Category: music

silly in starlight

Today was sick with disappointment and human failure – sick with sadness.

But, today was heavy with grace. 

I was stepping in it and leaning on it and drinking it in from one moment to the next, believing there was always enough for the more that I needed.

I just kept getting lost in it – God’s all-sufficient, works-empowering grace – and then I got caught up. It was just me in my car, no kiddos in the backseat this time.

Just me, with room to stretch and sing.

And then there was kind of a tingle that rushed out from my chest and made music all over my civic. I got silly in that city starlight tonight, singing words like proclamations from my soul.

It was like my soul snuggled close to the person I could have been – the person God saved me from being and then burst out and screamed, “I am redeemed!”

All the ugly that threatens to keep a soul downcast, mired in the sin of this world, is not far from where my feet would tread – save for the grace of God. Not one client I have is more hopeless than I was when Christ found me. Not one. And I am redeemed!

The realization was electric. I sang and sang and reached out my hands in praise. This God of all creation redeemed me from the deepest and darkest pit where so many make their home. This same God is able to reach every single, sloppy soul in the wreckage of their sin.

This grace, unspeakable grace, God has made abundant so that I am equipped to do every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8) and He receives the glory.

So, I’ll get silly in starlight and sing.

I’ll sing and let the praise rise up from the darkness and into the night.

I will praise the God who gives the grace that causes a darkened heart to seek the light.
I’ll sing to the One who invites the darkest soul to come and drink and thirst no more.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 2

and then a wave stole the sand away

It was like a wave washed up and stole the sand away – as if I stood looking down at my sand covered ankles wondering what was underneath and then a wave broke into the frame and stole the sand away.

The wooden pews in the downtown church on the corner were cramped with every version of hipster and we sang shoulder to shoulder:

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

And the wave washed up and stole the sand away. What an amen I heard my heart say in those moments! What a beautiful discovery to listen as the Lord tells me once again about the firm ground on which I stand. It was like a deep breath that turned up the corners of my mouth and filled my ribs with certainty.

God was singing His sovereignty over me, reminding me of His grace. God was breaking into my small viewing frame to wash away the sand covering the very firm foundation.

And I am not afraid.
I am standing on a firm foundation and God is washing away the shifting sand at my feet.

We are the loved ones, friends of God indeed.
…
may the days stay sweet, may your steady heart beat
be the good in me, the good in me

Posted on by Caroline 0

a tree I’ll grow

I had a no-show today and it’s tearing me up.

How can you just not show up to see your little baby girl? What is more important?

I’m shaking off my judgments and getting a good helping of humanity today – the unfinished, raw, and unruly kind of humanity. We are all capable of this, we are.

Still, it’s tearing me up.

This is the love I wish all the children could crawl into – the kind that never leaves and always stays, the kind of love that is older and stronger than this breath of life, the kind of love that has roots deep like a tree.

I don’t know who this song is sung to, but I’m singing it today.

Sometimes melodies are just better than plain words.

 

Posted on by Caroline 2

sometimes I speed what should be slowed

I’ve been thinking lately about pace.

What speed is fitting as we pursue the Lord – is it always an all-out, relentless rush? Are we always breathless about getting to where God is leading?

I’ve been thinking about pace because I wonder if we sometimes speed what should be slowed. I wonder if we create some of the crazy that surrounds our spiritual sprints – like we’ve thrown into the air all the race markers and so haphazardly attempt to fix our eyes on Jesus while anxiously searching the way.

Maybe this isn’t making any sense to you (is it?), but I’ve sure noticed that God means for some things to be experienced slowly. Prayers are sometimes this way, and blessings. And suffering. Sometimes, it seems, we’d like to think we can control the outcome of the race we’re running, the “race marked out for us,” by more intensity. Or maybe it’s just me.

It is a beautiful thing to take slow steps of faith. Not timid steps, just slow and steady steps that say,

“I am not worried where my foot will fall. I am not anxious about getting somewhere sooner or later. I am at peace with the amount of grace God has given for this step. I do not doubt the Lord’s provision.”

It is a beautiful thing to take slow steps of faith and I’m learning this, slowly. Maybe it’s because slow steps allow my frenzied, distracted heart time to believe in the God who will sustain me.

