I can’t speak for every songwriter, and I’m not even sure how many I represent, but I guess that isn’t why I am writing.  I write because I have a need to express what I am learning, and a desire to work out the ideas and thoughts out in the open where I can see them best and analyze their impact.   You see, my life is impacted on a daily basis by things I see, read, feel, touch, hear, and experience and many of those experiences shape me—change me.  I can’t stay still, I can’t remain the same.  I must work through life’s processes—rejecting some and embracing others.  My songwriting begins with my vulnerable heart.

Out of the storehouse of my collections, I begin to build and assemble.  Using the threads of my emotions, and the glue of my convictions, I see myself as a creator of collages.  I take the Words of Scripture,  let them live in me, let them shape and change me, and then put them on paper or set them to music with the heart and passion they stirred in me as they rebuilt my mind.  I love to take a picture from my window—of the sea and sky and weave them into the collage.  I desire to securely hang each thought using the convictions that direct my life and the authenticity of the Author of my life—the One who holds all things together by the Word of His Power. (Colossians 3:17).  This is how I live; not just the way I write.

Somewhere in my art you will discover it if you look closely—my flaws.  You’ll detect my weak phrasing, or my halted beginnings.  You will discover my wrong notes, and my raw emotions.  Sometimes I will tell you outright my fumbling and foibles.  This is true of my life as well.  Sometimes I stammer and stall, sometimes I hide and retreat.  Many of you I call for prayer.  All of this becomes part of my collections.  Each fear and failure is recreated into an experience or expression that, woven with the grace of God, becomes another piece of art.

I think what makes the difference in me between a vulnerable, flawed mess and an artist is the courage to trust that God will make something out of my life.  I have to “let go” of my experiences and stories and allow them to walk ahead of me sometimes into places I would never have reached if I kept them stored in my mind.  I put it on paper, or set it to music, and let it go.  Then I bring my heart before the Lord again and ask Him to evaluate it, shape it, change it, and fill it, and you know what?  He always does.

I am learning that life does not wait for your perfect plan, your pay raise, your successful diet, your New Year’s Resolution, or your cure.  Life ticks away as moments…little gifts wrapped in a thousand ways.  Memories are made in moments–not the moments you are planning for or talk about in the futuristic sense; but the moments you just lived while you were dreaming of another life.

While you are putting off getting family photos until you lose that 15 pounds, your children are growing up, or maybe moving out and starting their own families.  That perfect job that somehow alludes you also potentially blinds you to the grace-filled life you currently possess.  That house that you never wanted but are stuck with is creating hundreds of memories your children will carry on into their adult-hood.  Every moment is accounting for something.

We don’t always get our perfect world with ideal circumstances linked together in a row.  We get moments.  We get opportunities to be thankful; choices to be joyful; open doors to give and receive forgiveness; and one life to live it in.  We have “this moment” with an ever-present God.  Don’t forget to celebrate “this moment” while you are dreaming of your future.   The moments that matter most are the ones you are “present” in.  Make more of your moments “presents”.

My Biggest Halibut Ever!

This summer, while my husband was gone commercial fishing, the kids and I decided to go halibut fishing with our Pastor, and his neice.  We motored out well into the Cook Inlet to some designated halibut “hot-spots” and prepared to bait our hooks.  Some of the best bait for halibut happens to be herring and Rick, our Pastor, had a bucket of herring on the deck that was soaking in some sort of special brine he had made to make it more smelly and therefore more halibut attracting.  I looked at the liquid the bait was floating in and suddenly didn’t want to touch it.  It was brown, greasy, slimy, and smelled pretty funky.  The thought ran through my head, “I don’t want that stuff all over my hands.”

Well, we had seven fishermen, and five poles to bait, so I “bucked up”and plunged my hand into the greasy brine, pulled out a herring, cut it in half and attached him to the circle hook at the end of a fishing pole.  Then I took the other half and attached it to the hook of another, and repeated this process until all of the fishing poles were ready to fish.

I thought about what changed my mind from being grossed-out by the herring to becoming brave and diligent with the assignment, and here is what I came up with:

#1  The task needed to be done.  Sure I could let Rick, bait everyone’s hooks, and run from pole to pole making sure everyone was set up and ready, but that would make the burden greater for him, and he may not get a chance to fish because his time is taken up in baiting other people’s poles.  I was capable, I was knowledgeable, I was an adult.  It was a responsibility that I needed to answer to and so I did.

Secondly, and probably more profound to me, was this thought that occurred to me:  ”My hands will only be dirty until I wash them.”  The grease and grime was a temporary state of being, because I had opportunity to make them clean again.  As I looked over the railing of the fishing boat we were on, there was a vast supply of water we were bobbing upon.  The Pacific Ocean was within my reach, with water that would clean my hands.

