Someone please staple my mouth shut

Many of my count-on-two-hands-readers know what I mean by a "church was great, there was no preaching" kind of service.

Let me tell you about Sunday's evening service. It was awesome. I taught the choir a new song called Bounce Back - a great encouraging song - and we had a ball. Literally. The worship leader introduced the song by bouncing rubber balls into the congregation. It is a good thing to have a great time at church!

Fast forward to last night at church. It wasn't a shout down your hair service, it more turned into beautiful, intense worship, with everyone lovingly praying for each other. Wonderful, glorious unity.

Pastor ministered for a little while there instead of preaching, and then it was turning to joyful testimonies.

So we had testimony service.

Let me preface this by saying that normally, when I have a word of testimony, I end up blubbering my way through it. It's rather pathetic. So I try not to testify very often.

But I just couldn't get Sunday's Bounce Back out of my mind, and so when he turned and asked for a testimony from someone on the platform, I bravely volunteered. It went something like this:

"You just never know how much of a Comforter God is until you are in despair ... you never know what a Healer He is until you are broken ..."

(and here is where someone should have just stopped me, and all would have been fine. But no. I went on.)

"And that song, Bounce Back? I was thinking, you never know how far you can bounce back until you have been stretched."

Being encouraged, I continued.

"... and rubberbands do not break until they grow cold ..."

Various AMENS from the congregation gave me a little more confidence.

"SO I want to remain on fire for the Lord, and He can just keep on stretching me ... because the farther He stretches me, the bigger the wound on the devil's behind when I bounce back."

I said THE DEVIL'S BEHIND - in church. In the microphone.