And Thats a Wrap! (#2)

Another year wrapped up from our Church's Christmas Musical.  This year "Because of Grace".  A show centered on being who God created you to be.  Feeling important because of the grace God has granted you through the blessed gift of Jesus, not because of what you do, how much money you have, the people you have as friends or anything else. 

The "theme song" this year sang, "Because of grace I can be who I am.  I can stand in Him, not on what I do.  Because of grace, my future is crystal clear.  Nothing for me to fear.  My God is always near.  Because of grace."  A great message that I need to hear almost on a daily basis, and one I definitely need to pass on to my kids.

It is such a time commitment to be involved in this production.  We start practices immediately following Labor Day.  Every Sunday for an hour and a half and those with speaking/acting roles also come in almost every Thursday evening for at least 2 hours as well.  But it is so worth it.  We have such a great time figuring out our roles, our characters, and just plain goofing off! 

The entire cast

Many thanks go out to: Kevin and Tami Boesiger, the writers and creators of this awesome script and musical production.  Kevin also helps direct the play as well as leads the orchestra while Tami also plays in the orchestra.  Paul Whaley our main director.  He drives us crazy with his detailed ideas and over-used quotes and non-filtered comments, but he has an amazing gift from God to bring it all together and we love him anyway! Kim Rinne, our awesome stage manager who gets us whatever we need and makes sure it is always in the right place.  Heck she even helps us get dressed!  Bruce our fabulous sound booth guy.  The Ulrick family for managing our lights.  All the other actors and chorus members for their time commitments. Their families for giving them up for all that time.  The orchestra members for some amazing music.  Courtney York, who helped watch the kids for our Sunday afternoon practices. Kathryn Katz for letting me borrow her shoes.  Amber Koch for her supply of Silpada jewelry. And everyone who came to see us.  I hope you took something out of the message we tried to share. 

Most of all, I thank my amazing husband for letting me do this.  All that time away meant that he was in charge of the kids, a lot.  It is never easy to take over for mom, when the kids are used to having her around all of the time, but he hung in there quite well as usual.  As well as my kids for giving me up to enjoy some me time and being good for their daddy while I was gone.

Gracie, Max, Ned and Val (me)

Even more, I thank God for making this happen.  For bringing it all together and for the talents and love of all these people.  He has generously blessed them with giving hearts and selfless spirits.  I hope what we did was a small reflection of His grace and glory.

It is always a bittersweet ending.  Happy to have the calendar a little bit more open and more family time.  But so sad to not see many of my great friends but once a week with quick "Hello's" at church, and to have to wait until the next year for more great memories and inside jokes. 

You can read more about what I really learned from this year's musical here as well.