So with herring on my hands, God began to talk to my heart.  I began to think about the assignments or opportunities God had placed in my path on a daily basis, and I thought about how I picked or rejected each one.  I didn’t like the ones that inconvenienced me.  I didn’t want the jobs that got my hands dirty, or messed too much with my free time.  I often skipped some assignments thinking that someone more qualified would eventually come along and do them in my place.  I saw many assignments as undesirable while I bobbed and floated in life on the ocean of God’s love and mercy.  I began to see my selfishness and near-sightedness.

My mom used to have a plaque that hung up in our home that said these words: “The Will of God will never lead you where the Grace of God cannot keep you.”  And in the words of John Mark McMillan’s song “How He Loves”, there is that brilliant line that says “if grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.”

The fact remains that I live in an infinite supply of the love and grace of God.  Like the fishing boat on the Pacific Ocean, my life is surrounded.  I need only to dip my hands over the railing and find that there is grace enough to help me accomplish my tasks, refresh my soul, and prepare me for the next moment.  So what am I waiting for?   It’s time to take the plunge!

I don’t like not being able to see clearly where I am going.  I panic when the boundaries are obscured and I cannot ascertain if it is a 60 foot drop to my right, or a wide shoulder where I can pull over.  I freak out at the thought that I cannot see the car just a few feet in front of me, and wonder how long it will be until I am hit from behind.

There is no stopping in a blizzard.  To stop in my tracks would make me an object to be smashed by the traffic behind me that is in the same situation I am in.  Somehow I have to continue on.

This happened to me a few years ago, as I recall in early spring.  I was driving a van full of students from the local Bible school from Homer to Anchorage.  Jamin was also driving a van of students and was leading the way in front of me.  We were in the mountain pass, making our descent back to sea level and the snow was flying.  It was so thick, falling so fast, and swirling in the wind.  It didn’t take long for the tail lights on Jamin’s van to disappear and the road begin to look like one never-ending piece of whiteness. The lighting was diffused by the amount of snow flakes in the sky and I could no longer differentiate between the edges of the road or the lanes they represented.

I called Jamin on his cell phone to see if he really was ahead of me.  He assured me he was and encouraged me to keep going forward.  I couldn’t find his tail lights.  I couldn’t even see his tracks in the snow.  I was scared.

Then I remembered something…..a conversation from years ago when I asked Jamin about his snowboarding goggles.  Why were they tinted yellow?  His response to me was that the yellow tint helps to clarify the light and shadows in a low-light situation.  With them on, Jamin would be able to see more clearly, the path to travel in the snow on his board.

Immediately I began to ask the people in my van if any of them had a pair of sunglasses with them with a yellow tint.  And amazingly enough, Sarah, sitting beside me said that she did and pulled a pair of glasses out of her bag for me to wear.

I can’t explain what happened next in words, but something settled over me as I placed those glasses on my face.  It was like snow melting to spring, or like my cold hands warmed by a fire.  My eyes were suddenly able to see what they couldn’t discern moments earlier.  I could see shadow and light.  I could discern tracks in the snow ahead of me.  I could find my way.

Sometimes life isn’t any different from the blinded frenzy of a blizzard.  The way is obscure, the things I thought I knew become clouded, and the One I trusted to lead me is hidden from view.  So what do I do then?

I don’t know all the answers.  I’m still asking several myself, so I’ll just tell you a few that I have learned.

Pray.  The Holy Spirit has a way of settling over a frenzied heart in a way that removes the haze and distinguishes light from shadow.  His peace becomes a guard for my mind as well as my emotions.

Philippians 4:6-7

New International Version (NIV)

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The second and third lessons are these:

Colossians 3:15

Me with part of the Luz Family: Manuel's wife Deb, and daughter Rachel

It was on a missions trip to Italy in 2009, that I met Manuel Luz.  Manuel, and his wife Debbie, along with their four children live in El Dorado Hills, California.  Manuel is the Pastor of Worship and Creative Arts at his church called Oak Hills in Folsom, California.  Through the ministry of Bob Kilpatrick, I with Oikeo Music, Manuel, and several other musicians, worship leaders, and technicians converged together in Rome, Italy to teach, lead, and support the ministry of worship in the churches there.

Manuel has been a Pastor of Worship and Arts for over 20 years, and most of those years at Oak Hills Church.  He is an accomplished jazz musician, composer, singer, songwriter, author, aerospace engineer, husband, and father of four.  You can read more of his bio here which tells the story of how he, an engineer turned rock star, became a pastor of worship and the arts.  With a discography of contributing to over 50 albums in his career, I was thrilled when Manuel offered to produce my album “Red Sky“.

