Music. It tells a story, makes us smile, makes us cry, warms our hearts, consoles our hurts, tells our stories. That’s the power of music.
This morning one of my daughters sent a text, a picture of her home’s front flowerbed: hyacinths and dozens of tulips just beginning to bloom. How sweet of the Lord to give her that gift — this is the first Springtime in her new home and so the various plantings done by the previous owner are just coming into view. This is just an example of so many things the Lord has done for her.
As I was gratefully thanking the Lord for His marvelous works and gifts in her life, her next text was a link to a powerful song.
She’s a deep thinker, a planner, a motivator, a passionate worker and overachiever. She takes things very seriously and so when she suggests a method of doing things, or a book to read or a song to hear, I listen.
I pressed ‘play.’ I cried and listened again. The incredible power of music–that is, the power of music with a powerful message. If you’re fearing something today, if you’re fearing what others think of you, if you’re facing a huge tax debt, if you’re suffering financial burdens, job losses, health problems , if you’re lonely, alone — if you’ve lost your way, if you’ve messed up relationships in your life, if you’re covered up in an avalanche of sin, stupid mistakes, if you’ve got heavy regrets: fear could (probably will) lead you to do, think, say, and/or feel things that aren’t going to end well for you. Fear is a liar. Fear isn’t of the Lord. Fear is of the enemy of your soul.
Fear will work to convince you your life’s not worth living. That’s a lie. Fear is a liar. Don’t give in. Don’t give up. Watch. Watch and see… the things that are crushing you today will be turned into a powerful testimony of God’s great grace. Watch and see. Trust Him today: He is true.
I hope this powerful song will minister to you today –wherever you are– and I pray, as I press ‘publish’ today, that you’ll turn to the Lord and rest in His love for you, give Him your problems, He’s the only one who can solve them, He’s loved you with an everlasting love and He has perfect plans for you and every single thing that concerns you. I pray you’ll lay your sorrows and problems at His feet. I don’t say any of this lightly. It’s true: Taste and see the Lord is good. He hears and He heals.
{Zack Williams – Fear is a Liar – music video}
Call someone. Talk to someone. Tell someone your story. Talk over your problems. Don’t walk your journey alone. Don’t carry your burdens alone.
For many years, Nancy Leigh DeMoss has been such a great encouragement and inspiration to me through her books, radio programs and other messages. She’s one of the women the Lord’s used to inspire me to use the gifts God has given me to teach and walk alongside women after the manner of Titus 2.3-5
The more time passes, the more I realize how much I need “relating” affirmation or validation. It’s not that I need affirmation in order to do something so much as affirmation that what I’ve done (or am doing) matters. I find myself asking (either literally or mentally), can you relate? or know-what-I-mean? Validation, kwim? For the last month or so, I’ve been mulling over the thought of “validation” the need/desire for validation. It’s sort of an assurance of being on the right track, or having done something well, or, in some cases, assurance that you’re not alone in whatever failure you’re experiencing or have experienced. Trouble is, most of us rarely get to that needed validation because we don’t pass through the gates of vulnerability very often — that, or our focus is misplaced, or we’re not really doing what we’re called to be doing.
For the last fourteen years, I’ve had a day where I’ve stood between two days, looking back and looking ahead. Today is that day. Fourteen years ago when I looked back at that “yesterday” and ahead to that “tomorrow,” I didn’t know that I would come to call it my Bookends Day. I didn’t know at the time that a final chapter had been written… that the baby born on June 29th would be my last living baby. And when I looked ahead to “tomorrow” that day, I was amazed that my first baby would be twenty two. Twenty two and expecting his first baby to be born just weeks later.
So the idea I 
next thing — every day — that one thing I added. Accountability is a powerful tool.
As I write in the journal(s) I see (often later) so much more than had I not recorded things—-I remember so many more details later, details I’d never have remembered had I not written just a note about something at the time. I so often think that I could not possibly forget different things, events, provisions for their magnitude or miraculous nature. But I forget — even though I know I don’t want to forget.
I have a few Starbucks aprons I’ve picked up, second hand, along the way. One of them has a printed tape inside the top of the apron. I’m assuming it was positioned there so that it would be seen (and intentionally read) each time the barista positioned the neck strap and donned the apron.
October 17, 2013 I received my book… and I wrote about the 
For it is God which worketh in you