Maybe my hurried, race pace is something I’ve thought up as a back-up plan if God’s doesn’t work. Maybe I need to be restful even while I’m determined to persevere as a runner in a race – believing that my finishing doesn’t depend on my performance as much as it depends on God’s grace.

“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalm 46:10

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” Psalm 56:3

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” Proverbs 19:21

“It is in vain that you rise early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.” Psalm 127:2

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34

Today, I’ll try taking slower steps.

This song seems to be about the right pace.

let LOVE fly like CrAzY
Posted on by Caroline 4

a day, brilliant all on its own

The sun was brilliant today.

The wind sure fought hard, but the sun definitely stole this Saturday show. It came in through our front windows like we invited him in for morning coffee, like God knew we needed real warmth and not the manufactured kind.

Can a day ever just be brilliant all on its own?
Can it be beautiful without something specific making it so?
Can a day make you all kinds of emotional?

This day did.

So, I am singing the songs stored inside my heart and believing God is good for His promises. There’s a miracle making merry in my soul – a miracle on the other side of every believing step.

Step.
[He is faithful!]
Step.
[He is faithful!]
Step.
[He is faithful!]

When I believe the Lord is good for His promises, the boldness of my steps proclaim the greatness of One who keeps His word. And with each step, my heart wants more of His glory to be proclaimed – it’s a crazy exponential equation. Get more grace, believe more grace, proclaim more grace, all to the magnifying glory of the Lord.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

forget yourself in worship

Last week, I smiled with eyes closed at the woman sing-shouting several rows behind me and across the aisle at church. Her honest, lung-filled offering grated on me at first – silently wishing she would find her place in the worship chord and slide in a little less loudly.

Then, I smiled. Her sharp, wide-mouthed notes didn’t irritate me less (growing up a musician’s daughter has its drawbacks), but with eyes closed I imagined a different worship setting.

I imagined a crowd of people of all shapes and sizes and colors and tongues flooding a throne with an uproarious and joyful noise. I imagined new chords and instruments and I imagined that no individual voice could be identified. Every noise jumping out to make the song got swallowed up in the glory of the sound and there was a distinct awareness on the faces of the worshippers that the sound wouldn’t be as beautiful if every single person was not singing.

I smiled because that prideful irritation got planted in me but Christ, in His grace, could uproot it and He did.

This morning as I was reading this reflection by Tony Reinke, my thoughts drifted back to that moment. Why do I guard the Sunday morning experience as if the music is for me? Not that the offering should not be excellent (like I said, I am a musician’s daughter and it is not intolerant to say good music sounds different than bad music), because we should strive to make the best, most beautiful and joyful noise unto the Lord. Our praise offerings should be excellent.

But the Sunday morning experience, the behind the steering wheel radio experience, the living room stage experience and the robed choir experience should all make bold proclamation that the music is for a King seated on a throne. It might, but it doesn’t have to please me.

I’ll admit there are times when I have no audience but the cold air in my Civic, but I’m secretly more interested in my rendition of the Gungor song than I am in its object.

After showing several places in Scripture where Jesus sings, Reinke writes,

God is worshipped around the globe as a result of the all-sufficient work of the resurrected Christ. In this way, Jesus is the Perfect Worshipper of his Father. And from heaven he fulfills the role of Chief Worship Leader of the global church.

We are led in worship in the auditoriums and living rooms and driver’s seats of cars by Christ who directed all praise to the Father.

What song is in your soul today?
How is Christ leading you to join with Him in song?
How can you forget yourself in worship?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 2

I am a sinner, in the first person

Yesterday, I stood in a new church singing a song with all the old, redemptive swagger of a classic hymn. We rested on the chorus in repeat and I finally sang in the first person.

“I am a sinner, if it’s not one thing it’s another
caught up in words, tangled in lies
You are a Savior and you take brokenness aside
and make it beautiful, beautiful.”
(Brokenness Aside by All Sons & Daughters)

I am a sinner. 

Have you ever been challenged to make “I am …” statements? I often asked my students in Honduras to make a list of ways they could finish that sentence. We would then look through the list and talk about which of those statements were true, which were false, and which were within his/her power to change. All those conversations are nice and tidy when I’m on the counseling end, encouraging people to examine their inner being and ask God to reveal if there is any wrong thing.

