Music!

How many of you go a day with OUT listening to music?!?!?!  Me, NEVER!  I have listened to Christian music for many many years!  I started out as a young girl listening to Psalty!  Anyone remember him, the big blue singing song book?  And there was the Friendship Company with Sandi Patty!  Then in the 2nd grade my best friend, Jessi, and her family introduced me to DC Talk back in the day when they rapped!  There was Michael W Smith and “Friends”, Petra, and her dad had some really cool side burns he would tape on so he looked like the lead singer!  Jessi’s family took me to my first Carman concert in Ft. Wayne, it was “Radically Saved” and it was FREE!  Jessi moved away but the impact of Christian Music didn’t stop!  In 4th and 5th grade when all my friends were listening to New Kids on the Block, I was listening to DC Talk on tape and Steven Curtis Chapman and a group called the A.V.B.!  There was even a group called One Bad Pig!  Does anyone remember that group?  We listened to them at church camp!  Then I went into high school and listened to Harvest at the time now Pulse FM!  My friend, Kimberly Ann, was a DJ and I would call her up most nights and talk to her!  Geoff Moore and the Distance became one of my favorite groups!  After high school my music collection grew in the form of CD’s!  I had over 200 CD’s and most of them I would get autographed at concerts!  Some of my favorite song’s to sing along with were “Life Together” by Geoff Moore and the Distance, anything by AudioA and the Newsboys and “The Great Adventure” by Steven Curtis Chapman!  I really enjoy music and actually listen to the words!  I’ll never forget going to a concert in Elkhart and Tree63 was the opening act!  They were a band from Africa and new to the Christian Music Scene but at camp the week before we had sang their song “Joy” and they were like “How Do You Know This Song?!?!”  I got married, the music didn’t play as much due to differences, and it was more like a part of me died.  Last year around this time, Chris Tomlin’s new album “Burning Light’s” came out and “Whom Shall I Fear” was on it!  That song carried me every day on my 30minute drive to work and on my 30minute drive back home again!  I was going through a divorce, thus the reason why it carried me!  It brought strength and comfort knowing that NO MATTER what happened God had already gone BEFORE ME!  I’ll never forget the JOY that welled up inside me when I heard my 6 year old in the back seat singing these words “Whom Shall I Fear?

I Know Who Goes Before Me!

 I Know Who Stands Behind!

The God Of Angel Armies!

Is Always By My Side!”

Let me tell you as a mom there is nothing that brings me great joy then to hear my kids getting God!  Singing to their heavenly father!  I know as much as it makes me beam God is shining even more!

Music has the power to impact your attitude!  I know when I’m at work looking up answers for 8 hours a day, I’m jamming away to my music!  People frequently look at me and tell me I’m singing out loud! Ha!

8 years ago, I was in a hospital room with a very sick little 5 week old baby boy!  My mom was with me and she said you need to go and get some music to help you through these long days!  We went and got “I Can Only Imagine”, it was a CD filled with worship and encouraging music!  It carried me through some of the roughest weeks!  It was neat because the nurses would come in and ask, “Where Did You Get This CD?” because they enjoyed the encouragement of the words!  You never know the impact you are making on someone by what you are playing!

I am grateful for the place of Christian Music in my life!  How has Christian Music impacted your life?

Be encouraged!