Manuel took my words and lyrics and together with a group of talented musicians from the Sacramento area:  Kent Peterson, Steven Randal, David Holcomb, Elissa Benguerel, and Michaela Nassello, created the soundtracks that communicate each song for the album.  Guitar, cello, bass, drums, strings and keyboards come together to create the settings.  Some songs are fast-paced and full of energy, others are contemplative and peaceful.  Manuel worked with me to create both the feel and energy for each song to give it its own “voice”.  Once the soundtracks were completed, I flew down to Sacramento to record in his studio.  Three days later the recording portion was complete and the mixing and editing began.

I love to discover what another person “hears” when they listen to what I have written.  By adding their own ideas to what I have created, the songs become so much more.  That is the joy of collaborating, and that was my experience in working with Manuel in creating this album.

Beyond the music collaboration, Manuel is a dear friend that I appreciate and admire.  Those who know him and have worked with him in ministry concur that he has a gift of encouragement and invests his life in the art, and spiritual development of others.  He brings experience, expertise, sensitivity, and a heart to serve to every artistic endeavor he participates in.  I am honored to call him a friend.

Team in Rome, Italy

Postscript:

As I mentioned earlier, Manuel is also an author, and his book Imagine That:  Discovering Your Unique Role as a Christian Artist, Manuel Luz expresses how the relationship between God and the artist, and the artist to his art, finds it’s greatest fulfillment–in community. Our collective stories “written” in our art tell the Greater Story of our fall and God’s Redemption. I recommend his book to all artists–from painters to organizers.  You will come away with a better understanding of how your art and desire to create is not just a hobby or occupation but is an expression of the character of our Creator God.

Manuel also has a blog that I subscribe to called “Adventures in Faith & Art” where he records his journey in faith through the arts.

Visit his website:  www.manuelluz.com

Have you ever started out to do something with great ambition and high expectation only to be caught up in a crisis or trouble that you just didn’t see coming?  I sure have.  Even as I am writing this blog, I am mopping up the remains of a storm that beat at my heart just this year.  If you are familiar with the phrase:  ”Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.  Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” then you know that the saying refers to the warnings that the sky gives to the sailor about storms coming.  If the morning dawns red, the sailor knows a storm is on its way and he needs to take cover.  If as the day concludes and the sun sets red, the sailor knows that there will be peace.

Red Sky

This album is a collection of lessons I have learned over the years after facing various storms and crisis.  The song “Red Sky” describes the storm and the fear that wants to take hold in the midst of trouble and pain.  It’s a prayer for help and it’s a promise of comfort. I hope that the words of the songs work in cooperation with what the Holy Spirit would like to say to you and sing over you in your storm.  I pray that you will find that even in a storm, Jesus will be that “Red Sky”.

“Better Than Life” was a song I wrote after studying the idea “Can man live without God?”  My conclusion is that there is no way to live without him that has meaning, purpose, destiny, or direction.  Somehow contained within the love of God was the justice that paid for my sin, the grace to see me through my tomorrows, the healing to mend my heart, and the truth to expel all of the lies.  Yes, I find that His love is better than life!

“Forgiveness” is another song from the album.  I wrote this song to express another life lesson I have been learning.  It’s based on the idea that “Forgiveness is setting the prisoner free and finding out that the prisoner was me.”  It’s one of the hardest lessons to learn, but one of the most freeing experiences to embrace.  When I finally cancel the debts of others and allow God to meet my needs, I experience the joy of forgiving.

Out of the many broken places in my life, God continues to bring redemption.  He takes my messed up places and pieces and makes something beautiful out of them.  It is this among many other things that cause me to fall deeper and deeper in love with Him, and out of my heart came the song “I Love That About You“.  This song is a love song about the beauty of the Lord that I see as He interacts with my life and the lives of others around me.

My friend Paul Wainamo also wrote a song a few years ago dealing with the way God redeems our lives and makes sense of all of our confusions and imbalances.  I loved the song from the first time I heard it and I asked him if I could record that song on this album.  ”Only You Can Make Sense” is a song that describes my life as an artist/songwriter and the way God writes my story and my “song”.  Paul just recently placed in the “Top 5″ in a songwriter’s competition with this song for Worship Northwest/Hope 107.9 and will be recording this song as well!!! Congratulations Paul!!!

