Mama's Favorite Things: Music-Elizabeth Mitchell- "You Are My Little Bird."

There are many simple things that make this mama's heart so glad. One of them is music. I'm sort of an eclectic listener, depending on my mood. Nevertheless, music paired with children singing and dancing get's me all kinds of excited. 

It's the simple things. 

Say hello to folk artist, Elizabeth Mitchell. 

We first discovered her children's music on a trip to the library. 

We made a visit to our favorite library before we left for a camping trip. My daughter and I would be in the car together for over two hours and I wanted to get stocked up on music and books to keep us entertained. 

This CD was a HUGE hit. 

And I was quite thankful for it because my little one only slept in the car for about 20 minutes the entire time. This music was a life saver. 

Addy's favorite song is "Little Bird." 

And there is something simply child-like about her lyrics. 

Their not typical. 

Little Bird

Little bird, little bird, 
Fly through my window, 
Little bird, little bird, 
Fly through my window, 
Little bird, little bird
Fly through my window, 
And find molasses candy.

Through my window, 
My sugar lump, 
Fly through my window, 
My sugar lump, 
And find molasses candy.

-Who knows a bird?
-Me! Chickadee! 
-What's a chickadee say?
-chchchchchch

Chickadee, chickadee, 
Fly through my window, 
Chickadee, chickadee, 
Fly through my window, 
Chickadee, chickadee, 
Fly through my window, 
And find molasses candy.

Through my window, 
My sugar lump, 
Fly through my window, 
My sugar lump, 
And find molasses candy.

-Who knows another bird?
-Me. Jaybird! 
-What does a jaybird say?
-jayjayjayjayjayjay

Jaybird, jaybird, 
Fly through my window, 
Jaybird, jaybird, 
Fly through my window, 
Jaybird, jaybird, 
Fly through my window, 
And find molasses candy.

Through my window, 
My sugar lump, 
Fly through my window, 
My sugar lump, 
And find molasses candy.

-Who knows one more bird?
-I do. A whip-poor-will.
-What does a whip-poor-will say?
-*whistles*

Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, 
Fly through my window, 
Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, 
Fly through my window, 
Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, 
Fly through my window, 
And find molasses candy.

Through my window, 
My sugar lump, 
Fly through my window, 
My sugar lump, 
And find molasses candy...

With lyrics like these, I feel what a child should feel in simple happiness. No cares or worries in the world. 

I decided to purchase the CD for my daughters second birthday. Now we can hear the "birdie" song all the time, while she play's, colors and cooks. The CD goes for about $10.99 on Amazon and includes 17 wonderful songs for children and adults alike. You might find yourself singing along, like I do...and smiling... a lot. Some of our other favorites include, "Little Liza Jane," "Three Little Birds," and "What Goes On." 

I'm delighted to recommend this entire CD for your musical collection. 

Homemade Musical Shakers

Adelynne has been getting more and more into music and dancing these days. She looooves requesting songs. So I decided I would make good use of some empty club soda bottles that were on their way to the recycle bin. I wasn't totally sure how it would work but I had a general idea. I thought I had a skinny funnel, but I didn't. So, Addy's first attempts at putting lentils and rice in the top of the bottle wasn't totally successful. So I decided to hand fill them, which would have taken forever to fill completely, so we settled on just a partial fill. 

 I tape sealed the lid shut and decided one option for the bottles could be some markered art work from Addy. So I let her work on that while I worked on filling the bottles. 

 And then I let her paint the bottles, all the way around however much she wanted to. 

 I tied some ribbons on for extra frills and let them dry. 

 Addy likes using them now to make music!! 

Savior King

Savior King
by Hillsong United


And now the weak say I have strength
By the spirit of power that raised Christ from the dead
And now the poor stand and confess
That my portion is Him and I'm more than blessed

Let now our hearts burn with a flame
A fire consuming all for your Son's holy name
And with the heavens we declare
You are our king

We love you Lord, we worship you
You are our God, you alone are good

You asked your Son to carry this
The heavy cross our weight of sin

I love you Lord, I worship you
Hope which was lost, now stands renewed
I give my life to honor this
The love of Christ, the savior king

Let now your church shine as the bride
That you soar in your heart as you offered up your life
Let now the lost be welcomed home
By the saved and redeemed those adopted as your own

I give my life to honor this
The love of Christ, the savior king

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7BQzic-zLs

Breathe...Just Breathe...

John spoke at The Inn last night. We are beginning a new series called "Soundtrack" using todays music to find other ways to see God and see truth through culture. He used Ingrid Michaelson's song "Keep Breathing" to communicate that in the midst of suffering and conflict and distress, God breathes in us and we breathe out God; that when all else fails...remembering to just stop and take a moment to gather our thoughts is sooo important; to remember to take one day at a time. Why do we fret and worry, really? God holds all things together. He has our best interest in mind.

