Snow in Nashville!
So my mom just emailed me today and told me I made the Dean’s list! They sent my parents a formal letter in the mail but didn’t tell me anything? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense…lol. But… praise the Lord for carrying me through last semester well enough to achieve that.
This next paragraph is typical Aaron, and if you know my tendency to overload my schedule with everything under the sun, you’re going to chuckle a little bit. (No comments please, Mr. Fosberg. =D ) This semester, I am officially a double-principal commercial music major. That means I have four private lessons a week: commercial and classical piano, and commercial and classical percussion. It also means I have to practice twice as much. I’m also taking on my worship-leading job at Free Indeed more seriously. I’m now driving out there three nights a week, Sunday and Wednesday for services, and Monday for practice. I also have a job; it’s not a “real” job though. I’m working on campus as a school of music “monitor”–basically I just get paid $6.50 an hour, 12 hours a week, to sit around and do nothing, make hourly rounds, and make sure no one steals anything. Hey, it’s better than getting paid $0 and hour to sit around and do nothing. (Don’t worry, I don’t actually indulge in such indolent sluggishness. I usually do homework or…facebook…actually mostly facebook. Okay so maybe I do indulge in indolent sluggishness after all.) All of the above stuff, plus practice time, plus homework, plus trying to have a social life (yeah, no comments there either please), plus random stuff like playing for people’s senior recitals, and my schedule has actually morphed into an real-live nightmare of epic proportions.
At least, that’s how I viewed it at first. I would like, look at my iCal and have a spaz attack, or a nervous breakdown, one of the two. You see, I felt like God was leading me to do all this stuff, but I had no idea how on Earth it was all possible. Problem yes, solution no. Hence, spaz attacks. But then I was reading the Bible (yes, that’s how the solution always begins!) and this scripture really stuck out to me: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matt. 6:27). And I’m like, holy crap, you’re RIGHT Jesus! How is worrying about all this stuff really gonna help me? Worry doesn’t help me get my job done any better, it only keeps me from getting it done to the absolute best of my ability. So then I just decided to focus on the task at hand, ask God for strength to do it all, and let God take care of the rest. What I found was that I was able to get homework done faster, learn more, practice better, and have a more pleasant, positive attitude about it all too. I wish I would have learned this in high school. Jesus really was the wisest human being who ever lived. (I stuck the whole passage at the end of the post–read it, it’s so wise and comforting!)
On a lighter note, for commercial drum lessons this semester, I am being taught by none other than… Zoro. No, not the Spanish guy that goes gallivanting around defacing public property. Zoro is the name of my drum teacher. If you don’t know who he is, go check out zorothedrummer.com. I still can’t get over the fact that my teacher’s name is Zoro… I mean it’s like… I show up for my lesson every week and I’m like, “Hey, Zoro! How ya doin?” I just can’t believe I’m calling someone Zoro! Anyways, he’s played with all these famous people including Lenny Kravitz, and his testimony is like…radical. I think he’s my hero as far as the music world is concerned. Seriously, go check him out.
Let me just mention two of my other heroes. My mom and my dad. I can’t say it enough. I feel the need to just brag on them a little bit. God was just extremely gracious to me when he decided to stick me with them. I never stop realizing how much they gave up and sacrificed for the sake of raising me the right way. For instance, my dad sacrificed a good chunk of his Saturdays for a while when I was 7 or 8, during which time he would take me to church and let me practice on the drums while he played piano with me. (Yes, the perks of having a worship leader slash associate pastor for a dad.) But not only would he just give up his time on Saturdays to let me grow and mature on drums, he actually taught me, and put in the effort (not to mention the patience!) to make me into a musician and to beat a sense of steady tempo into me (not literally–he’s not that kind of parent). I seriously doubt that I would be pursuing music right now if he hadn’t put all that time in with me. I still have a picture to prove it! Wanna see? It’s kinda cute. 
I don’t know if he knew then or not what his work would result in. My dad has such an ability to think clearly. What inspires me the most about him is his dedication. He makes realistic plans and he always follows through with them. He wakes up and jumps in a cold swimming pool every morning at 5:30am. I don’t understand it. I just hope I’m that inspirational when I have my own children. I could go on and on about my dad forever but then I’d never get to my mom. And…yeah. My mom. Don’t get me started. She has more of a servant’s heart than anyone else I know. Seriously, I’m not joking. She never asks what she can do for herself, she’s always trying to find out how she can serve other people. And she does it in love, never in spite or with a “look-what-you’re-making-me-do” attitude. She also always does what’s right, even if it means disappointing people or making them unhappy, me included. I found this out in high school when my mom wouldn’t let me go to a dance with my girlfriend (among a multitude of other times). Mother knew best for me and didn’t stop short of making sure that the best was carried out, regardless of the attitudes I copped. Both my parents have got so much wisdom, and I feel like they always have an answer to any question I could ask about anything. They’ve put up with so much of my crap, especially in high school, and have never given up on doing what’s right, no matter what I or any of my friends thought. I guess the best way I could summarize this is… my parents gave everything they could–time, money, effort, energy, and most importantly love–so that I would have a stable, enjoyable childhood, and grow up to be big and strong physically, mentally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. And look at their work, hasn’t it paid off? Heh heh, I’m not trying to sound conceited, I promise. Really though… I just had to let out how I feel about my parents. Again, I could go on and on until I’m blue in the face, but we wouldn’t want that, would we? Maybe Courtney would. I dunno. I’ll write about Courtney next time.
Oh yeah, and everyone always tells me about how young they look. I never know how I’m supposed to react when I hear that…haha
Okay I’m done ranting. Now that you’ve read this, go watch this sbemail if you haven’t already. You’ll laugh until your stummy hurts. Yes, I did say stummy.
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Full text of Matthew 6:25-34 (the worry passage):
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
-Jesus