Finally, my most intimate song that I included on this album is a song called “Solace“.  This song is an invitation to you to listen in on my quiet time with the Lord and hear what I hear.  I have found that the peace and hope to be found is in the presence of my Creator God.  He is the only one who sings my hope.  I hope you can hear Him singing over you as you sit in His presence.

I can’t wait for you to hear it.  Stay tuned…….

Because many of you will digitally download the music from iTunes, or Amazon, I want to take a few moments in this blog to highlight the photography of my friend Chuck Skeek whose pictures became the artwork for the cd cover.

Chuck Skeek is a friend of our family whom my husband met  herring fishing in Sitka, Alaska several years ago.  Chuck comes from a family of commercial fishing and spends his summers doing the same, but when the fishing season is over, Chuck packs up his cameras and lenses and spends his days travelling the world photographing what he sees.

My husband, Jamin, and Chuck travelled to Peru together last year to help build a church in a jungle village, and after that climbed Machu Pichu.  Some of my favorite photos are found in that collection of pictures and hang on our wall here in Alaska.

Speaking of Alaska, the photographs used for my album are pictures from Alaska.  When I saw these photos, I just felt they helped express what I wanted to say in the songs.

I love Chuck’s photography.  Something about his perspectives always make me want to pack my bags and go where he has been and see what he has photographed.  He has an ability to almost make me “feel” the photo, and there is always an element of peacefulness about them.

Beyond his talents, Chuck is a dear friend whose sense of humor and laid back style make him a delight to be around.  I love his sense of adventure and his generous spirit.

So without further ado, here are some of his photos that are my favorites!

If you are interested in any of his photographs, you can email him at cnskeek@hotmail.com.

Red Sky

High Tide

Machu Pichu

Cuzco, Peru

River boat ride to Cantamana, Peru from Picalpa

Children in the Philippines

Take a few minutes to watch this video above before you read this blog.

Over the last seven years, I have been on a journey to love God with all of my mind.  I have grown up loving God with all of my heart, and soul.  Through music and art, through worship and prayer I have encountered the depths of God.  Now, here in my mid-life years, God has drawn my interest to reason, physics, philosophy, apologetics and the elements that prove God reasonable, plausable, imminent, and present.  I have homeschooled my kids for many years which has also contributed to my appetite for learning once again, and so it was as I stumbled upon a video about quantum physics that I began to awe and wonder at the presence of God in the very nature and movement of elements in the sub-atomic world.  (Don’t worry, I’m not too smart about that subject yet.)

I am not a scientist, and I have much to learn, but I am a communicator and I want to understand how to communicate what I have learned as it relates to my life and walk with God.  Many of you have read my musings in the “Deep Thoughts” category of my blogs.  So here I am again, contemplating what I have learned and discovering its application

I have often thought of life as a set of points on a line that travels into eternity.  The line would begin with my birth, and then as I grew, memorable events would be plotted on the line as a dot.  For instance, the first time I sang a solo as a four-year old girl in front of people was memorable.  Other major points would be when I got my driver’s license, my first date, my wedding, and the births of my four children.  The dots continue from there.

What I am learning though, as I study God’s word and explore fields of physics, is that every decision that I make is not just a dot on a line of eternity, but is a moment where something is set into motion.

Think about Adam and Eve for instance.  In the garden their lives were intertwined with the life of God.  They communed together and enjoyed one another’s company.  The day came when they made a decision to figure out life on their own.  They chose to master their own ideas of what good and evil were and they ate from a forbidden tree.  From that moment, sin was set into motion.  Now it wasn’t just Adam and Eve’s lives affected, but like the pendulum’s in the video above, their action caused action and relationship between the rest of mankind as well as nature itself.  The Bible states that “Sin entered the world through one man, Adam, (Romans 5:12) and was later conquered and paid for by one man, Jesus Christ who changed the pattern  through grace and mercy.

Trace the stories throughout the Bible and find moments of decision and you will find the consequences still playing out in our modern day history.  Some consequences have been blessings, like Rahab’s faith in God, that changed her from a prostitute into an ancestor of Jesus Himself.  Other decisions, like disobedience, caused the nation of Israel years of exile, attack, and punishment.  Every point of decision was setting something into motion.

I ask myself this:  ”What am I setting into motion?”

Notice, in the above video, that there are times that the pendulum’s seem to swing independent of one another as if they have their own pattern and plan, only to then rejoin a choreographed “dance” so to speak with the others beside it.  Somehow, and again this is in the sub-atomic realm, every pendulum is in relation to one another and acts accordingly.  My life is no different.  My neighbors, my family, my circle of relationships are affected by my decisions and behavior.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I cause the behavior of others by my actions because we are all accountable before God for our own decisions, but I am saying that the way I act, react, and respond to the people around me either sets up a dance of blessing or cursing.  And if I persist in my behavior patterns, either positive or negative, the effects will still be felt long after I have passed away.

