Everlasting God – the giver of strength

I don’t have any big plans for the weekend. I guess I’ll have an extra day with the holiday, so I should try to do something good to take advantage of that. Next weekend, I’ll be back in Michigan for my sister’s birthday, and that’ll be great.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love the life, lyrics, and music of Rich Mullins. Some of his songs that help me through tough times are: Bound to Come Some Trouble, We Are Not As Strong As We Think We Are, Verge of a Miracle, Hold Me Jesus…

I’m thinking I might post some of my thoughts on Hold Me Jesus in the next day or two.

Today, I kept having Steven’s song “With Hope” go through my mind:

this is not at all how
we thought it was supposed to be
we had so many plans for you
we had so many dreams
and now you’ve gone away
and left us with the memories of your smile
and nothing we can say
and nothing we can do
can take away the pain
the pain of losing you but

we can cry with hope
we can say goodbye with hope
’cause we know our goodbye is not the end oh no
and we can grieve with hope
’cause we believe with hope
there’s a place by god’s grace
there’s a place where we’ll see your face again
we’ll see your face again

and never have i known
anything so hard to understand
and never have i questioned more
the wisdom of god’s plan
but through the cloud of tears
i see the father’s smile and say well done
and i imagine you
where you wanted most to be
seeing all your dreams come true
’cause now you’re home
and now you’re free and

we can cry with hope
we can say goodbye with hope
’cause we know our goodbye is not the end oh no
and we can grieve with hope
’cause we believe with hope
there’s a place by god’s grace
there’s a place where we’ll see your face again
we’ll see your face again

we have this hope as an anchor
’cause we believe that everything
god promised us is true so

we wait with hope
and we ache with hope
we hold on with hope
we let go with hope

Saturday I’m going to attend a conference about the Holy Spirit Who’s working thru: are you connected with the Father thru Jesus, with your community and with the society? It’s called: Connected? Looking forward to that! And this Sunday my newborn nephew (he was born on May 13th) is going to be baptized! I always find those baptizing moments very special, but this moment will be even more special because this time it’s my nephew wo is receiving Gods promises and blessings!

Last year was pretty hard for me. I couldn´t listen to christian music for awhile cause for me it was too hard to listen to, too painful. The only thing I was able to hold on to, was the poem “Footsteps”, as it’s hanging on my bedroom wall. But a few months ago I heard “God help me” and “Take all of me” by Rebecca St. James, these songs really have helped me and still do. Whenever it’s getting tough now, I listen to your music as well as Rebecca’s and lots of other songs, not just one in particular.

I would say my top songs for dark times is Sending and Center by Charlie Hall followed by Switchfoot’s This is your life. In the dark times, it is easy to focus in the wrong places and these songs point me in the right direction.

I’m having a babymoon this weekend. My husband and I didn’t have the resources to have a honeymoon, and almost 5 years after, with two little girls (3 yrs & 20 months) and one on the way (due August 31st) we are getting a weekend at a nice bed and breakfast :)
Needless to say I’m excited, it’ll be fun. I have such a long list of things I want to do (a puzzle, read a book, take walks, worship all night, write, tell jokes..) that I probably won’t end up doing any of them and just enjoying life.

It’s hard to find “the one” song that helps me in times of need. God seems to bring up the right one at the right time.. maybe because that’s how I was trained as a worship leader, trying to find the right song at the right time (we didn’t have preselected songs back then)
The one song that comes to mind right now is “Jesus Lover of my Soul”

Jesus, lover of my soul
Jesus, I will never let you go
You’ve taken me from the miry pit
Set my feet upon the rock
and now I know

I love you, I need you,
though the world may fall
I will never let you go
My Savior, my closest friend
I will worship you
until the very end

I probably would change the “I’ll never let you go” for “you’ll never let me go” though.
I fall so short yet He’s there.

Have a wonderful day.

I got to meet Brenton Brown at a worship conference last year at Ocean Hills Community Church in Cali… What a great guy!! I have his CD with that song on it.. one of my favorite songs! Isaiah 40:31 is my fav verse! “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

The song, “Hallelujah Jesus”, by Evan Wickham is a great song of praise, just realizing who Jesus is,and though everything around us can be chaos, Jesus is the one that is the lord of the universe and in our lives at all times…

Verse 1:
Keeper of the stars, Lord of time and space
I will live my life, lifting up Your name
Lover of my heart, God who came to save
Thank You for the cross, and the life You gave

Pre-Chorus:
Wonderful, powerful, Jesus is Your name

Chorus:
Hallelujah Jesus, hallelujah Jesus
Hallelujah Jesus, You are the Everlasting God
Hallelujah Jesus, hallelujah Jesus
Hallelujah Jesus, my Lord, beautiful You are

Verse 2:
Author of my life, Friend of sinful man
Holy mighty God, ever-great I Am
Lover of my heart, God who came to save
Thank You for the cross, and the life You gave

Bridge:
Wonderful, powerful
Merciful, You are beautiful
Wonderful, powerful
Jesus is Your name

Blessings to all of you..

Jeremy Camp’s “Walk by Faith” really struck to me when my brother died last August and carried me.

I love this song too, it is one of my favourites.

depend upon His love
by rick muchow

“Give Me Jesus” by Fernando Ortega (or Jeremy Camp or Danny Oertli). In Danny Oertli’s book “Mommy Paints The Sky”, I lost it when I read that Fernando sang that song at Danny’s first wife’s funeral.