Do Over's

Last night Travis and I watched Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore. If you aren't familiar with the movie it's about a young reporter who gets her big break by getting to go back to high school for her senior year as an undercover student. It was so important that she had this chance to do-over her senior year, and from the movie flashbacks you could understand why - the first time 'round was terrible.

The movie made me think a lot last night about what things I would choose to do over if I had the chance, how I could go back and change the type of person that I am now:
~ I would have pursued the Lord more as a teenager. The church I was in had a fairly weak youth group (basically non-existent), but for too long I allowed that to be the excuse that I wasn't growing in my faith. I was depending upon them for my relationship with Christ - when it was my responsibility all along.
~ I would have practiced the piano more. 12 years of piano lessons, a piano major for 1 year at college. I sigh when I think what I could play like now if I had practiced more!
~ I probably would have gone to a state school for college rather than a small private Christian school. Please don't hear me say that I don't love the friendships and the memories from the small school I went to (student body approximately 1000 my graduating year). But I think I could have gained a lot more if I had been in an environment where I was challenged more spiritually and had opportunity to be involved in campus ministries like Campus Crusade, Intervarsity, etc.
~ Developed better eating habits and a desire/love for exercise in high school & college. Maybe I would like exercise better by now . . . or maybe not. :-)

And, a humorous story to tie into my "do-over" theme here: yesterday I was substituting leading our music at church since our music coordinator was out of town at a wedding. I wanted to do this cool medley I had come up with for two Twila Paris choruses and in rehearsal we figured out how to pull it off, and, although it was tricky getting from the first song into the second, we managed to do it several times successfully before the service. So, we get to the service . . . I welcome everyone, we stand and sing, we sing the first song of the medley . . . and then we crash and burn getting to the next song. Not just fumble into it. I had to stop the song so we could start over. Thankfully, our congregation is very laid back and they just laughed when I explained that it really did sound cool in our rehearsal. Then we just started song #2 from the top and went at it. It was a little awkward and slightly embarrassing, but I'm laughing about it on Monday so it can't have been that bad. :-)