When my children or children’s children sit and talk about their mom, grandma, great-grandma, etc… they will have many stories to choose from.  Maybe because I will leave them in blogs, but more likely because they will be passed on from others who knew me “back in the day”.  My children will carry on my legacy.  They will pass on my strengths and my weaknesses.  My grandchildren will “dance” to whatever I put into motion in my lifetime.

I still have so much to learn.  My mind can’t take it in fast enough, but what my mind cannot comprehend, my heart seems to already know.  Every decision has a consequence.  Every action stirs a reaction.  Every life sets something into motion.  I have choices.  I want to set Grace and Truth into action in my life and in my lifetime.

Ask people who live on the coasts of Florida what a storm season is and they will tell you harrowing tales of hurricanes and thunderstorms.  The same is true in the mid-western and southern states when Spring arrives bringing lightning, thunder and tornadoes.  Sometimes storms are just a season…they come and they go.

How we respond and react in the storm we are in has a great affect on the lives around us–maybe even greater than the affect it has on us.  Let us contrast two ships in two storms and how the reaction of the key passengers made the difference.

Our first ship is one sailing for Tarshish.  We read of this ship in Jonah chapter 1.  On board is Jonah, a prophet of God who was commissioned to go to Ninevah and preach repentance to the people there.  Jonah is not going to Ninevah.  It was a deliberate decision that Jonah made to get on a boat going a completely different direction.  In fact, the text tells us that Jonah let the crew of the ship know that he was running away from God by boarding.  Jonah’s bad decision is the catalyst for a storm that is not only going to beat at Jonah, but at everyone in his ship.

So many times when we are in a storm we behave as though we are the only one in the ship.  We want things our way, we want to withdraw and not be bothered by anyone.  We rely on our escapes to avoid the obvious disasters around us.  When this storm begins, we find Jonah in the lower deck of the ship fast asleep.  The crew of the ship is crying out to their gods, throwing cargo over to lighten the load, and fearing for their lives.  Jonah is not phased.  The passage tells us that the crew actually went down into the ship to wake Jonah begging him to pray to his God that the storm would pass.

I’ve been Jonah.  “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy.”  That motto has proven true in my house.  It’s my bad day and “I’ll handle it however I want to handle it.”  I have been prone to depression, I have wrestled suicide, I know how to withdraw and shut others out.  I know how to be a Jonah.  It is an attitude that chooses not to see that I am not the only passenger on the ship.  “My way, in my time, if I want to.”

Contrast this storm to the storm that Paul encounters in Acts 27.  Paul is a prisoner on a ship sailing for Rome.  Paul’s ship is caught up in a storm during “storm season”.  This isn’t a storm sent to punish prisoners or guards, but it is a powerful storm that threatens to take the ship under.  Here again we see the passengers on board frantic and fearful, throwing over cargo to lighten the load.  The difference on this ship is Paul.

Paul has every reason to be selfish.  First of all he is not a paying passenger on this ship, he is a prisoner, and secondly, he knew better than to sail at that time of year and when shared his advice with the crew it was not taken. Now the storm has come upon them and the boat is being beat apart.  Paul could choose his own life and plot an escape, but Paul chooses to pray for his ship and for every passenger on board.

Verses 22 -25 say: (Paul speaking to the crew on board) “But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed.  Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul.  You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.‘  So keep up your courage, men for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. ” (Emphasis mine)

What if when we were in a storm we recognized that there were others in our boat– our families, our children, our co-workers, our friends? What if we realized that our reactions and actions would make all the difference for our passengers on board?  What if we prayed?  What if we came to the Lord with our pain and disappointment instead of retreating to our alcohol, overspending, denial, avoidance, drugs, anger, apathy or blame?  Could we stand before our shipmates and say “take courage men because I have faith in God and He has promised that ‘He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.’  (Philippians 1:6) or ‘for we know that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose’ (Romans 8:28) and I believe it will happen just as He said.”

I am challenged in my life to be a Paul instead of a Jonah.  I am challenged to see that life is not “all about me”, but that my life is a lot about others around me.  Whether or not the storm is my doing, the outcome can be changed when I call on God, repent if the storm is a consequence of my sin (and if it is sin God points it out–  He doesn’t keep me wondering), and praying for the passengers on my “ship”.  God can speak peace to the sailors when there is no peace in the sea.  God will prove Himself faithful.

If you know of His faithfulness, declare it now in your storm.  Tell the world what He has done in you and that He will do everything He has promised!