Waiting for a Second Wind

I am tired. Sarah and I finished memorizing our verses the first week of October and I have been reviewing them pretty faithfully since, but still sometimes when one of our quizzers says a reference I will look at them blankly for a few seconds before giving up and saying, "What's the first word?" Also, I am beginning to be of the opinion that when the first word is "for", "and", or "then", they should not count it as a prompt, and when the first phrase is something like: "And (or "then") the Lord (or "God", or both) spoke (or "said") to Moses (or Noah, Jacob, Abraham, or him, or them, or whoever) saying (or "and said")"– that should not count either. Or they could make it all count as one prompt: "AndtheLordspoketoMosessaying" sort of like "inasmuch" or "nevertheless". However, that is not the case, so I must resign myself to trying to make stick in my head whether it was God or the Lord, spoke or said, Moses or him, in all the times that God (or the Lord) spoke (or said) to Moses (or whoever) and put as brave a face on it as possible under the circumstances.

We really are enjoying ourselves. I promise.
But we do look forward to that moment on the plane ride home, on the car ride on the way to church, while I wait for my piano lesson, to not need to recite/mutter verses to ourselves. It will be nice to have a break for a few months. But we will miss it very much.
I remember last year when we came home, getting a frantic feeling whenever I went anywhere for weeks afterward that I was forgetting something only to realize that I was missing my stacks of verses and that I didn't need them anymore. However, just because we won't be carrying around our stacks of verses, that does not mean that we won't have them with us. Now that they are in our memory, God will bring them to us just when we need them most. Which is why we knock ourselves out over a competition that just started a few years ago and still has many wrinkles and flaws. Because, of all competitions, this is one that you can truly say from your heart:

"It isn't about the competition".

Psalms 71:14-17  But I will hope continually,

And will praise You yet more and more. 

  My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness

And Your salvation all the day,

For I do not know their limits. 

I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD;

I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only. 

  O God, You have taught me from my youth;

 and to this day I will declare your wondrous works.