Take me Jesus, take me now...

My most fun thing to do, hang with Marty. Yep, I could sit and strum him for hours. And actually, I think that's what I did today after the memorial service.  So, I tried recording another song today.  I think I'm getting better at the whole song and dance thing.  Oh wait, no, I mean sing and strum... haha whatever.  Can't wait to play and sing with Ryan and Kyle.  As with all the other recordings I post, this also sounds better with headphones.  Really, it does.

 

deer diary

Oh deer, oh deer, oh deer.

What a horrible morning...done in by a 6 year old.  I will take that as my cue to step away from teaching.  I am too old and old fashioned in my childrearing ways to be put in that position again.  It was pure disaster.  A few glasses of wine later I was blissfully passed out on the couch.  I wish I could go back in time and not gone to church today.  I didn't do anyone any good by being there today.  In my imagined do-over we get 2 feet of snow and I have to stay home.

Yeah, keep dreaming.

Bill Bachmann died....Uncle Moses died.  They are happy now, rejoicing in heaven.   I'm reminded of a line from I  Surrender All, "Take me Jesus, take me now."  I wonder how many people actually sing those words and mean it.

Tomorrow is another day to start over trying to get things right.

my rewards

After my last post I decided I needed to lighten up.  Here are my boys - beautiful on the inside as well as the outside.

Ryan singing with the Grace Men's Quartet

Kyle being amazing on violin

Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from Him.  

Psalm 127:3

And this is a little bugger that was nibbling up some bird seed.  I'm pretty sure it's either him or one of his buddies that pulled down and broke our bird feeders.  He must be really hungry.

Who’s your daddy?

Listen, this isn’t what you think.  (Don’t you hate it when someone starts out a sentence with “Listen”?)  I’m not talking about your physical earthly father, I’m talking about your spiritual father – your real father - the one you belong to and take after.   You have his characteristics, and act like him.  You can’t help it.  You have his nature. 

If you are Christian (I’m talking about a real Christian, not just someone who “considers” himself to be Christian), then your Father is God Almighty, the Creator of all there is, the First and the Last, the Great I Am….yeah you get the picture.  If God is your Father, then I would expect you to be loving, kind, patient, forgiving, and a slew of other cool and godly things.  I would expect you to view the Bible as God’s written word, the Truth.

If you are not a Christian, then your father is Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, the Angel of Light.   What are some of his lovely traits?  Oh yes, he is evil and wicked to the core. He is a deceiver, an accuser, a murderer, a tempter, a thief, and the father of lies, among many other nasty things.  If this bad boy is your daddy, then I’d expect you to view the Bible as a book of old legends and myths and stories.

John 8:⁴⁴ For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.

An interesting thing is that when we are born into this world, Satan is everyone’s daddy.  He is the God of this world.  We are all born with his ugly sinful nature. 

2 Corinthians 4:4 Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

We all start out the same, but there is a way to get a new Father.  If you want a new nature, seek adoption by God the Father by trusting in His Son, Jesus Christ.  He died on the cross to give you a new life, to take away your horrible sin nature, to pay for all your screw ups, and make you a child of God.  Satan offers doubt, fear, guilt, anger, hatred, hopelessness, shame, bitterness, unforgiveness, and eternal damnation.  On the other hand, God offers love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control, mercy, hope, and eternal life.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.  We all start out as lost sinners, but we don’t have to stay that way.  God made a way for us to be His child, and it cost Him the life of His only Son.  (John 3:16)  The moment you trust in Jesus Christ, you will be forgiven and free.

And while we are on the subject of fathers, can anyone explain to me why a woman would deliberately go out and get pregnant and have a child with full intention of raising the child alone without the father?  In what universe does make sense?  Every child has an earthly father who created them, and every child needs their father.  To set out in a deliberate manner to raise a child fatherless is an act of cruelty and selfishness.  A person who does this is so self-absorbed that they don’t have room for compassion for others.  A person who does this thinks more highly of themselves than they ought to because they THINK that they are better and smarter than a man and a woman raising a child together.  They THINK the child is better off with just them…and they are dead WRONG.  God planned all along that a man and a woman should be joined together in marriage, where children would be raised together by both parents.  My heart breaks for any child who’s very immature and selfish mother had them because they “wanted” a baby, in the same way someone might want a dog or a cat.  They think it will be fun to have a baby.  They think they deserve a baby because they are spoiled rotten little brats who are used to getting whatever they want.  But they never think twice of the consequences of their choices or take any responsibility for the messes they cause.  They play the victim and blame others for every disaster in their lives. 

Some day, I pray that those little fatherless children when asked, “Who’s your daddy?” can say, “God!”  Even if their moms are dummies for doing what they did, I pray that they will turn to God and be forgiven of all their stupid and selfish junk.

2 Corinthians 5: ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

19 week progress report

Stronger
 

 Oceans
 

 Oceans blooper
 

It's been less than 5 months since I started learning guitar, and I haven't posted anything for a while, so I decided to put a couple of them up.  Not perfect or great by any means, but it's where I am now.  I am seeing a lot of progress, so it's all good.  I love my new guitar so much that I have trouble putting it down.  My fingers get so sore, but I don't care.

