doing here? And not just here. What the h**k am I doing in general?

Matt made me philosophical. I somehow fell in love with Redman's music years ago, and still have this CD with the ubiquitous "Blessed Be Your Name." To remember that CD, and that time, and then to look at my life, and find myself now fully in the fold, and singing this song in Springfield, MO, after having spent the afternoon volunteering at a megachurch full of people who speak bizarre languages and hop up and down...I don't know.

I laugh as I think about it, but God, what are You doing to me?

I want to run because it's too much, too different. There's too large a margin for error. My friends are never going to understand this. What will happen after I leave? Is this sustainable?

But it's also too true. Aside from the glitzy lights, and this raspy-voiced preacher saying things like "Claim it in the blood!" (which just sounds gross, by the way), and the women whose arms seem to shoot up randomly throughout, and the cameras, and the noise, and the Redman--it's true. I imagine God across the table from me, pushing all of that to the side with a sweep of His enormous arm (does God have arms?), and We sit, quietly with one another. And it's good.

It is good.

I don't understand all of this. I don't like all of it. Some days, I wake up and my goal is just to keep my faith until night fall. But I want to believe that His plan is greater than my dream.

That's all.