Category Archives: music

Monday Morning Meditation: Start Your Day with Power

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What are you like when you wake up in the morning? How do you react to your alarm? Are you excited about a new day? Are you instantly weighed down by the worries of life? Do you hit snooze several times, unready to face the day?

I’m a morning person, without a doubt. I often wake before my alarm even goes off. I almost never hit snooze, but jump out of bed and usually either go for a run or have study time.

That doesn’t mean I always wake with joy or gratitude. As I hit the pavement or settle in for study, what pops into my head is often all the things I need to do or am concerned about. I struggle to focus as I become overwhelmed with what lies ahead.

“But as for me, I will sing about your power.
Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love.
For you have been my refuge,
a place of safety when I am in distress.” Psalm 59:16 (NLT)

Reading this psalm today was a powerful reminder for me. I have a choice in the morning about what I focus on. I can choose to focus on God’s power, His ability to take care of my concerns. I can sing of His love that has always been unfailing and will not change just because my circumstances feel insurmountable. I can make Him my refuge from my first waking moment.

What can you do to make God your focus in the morning? How can you sing with joy rather than wake with worry and frustration?

Lent: Moderation & Consecration

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Lent is upon us.

Recently, my kids were quite sick. During that time, I was surprised by an unexpected blessing: I had to slow way down.

When I was sitting with a sick kid or stuck under a sleeping baby, my iPhone options were boring me. Thus, I got back into the habit of actually reading books!

We were also unable to go to church due to lingering illness, so I read Acts 22 (no special reason – I’m reading through Acts and that’s the chapter I was on), as well as that day’s reading from My Utmost for His Highest. Then we watched a pastor friend’s church service over the internet.

As I found a few minutes to pray, I was thinking of the upcoming Lenten season and what, if anything, God would have me do during that time. The line “Make My Life a Prayer To You” came to mind.

So I began to sing through the lyrics:
Make my life a prayer to You, I want to do what you want me to,
No empty words and no white lies, no token prayers, no compromise
I want to shine the light you gave Through Your Son, you sent to save us,
From ourselves and our despair. It comforts me to know you’re really there.

Oh, I want to thank you now, for being patient with me
Oh, it’s so hard to see when my eyes are on me
I guess I’ll have to trust and just believe what you say
Oh, you’re coming again, coming to take me away

I want to die, and let you give Your life to me, so I might live,
And share the hope You gave to me – The love that set me free,
I want to tell the world out there You’re not some fable or fairy tale
That I made up inside my head: You’re God, The Son, You’ve risen from the dead.

I want my days to be free of rituals and compromise of any sort. I want my entire life, every moment, to be a living sacrifice, wholly devoted to serving Him and others. I know there are areas that I do still falter or willfully disobey. I want to learn to submit them to Him.

This Lent for me will be a time of moderation & consecration, a time where I ask God to cleanse my life of any idolatry (the song “Give Us Clean Hands” also keeps coming to mind), a time to continue on the journey of becoming all God created me to do so that I can do all the things He has called me to do.

And when I falter and I am not able, I will choose to remember that He is able.

Thoughts on Life, Work & Music

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I started reading this book, The 4-Hour Work Week. I read a review over at The Simple Dollar and got a copy from the library. The young man who wrote it (younger than me, at least!) is obviously quite entrepreneurial, and his methods definitely wouldn’t work for everyone, but there is a lot of meat to be taken from it. I’ve started taking some notes & jotting down some ideas.

One of the ways I’m simplifying my life is by clearing out the inboxes of my various e-mail accounts, as well as trying to reply right away when I can. My main e-mail account now has 36 e-mails waiting to be replied to rather than the 150+ it usually has. Now I have 2 more accounts to clean out.

I’m not sure if some of my new blog friends know that I’m a singer/songwriter. I don’t have a professional CD, but in the past had a CD made of a concert. I also, in the past couple of years, did rough recordings of 2 newer songs, “You” & “You Know Me“. I already have about 10 songs written for another project. The drummer from church said we should get some studio time and record some of the songs, which I’d love to do. So one of my goals for the next 6 months is to record at least a few of the songs for my next CD project, which will be called “You”. That’s one of the things the book has reminded me that I’d like to do.