Becuase i Need to

I haven't had easy access to the internet the past few days...but i wrote some blogs to post later...so here's one. i wrote this on Wed Mar 11.

I heard a sermon by Rob Bell a few years ago. it was called “why we sing” in churches. to sum up a great sermon he says that sometimes we sing because life is good, and our hearts are full, and we sing praise to God out of the overflow of our hearts. At other times we sing because we need to. When our hearts are heavy, and life is hard, at those times I need to sing. Hymns and choruses put great words of truth on my lips that we need to be reminded of. These songs and poems allow me to speak that which I may not be able to say on my own, but which is no less true.

That is the world that I have been living in recently. when I sing these days it is not so much out of fullness and overflowing – but more because I need to. I have lots of questions. There is some hard stuff going on in my heart and life right now – and I need to be reminded that God is still God, and that He is still good. So as I drove to Omaha today I listened to these great CDs that are full of truth and beauty. And my mouth proclaimed truth. I proclaimed things that I know are true, but may not seem like it. It was so good. At multiple times as I drove, as I listened, as I worshiped I thought, “Yes. That is true. That is the character of God. Yes. That is true, but I’d forgotten. Yes. That is true…”

I am thankful for time in the car to think, to grieve, to cry, to wonder, to be loved, to be reminded, to be honest, to worship.

(as an aside, some of what I listened to was from “The Indelible Grace” series of CDs, where musicians have taken poetry from the past and put it to music, and written new music to some hymns. They’re really incredible…feel free to check them out at http://www.igracemusic.com/)