Where are you from...

Where are you from?

I am from a place where everyone really does know your name and they are, in fact, almost always glad you came by to drink coffee and share some news.

From a place where you live long in the shadows of cotton pickers and beloved grandparents.  Where people trust people and know their banker by name.  It's a place that never seems to wake up despite the advance of technology and time.  

I'm from a place where country music and Gospel are the soundtracks of our days and King James Bibles are the script we just keep reading and living year after year.  

From a place where going out for fast food is a treat and where vacations are planned years in advance.  A place with a community library, a rural route and a full service gas station.

 I'm from a place where a revival is still news in town and when a new restaurant opens we all take guesses on how long it will stay.  

This is a place where everyone once was a Democrat and now just about everyone is a Republican and yet no one seems to have changed one thing they believe.  

It's a dinner of leftovers with your folks after a day of working in the yard or in the field or at the factory and it's knowing that some good people go to church and some good people don't.  It's believing in things like hard work, tough love and redemption.  

People still get baptized here and people still drift away.  

It's a place that most people want to leave when they are young and few actually do.  Most of those come back even if just to die.

From a town where everyone knows the undertaker personally and where people are still new even if they have lived here 30 years.  

Some people might say it's a backward place and in a lot of ways they would be right.  

Yet there is something special about knowing people truly and loving a place deeply and realizing that nowhere else would quite be home.

A Personal Favorite

I have been read Ann Voskamp's blog for quite a while now.  This entry from several years ago is my favorite.  We often think we can read the minds and intentions of others.  Many times we may be right, but rarely, we are caught by surprise in the best kind of way.  

This is a bit lengthy, but I think some of you can identify with the characters presented.

Enjoy.

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2008/09/seekers-repenters-and-love/

If I Stand

There's more that rises in the morning
Than the sun
And more that shines in the night
Than just the moon
It's more than just this fire here
That keeps me warm
In a shelter that is larger
Than this room

And there's a loyalty that's deeper
Than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
That I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes
For the allegiance
I owe only to the giver
Of all good things

CHORUS:
So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

There's more that dances on the prairies
Than the wind
More that pulses in the ocean
Than the tide
There's a love that is fiercer
Than the love between friends
More gentle than a mother's
When her baby's at her side

And there's a loyalty that's deeper
Than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
That I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes
For the allegence
I owe only to the Giver
Of all good things

CHORUS(2x)

And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

Music of Eternity

Music is one of the most profound ways human beings connect to one another.  Melodies and lyrics can transport us to different places and remind us of a higher purpose.  Singing is something that we all do as children to learn and to have fun.  Many of us as adults have favorite songs and artists and spend a good deal of time involved in music.

I was fortunate enough to attend a Gospel singing tonight at the congregation where I grew up. Many old, familiar faces were there including several, like me, who have gone on to worship at other places. The singing was wonderful with many different styles, voices and eras of songs represented. Many young children were there along with many senior citizen saints. We sang for over an hour and a half and then enjoyed refreshments.

It was a lovely evening.

The only thing bad about a night described above is that it has to end. People must rest, return to work or school and do other activities. What a blessing to know that in Heaven the praise will never end. The Scriptures describe the saints of all the ages gathered in the throne room of God singing the songs of Moses and the Lamb. We will sing with the apostles, the prophets and our saved loved ones who have gone before us. We will sing the songs of redemption. The songs of liberation. The songs that only the redeemed can sing.  All of those millions upon millions of voices will blend in perfect harmony to praise the Voice that spoke worlds into existence.

Next time you hear a favorite song remember that as a person of faith you have a future filled with music.

　

Weeping into Laughter

Tears are a response to how we contain the world.  Having always been a tear-filled guy, I don't find it unusual to cry at movies, weddings, funerals or beautiful songs. 

One place I didn't expect to find tears was helping my grandmother write a brief family history for a community memory book.  As my grandmother began to talk about her upbringing and her love for her father, she begin to weep.  I, as the scribe, tried to keep it together, but soon I was crying along with her.

Who can forget the tender moments in a childhood of such hardship?  Who would want to?

When I wept with my grandmother, I realize fully she wasn't weeping for herself.  She was weeping for the memory.  She was weeping for the sound of an old Gospel song in a country church.  She was weeping for a laugh at the fireside.  She was weeping for what cannot be again in this life.

"...and He will wipe ever tear from their eyes..."

Perhaps the sweetest part of heaven next to seeing our Savior will be seeing those whose memory we have wept for.  Those for who our very hearts tear up to see.  Reunion and homecoming.  And all tears wiped away...