Flowers. Oh how I love flowers! The other day I got these Orchids at the store. They are just a bit of spring to look at while there is snow outside. These little flowers got to stay in my room temporarily, but I still have a white an pink one on my desk! They are beautiful.
This group, wow. They are definitely close or tied to being my favorite music artist. Their music is written for different seasons in the church. It is genuine and deep down from the heart. Every time I turn their music on or try and play it myself I am just taken back by the honest, real cries of the heart in the lyrics.
I love this second video. "It's harder to sing about the stuff you don't understand." "Sometimes we just need to admit that we don't know what the heck is going on".
Last March I went on a trip to South Africa with a church to help RHI(Restoring Hope International) in Welkom, SA! RHI is helping children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. It was one of the most life changing experiences I've ever had. It put life into perspective very well. I've been reflecting back on this trip. How can I let what I learned there effect my day to day life? Well... it showed me what mattered in life.. and what didn't matter. I saw that they rely on God for everything. Here, we get away with thinking we only need God when hard things happen.. They can't cover up their need for God with stuff very easily there because they don't have stuff. Here I get caught up in ALL my stuff. It is terrible. When seeing a child who is all alone and very sick in the hospital, when seeing houses the size of my bedroom, when seeing graveyards for three year old's, when hearing teenagers praise Jesus though they have gone through things I will never go through, that makes you start thinking twice about your life.
Matthew 5 "He said: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are those who mourn,for they will be comforted.Blessed are the meek,for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful,for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,for they will see God.Blessed are the peacemakers,for they will be called children of God.Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' "
One of the first bands I found on my search for new music was a group called Gungor. I heard one of their songs on a video and the lyrics stuck and I just had to find the artist. It took a bit of searching but I found them! That first song I heard I have carried on with me through many seasons in life. One season in particular. A friend of mine and I claimed this song "Beautiful Things" as our song. We both grew up very different backgrounds. Well, we had pretty much come from two cultures. When singing to this song together in the car with the widows down and the music cranked up our hearts were on the same page. We had found out what we had in common. Our hearts were both full of past pains, hardships, regrets, failures, and sins. In both of our lives we had dust, but we both held on to the fact that our God makes beautiful things from dust. The lyrics of this song were never so beautiful than when singing them with my friend.
In 2011 Gungor released another album called Ghosts Upon the Earth. This album has just blown me away. I rarely love every song of an album and this one I do. The entire album is like a story from beginning to end. You have to have the whole album for completion. This album has such depth and beauty. I suggest playing the whole album straight through the first few times listening. It starts out talking about creation and then the fall of man and continues on. The music gave me the same thoughts as C.S. Lewis gives in his books. It's a refreshing imagery of the ideas of life, death, and eternity. I felt this album did the same. One of my favorite songs is the last track, Every Breath.
I absolutely love music, not very gifted at it, but love to listen to music and try to play! A few years back though my idea of music changed a whole bunch. I used to listen to all the top songs on the radio and a few other indie artists. I realized after a while that music affects your heart more than you'd think. I saw that the messages of the songs I listened to were actually something I did not want to be singing about. In everything we do we are worshiping or praising something or someone. I saw some things I needed to change,so I set off on finding some new music. It didn't go so well at first. Slowly, but surely I finally did find some music.
My next few blog posts I will share with you a few of the music artists I found!
"Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD."-Psalm 150
" Unexpected mercy is the greatest thing to find when you've been broken many times and my soul found joy and for the first time in a while i felt like singing." -Mandi Mapes
Something I've kept up pretty faithfully and have loved to do is journal. There is something so good about writing down whats on your heart. An amazing thing for me has been rereading my journals. It is so good to stand back and get a perspective from afar. Looking back on the blessings, the trials, and the valleys of life gives me such an incredible view.
One thing about music that I love is how music tells stories.
I have been following Phillip Larue for the last few years and now he and his wife have started a group called Us & Our Daughters. Their story speaks to the heart in many ways. They share such an honest truth that love has it's valleys. In an interview that you can find here:.* http://halogentv.com/articles/us-our-daughters-a-love-story/ they speak of the trials in their life and how these pains brought them to write these songs.
“The interesting thing though is that we began seeing and realizing that God was trying to get our attention through trials."*
“We had to be honest, real and vulnerable, even when it was
uncomfortable,” Phillip said. “Through this process, we fell for each
other all over again. What we’re learning and still are is that love is
truly a choice worth choosing in the midst of whatever valleys we may
have to walk through.”*
This story is such a beautiful story of how God's love and grace can make even the darkest of valleys beautiful.
