I was meditating in the Word today and listening to this song by David and Rie of the blog, Home + Harmony. The song is called A New Song, and it’s based on Psalms 40:1-4, word for word.
Inspired after they had their first child, they decided to put scripture to song so they could sing scripture to their children — what a lovely idea. Even though this compilation is intended for little ones, I even love the simplicity of their folksy acoustic style, as well as the power of simple scripture set to song. I played it for Dhara, and she loved it. We both love it. Plus, it’s great for slow dancing with your little baby. Try it sometime. Dhara was all smiles.
1I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
2He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
3And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.
4Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
Before Dhara was born, I picked out the birth announcement I wanted to use. I knew I wanted to take photos of her in the hospital, and use one of those photos for the announcement. Fast forward to the day of her birth, [by the way, I’ve procrastinated long enough, my belated birth story is still a work in progress, but is soon to be posted], — I was in labor for 24+ hours, had a third degree tear, and my baby was under light therapy for a few days for high levels of jaundice.
Being that I was hardly in any shape to do much photo-taking, I didn’t get to do my pretty little birth announcement. So instead, I made personalized photo thank you cards for everyone who prepared Greg and I to be parents with everything we needed to take care of a baby and more!
I ended up using moo for the thank you cards because it was the most cost effective solution for 60 cards. In addition to the thank you cards, I made some ministry/prayer cards with our family photo, contact info and blog on it.
Speaking of thank you’s, I got a great package in the mail today. Well actually it was a package for Dhara. A dear family friend of Greg’s, Jane, mailed Dhara a gift wrapped in brown paper. If the gift is wrapped in brown paper, it’s gotta be good, right?!! Upon opening it, I uncovered a very thoughtfully wonderful gift. In it were 3 of the simplest toddler-sized salwars [ethnic Indian wear] made of fine cotton in crisp white, cream, and grey — they brought to mind the simple elegance of the young Indira Gandhi. There was also a sweet bohemian Mexican dress, 2 folk cd’s for children, a stuffed animal, and an embroidered heart satchel. I love gifts like this — ethnic, beautiful, and personal.
Jane, thank you for the lovely brown paper gift! We loved it, even my mom, who oohhed and awwed over it! : )
I’ll leave you all with some folk songs off one of the albums that Jane got for Dhara. The album is called “You are My Little Bird” by Elizabeth Mitchell, and I absolutely love all the songs on it!
I don’t usually write about my walk with Jesus on this blog. I think it’s because I’ve been feeling lukewarm for quite a while now. But just recently, in addition to feeling lukewarm and inadequate as a verbal follower of Jesus, I’ve been feeling fear. Fear of my lukewarmness from Revelations 3:16. Fear of not being ready for a King whose coming back for a spotless bride. Fear because I have many many spots. And fear of current events going on in the world which undoubtedly bring us closer to Jesus’ Second Coming — whether we want to believe it or not. If you are familiar with scripture, you can already see world events aligning with end-time prophecy.
The reason I fear is because I know I’m not ready. I know if He came last night, I would still be here.
Last night I couldn’t sleep. Neither could Greg. I lay in bed as he slipped quietly to the floor and went on his knees. I asked him, “What’s wrong?” He said, “I need to find my rest in Him.” Once he was done praying, he came back to bed and went to sleep. I was still awake and totally not at peace with the secret state of my heart. So I quietly got out of bed and went over to the couch, put my headphones on, and listened to a song we sang in church the day before, called “Offering.” It had been playing in my head since Sunday.
The sun cannot compare to the glory of Your love
There is no shadow in Your Presence
No mortal man would dare to stand before Your throne
Before the Holy One of heaven
It’s only by Your Blood and it’s only through you mercy
Lord I come
I bring an offering of worship to my King
No one on earth deserves the praises that I sing
Jesus may You receive the honor that You’re due
O Lord I bring an offering to You
I bring an offering to You
The baby started crying during this quiet time I was having. I picked her up and brought her back to the couch. She stopped crying and quickly went back to sleep. For several moments I just sat there and watched her as she slept in my arms. It brought a smile to my face to just watch her. In those moments I felt God tell me, “This is how I watch you. This is how much I love you.” Tears literally rolled down my face, because I know how much I love my daughter; similarly, what made me emotional was knowing that the Holy One of Heaven loves me and watches me, His creation, with great delight — as a father looks over his dear child. He’s not too busy. He doesn’t have other things to do. He’s satisfied just watching me and loving me. But it’s not a father’s earthly love, but a love so far exceeding than what I know.
I felt my lukewarmness begin to dissipate.
I was reminded of what I read that morning in Exodus 34:6-7, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”
His desire is to be compassionate and gracious towards us. But, He cannot stand lukewarmness [Rev 3:16]. He cannot stand for people who love the things of this world and love Him. He wants us to choose. He wants us to choose, because it’s His greatest desire to have our entire heart. It’s His desire that we go with Him when He comes. To spend eternity with Him. I can’t fathom eternity, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Isaiah 30:18, “Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you for the LORD is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.”
I’m writing all this to say that lukewarmness does not have to be a constant thing even if it feels like it’s going to be. We’re lukewarm because we choose other things over Him. Only we know in our own hearts the things that keep us from Him. I think the reason we become lukewarm is because we lose sight of God in our lives. We know He’s there, but we lose sight of the fact that we desperately need Him everyday — every hour. Without Him, there is no future. The wonderful thing is that He’s always there, trying to get our attention. He’s always there, watching over us. He’s there always hoping we’ll regain sight of Him. But time is running out. He will only be there for so long. What will we choose?
“stop-motion (also known as stop-action or frame-by-frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence.” (wikied)
My brother, Josh, showed me this music video by Oren Lavie, called “Her Morning Elegance.” It’s done in stop motion format — very cool idea. Josh is a film major and also doing a project in stop motion. To do his project, he borrowed a camera bag full of camera goodies I got off of ebay for $90. The bag has an old Canon AE-1 35mm camera, a telephoto lens, filters, and other neat pieces of equipment for old school camera fun. He dropped off two rolls of film today to get developed. It’s so weird that I developed film at one point in my life — and lots of it!
I was meditating in the Word today and listening to this song by David and Rie of the blog, Home + Harmony. The song is called A New Song, and it’s based on Psalms 40:1-4, word for word.
Speaking of thank you’s, I got a great package in the mail today. Well actually it was a package for Dhara. A dear family friend of Greg’s, Jane, mailed Dhara a gift wrapped in brown paper. If the gift is wrapped in brown paper, it’s gotta be good, right?!! Upon opening it, I uncovered a very thoughtfully wonderful gift. In it were 3 of the simplest toddler-sized salwars [ethnic Indian wear] made of fine cotton in crisp white, cream, and grey — they brought to mind the simple elegance of the young Indira Gandhi. There was also a sweet bohemian Mexican dress, 2 folk cd’s for children, a stuffed animal, and an embroidered heart satchel. I love gifts like this — ethnic, beautiful, and personal.
susie mey 