As I stood there singing, “I am a sinner” in the first person, something broke. “Sinner” is not the first thing I’d like to have follow my “I am” statements. I’d like to have an impressive list before I make that admission. I always have a hard time thinking about specific ways I sin when I’m standing in church (so convenient, I know). But not yesterday. With every repeating chorus I thought of ways I’d made my heart ugly.

I am a sinner.

The pastor introduced the sermon series on generosity and we read from Luke 18 about the offerings of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
(Luke 18:9-14 ESV)

I work with the kind of stories that would tear your heart out – parents, children, families, neighbors capable of things we try not to know about. There’s a distance that threatens to creep in to my posture when I come before the Lord. There are so many things I haven’t done and would never do.

I pictured the posture of the tax collector at the temple and his first person proclamations struck me. Both the Pharisee and the tax collector prayed for favor. The Pharisee was grateful for what he was not. The tax collector was grateful for who God was. 

The tax collector prayed with a posture that honored the Lord, recognizing how great God would have to be to save him – a sinner.

It is this kind of posture that produces a generous heart – a desperate, first person statement that begs for mercy from the One who is merciful.

I am a sinner, but You are my Savior and you take brokenness aside and make it beautiful, beautiful.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 2

joy lives next to loneliness

Sometimes more than other times I feel the weight of packed suitcases. It’s like a surprise that sweeps the hair straight up on my arms. I forget, I guess. Things get going – mornings and middays and meetings – and I forget, I guess, that home is not places.

Then the question drops like all kinds of innocence with friends at the dinner table, “So, how do you like living in Des Moines?”

There’s nothing special about the question, but it hits me like surprise and my hair stands straight up. It’s been a month and a half now, living in Des Moines and working as an in-home counselor, and the question is like paralysis. My mouth says the pleasantries, but my mind speeds by the years after college – Chicago, Austin, Tegucigalpa, Ames, and now Des Moines – and I realize I am still moving.

I get all kinds of emotional about the motion and I wonder if I’ll ever hang my hat or turn in my key or take off my shoes somewhere permanent. I wonder if I’ll ever stop moving. Now, I’m queasy.

My conscience pricks before self-pity sets in or some other such selfish device. Maybe this is the drama I create – maybe these thoughts are not even worth all the words. Having time to think about whether or not I like living in a certain city, whether or not I like working my new job, whether or not I like searching for a church… they are first world questions and I won’t pretend otherwise.

But it is not exactly a bad feeling I feel, this loneliness, and it is there getting stuck in my throat while I think up an answer to the question at the dinner table. I realize I may never get planted in a place of permanence on this side of heaven and it’s both a good and hard thought.

I suppose I am surprised to find joy lives so content next to this loneliness.
I suppose this is home.

And the mystery of this supposing can only lead me into praise.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 3

the storm is passing over

This song appeared on a compilation CD to benefit those affected by Hurricane Sandy and I’ve been playing it a lot the last couple weeks. Hurricane Sandy is still a nightmare for some – struggling to put back the pieces of their lives after houses caved in on themselves and memories washed away with several feet of water. It’s not as newsworthy because there have been tragedies since that won out the airplay.

So many storms, this world has. So many storms.

You know what I love, though?

I love that my Lord promises the storm is passing over and I love that I can trust Him.

Because the storms, they just keep coming.
Death and destruction and disease – it all looks so relentless and it’s tempting to fashion our lives out of fear.

My Lord has a plan for redemption that defeats destruction and He invites all to let Him fashion our lives out of freedom.  

(Get the WHOLE cd for free and then leave a tip to help out the people in NYC)

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

All Glory Be to Christ

What a wonderful thing to sing.

This morning, reading in my advent devotional (Good News of Great Joy), I wondered again at the miracle and mystery of Jesus’ birth. A magnificent story because it is true and it started before time began.

The mystery of the birth of Jesus is not merely that he was born of a virgin. That miracle was intended by God to witness to an even greater one—namely, that the child born at Christmas was a person who existed “from of old, from ancient days.” from Good News of Great Joy

This mysterious, miraculous birth changed the course of history because One who had always been entered in to our chronological timeline, just as it was prophecied in Micah 5:2, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”

All Glory be to Christ, the Ancient of Days.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0