Moving Lyrics

I’m guessing that most of my readers have never heard of Sara Beth Geoghegan. I hadn’t either until I read a review of her debut album in World magazine back in September 2009. I have to agree with the reviewer that

Tired of Singing Sad Songs, is a breath of unsentimental fresh air, realistically confronting the pain of loss and sadness while affirming a sure hope in Jesus.

Two songs in particular have been quite encouraging over the past year as they are truthful, real, and hopeful all at the same time.

Lord Deliver Me with its overlapping and repeating chorus of “Lord deliver me from me Lord deliver me to You” is quietly convicting especially as Sara leads us to pray:

Lord deliver me from the desire to be noticed, loved, exalted

Lord deliver me from the desire to be favored, popular chosen or acknowledged

Lord deliver me from the fear of being wrong, forgotten or ignored

Lord deliver me from the fear of being humiliated or left behind

And

Grant that I may seek to comfort rather than be comforted by others

Grant that I may understand and love more than be understood and loved well

Lord deliver me from the desire to be noticed and encouraged

Lord deliver me from the desire to be appreciated and included

Hallelujah, What a Mess speaks of the amazing paradox of brokenness and the grace of God. Another blogger writes "Hallelujah, What a Mess, is an admission of our weakness and dependence on God, that even at our best we’re a mess.  It has an infectious melody that begs you to sing.” (There is a link to the song at the end of that blog post).

Each song, or the entire album, is available for download from Amazon. I trust you will be encouraged.

Learning from a Little One

For the past week Mrs. Random and I have been in Glasgow, Scotland visiting and prepping for our daughter’s wedding. We’ve been enjoying the earliest and heaviest snow Scotland has experienced in 50 years from a small flat that we are sharing with the bride’s best friend from So. California, along with her husband and … M, their 11 month old daughter.

Having been away from living with babies for a while (a long while), it has been interesting to relearn some of the important life lessons that an almost 1 year old can teach us. I leave it to my readers to apply to themselves:

• Sometimes nothing will make you happy, but … wait for it …
• Sometimes everything makes you smile.
• Cheerios are maybe the best thing ever invented. they almost always make you happy.
• Eating is always exciting … unless there something more interesting in view. Rarely will there be anything more exciting.
• You must train you parents to feed you. Crying helps.
• You really don’t need many toys to be happy.
• However, if you roll the toys under the sofa you will be unhappy.
• Sippy cups might be the best invention ever.
• Empty Sippy cups are a source of great sadness.
• Cheerios are wonderful … like baby bagels.
• Fashion is not all that important. You can easily mess up anything you wear.
• Being cute means you get to be in lots of fun pictures just like a celebrity.
• People can talk about your poop and you laugh!
• If mommy says “no” to something, it is immediately very interesting.
• It is really easy to train old people to make silly faces and noises.
• If you snuggle up to old people they sigh a lot.
• Being cute means that you can pretty much do whatever you want. This works best especially with any non-parental units that are around.
• Naps are really nice. A good nap makes it so much easier to stay awake and fuss at night when your parents want to sleep.
• Big people keep talking about  what day of week it is. They are silly. Every day is snuggle and giggle day. And Cheerio day.
• When you are little, you get to teach your parents a lot about grace.
• Grace is a good thing!
• Did I mention Cheerios?