It is harder for me to sing while playing guitar, but I am getting better at it. Tomorrow I'm supposed to have my first vocal lesson since December, but with the snow maybe not.

my happy, hollow friend :-D

Meet Martin.  I love to hold him and sing with him.  We will grow closer as the years go by, and we will make beautiful music together.

my first Martin

I took my beautiful jumbo Ibanez back to the store with the intention of getting another very beautiful Ibanez, only smaller.  I was all about the looks...I wanted the fancy inlays and sweet colors.

But then I tried this Martin and just loved the way it sounded, and it is so comfortable.  So I said goodbye to the fancy looks and went the way of the guitar purists... my first Martin.  It is definitely not what I expected to get, but I am really happy with it. I'm so psyched to play it and get really good.  I miss playing and I miss singing....haven't done much of it the past couple of weeks.  Can't wait to start again.  I'm going back to see Zuke soon to work something out.  She still wants me to do a solo at church but I seriously don't know if that's going to fly.

The Manor

couch in the ladies bathroom

 We decided to do something totally outrageous and took the kids to The Manor in West Orange.  It was so ridiculously extravagant that I felt kinda guilty afterward.  My thoughts go something like this, "None of us could eat $50 worth of food."  Oh well.  It's a very fun memory.  It was very cool being able to try all the fancy food and desserts.  And some of us ended up feeling very sick for having tried to eat $50 worth of food!  haha :-D

We had a super nice week with Hilary being here.  We cooked and ate a lot, played some fun Wii games, did a lot of relaxing, and they even had a chance to go skiing.  Now the house is quiet again.

And Ryan is still on tour with the GBC Men's quartet.  They are doing all kinds of fun and exciting things while traveling.  He's making some terrific memories and gaining some great experiences through all of this.  It looks like there may even be a full time worship leading job on the horizon.

Describing God's Indescribable Grace

One Thing Remains

Sing We Noel


Your Grace Still Amazes Me


We had some of the students from GBC stay with us Saturday night after their performance/presentation "Describing God's Indescribable Grace" at Grace Bible Class Church in Passaic.  We so much enjoyed having them stay with us.  What a great bunch of good kids!

Kyle and Hilary and I went to the Christmas Party at Preakness, and that was fun.  A couple of people who are, or who have been regular singers were very complimentary about the worship last Sunday and told me I did a really good job!  Maybe because I am so new at this, having only sung 4 times in my life, it means a great deal to me to hear those positive words about my singing.  Especially since the last time I sang I got such terrible feedback.  I don't know how anyone could have the courage or confidence to try again if they only hear negative comments and nothing encouraging.

The wonderful thing about singing last week was that I knew there were people there who loved me and supported me, and they were cheering me on.  It is so much easier to do a good job when you know people have faith in you, and in your abilities.  It is very hard to sing or do anything when people don't wish the best for you and continually doubt you.

It is time for me to look forward to my next venture.  I'm not sure what it will be yet, but it will be fun and exciting, and it definitely will NOT involve any naysayers!   I am too old to defend myself against people who don't want to me to sing.

Sadly, I had to say goodbye to Ryan today after church.  The Quartet headed to Eastport Bible Church to continue their tour.  It was hard to say goodbye.  It was hard to not cry during the service this morning thinking about the fact that it would be the last I'd see Ryan until summer.  I am so thankful that Ryan and Kyle sang and played with me last week.  I am so proud of both of them, and so honored to be their mom, and so grateful to have been on the stage with them, and sing praises to our God.  I am so relieved that the entire time we were leading worship it was good and successful and really quite wonderful, aside from some technical problems.  I'm glad we had the opportunity to do this one time during Christmas break before he left today, and I'm glad it was appreciated.  I am going to miss him again.  In less than a week, Kyle and Hilary are leaving.  That won't be a good day.

 Hilary, Adam, David

Ryan, Kyle, Jonah

 David, Jonah, Ryan and Tyler

 The whole GBC gang...

 Pastor Gary loves Ryan...

I love you, Ryan... see you in the summer for some more fun singing!!  Thank you for having faith in me!

end of the year Worship Leading

Here are the videos of us leading worship, in the order we did the songs.  Aside from some technical issues, and the fact that recording this was a last minute decision, they didn't turn out too badly.

Forever Reign


O Come O Come Emmanuel

O Come Let Us Adore Him

God Be Praised

The Earth is Yours

Christ is Enough

Obviously, it wasn't all perfect, there are things we could have done differently (like move those darn roses).  But it was still wonderful being up there sharing this with my boys, and I am very happy to have the videos of the day.

Here's the verse that got me through it:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. 

I will strengthen you and help you: I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 

Isaiah 41:9-11

2013 ==> 2014

We rang in the New Year at Grace church.  There was nice worship and lots of food, games, and a comedian... We didn't stay till midnight, but went home and watched the finale of Merlin instead.  Nice family time.  We have been enjoying way too much homemade chocolate candy with almonds. :-)

Ryan helped me with some guitar playing today.  It will soon be time to really put some thought into my next venture.  In the mean time, I'm going to do a lot more on guitar than I have been the past few months.  I might learn some kid songs for CBC while I'm figuring out what to do next.

There are some busy days ahead, so all of this will be on the back burner for a bit.