The storm is coming but i don't mind.
People are dying, i close my blinds.

All that i know is i'm breathing now.

I want to change the world...instead i sleep.
I want to believe in more than you and me.

But all that i know is i'm breathing.
All i can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.

All that i know is i'm breathing.
All i can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.

All we can do is keep breathing
All we can do is keep breathing
All we can do is keep breathing
All we can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.

Everything: How Can I Stand Here With You and Not Be Moved By You?

This is a performance that Josh and I and our friends/other staff members did in all three church services recently. We'll be performing it tomorrow night at our 18-30 group, The Inn. Special thanks to our other cast member: Aaron, Tim, Jake, Trish and Mel!

The song is by Lifehouse and it is called "Everything."

Remain

These words to the chorus of a worship song by the band "Starfield" have been mulling around in my mind these past few weeks that I had to share them with our blog readers! Meditate on their truth! Find strength in the God we serve who forever remains!

"You are God with us. You're victorious. You are strong and mighty to save. And Your Word stands true. There is none like You and when all else fades, You remain."

Well the dream has come true. After much dreaming and even plotting, last night Josh and I took mom and dad to go and see Celine Dion in concert! Celine really did give quite the show but I think it was most priceless to watch mom's reactions throughout the concert. And then, just so you all know, my mother "blessed Celine!" At the end of the concert, Celine made her way out to the audience to sign autographs and meet and greet the audience. Mom decided to yell out, "God bless you Celine!" to which I was half embarrased and half disapointed she didn't say her most famous line, "God luv ya [insert Celine Dion!]!)

Before dinner, we enjoyed a lovely dinner at a new favorite resturant, "Habibi" a wonderfully scrumptious Lebanese resturant! Mmmmmm. And of course we have family there, notice the picture! http://www.habibirestaurantpdx.com/

And tonight, we were able to enjoy dinner with some college friends and I got to meet some of the most beautiful looking children! Tiff and Kelly, we're so happy for you and your recent addition, Miss Tessa! She's gorgeous. It was also wonderful seeing Ryan and Candice, Matt and Tessa, Garret and Anna and The Captain herself, Amanda! I've missed them a lot!! I love how even though we don't always get to see friends, the real friends are the ones you can pick up conversations like you just talked yesterday! Praise God for friends like that.

Crisis, Calling, Community

F

Day two of NYWC blew our socks off more than once! We began our day with breakfast downstairs of our beautiful hotel room. Being able to catch up with other friends, youth workers from our conference has been such a breath of fresh air. There's something enormously encouraging to chat with people who are in a similar calling.

After breakfast we headed to part two of a class we began last night with authors Jim Hancock and Rich Van Pelt. By the end of our 5 or 6 hours total of class time with these two genuine dudes, Josh and I felt like we really had bonded with them and felt very comfortable asking them questions about our ministry and received some wonderful words of wisdom, affirmation and advice. The class was on "Dangerous Opportunity: Helping Kids and Families in Crisis." WOW! What a loaded topic and we're so thankful for the informative yet engaging format of the class because we really desired some real answers for specific areas of our ministry.

Then we roamed the many ministry booths represented here and can I just say: Free STUFF!! Man people love to give away free t-shirts, music, chapstick and pens...oh and candy which lured us to their booths! What can I say, we're youth workers; free stuff is sometimes too appealing.

After Josh and I and our friend from Bend, Dorota made it through the booths and Dorota and I successfully dodged viewing the gigantic real snake that was present at one of the booths, we found some friends from Multnomah and chatted and walked for a bit then grabed some bites and headed back for the general session with worship by Lincoln Brewster and Mercy Me.

Although I haven't found myself in complete agreement with Emergent Theology, one of the things I have most appreciated about what this movement emphasis' is coming to God in worship and coming to him in a way that gives back to him the gifts and talents he has given us. During worship and a message, "talent" could also be seen in the auditorium. A painter who was off to the side, illustrating what he was surrounded by through his gift. And "sand art" something that I had never experienced told the story of the Prodigal Son through instrumental music while the artist fashioned the characters of the story simply through black sand...AMAZING!!!! Absolutely spectacular!

The speaker was the Bishop Sherwood Carthen, an African American preacher from right here in California. I want to share a few thoughts from the notes I took. I do believe that not many of us, if any, left his very convicting and inspiring message unchanged.

Sherwood emphasized from the beginning that ministry has to be a calling and it can't simply be an option. He spoke on the cost of leadership and how high a cost it is. He illustrated Matthew 4 when Jesus was taken to the wilderness before his public ministry began, elaborating on the fact that it was the Holy Spirit that led him ot the wilderness. I found this to be interesting, because as he later stated, so often we blame the Devil for bringing us to the wilderness of our lives, when it is the Lord who leads and guides you through the low times, shaping and molding your faith and trust in him along the way.

Here's the three lessons we can learn when we find ourselves in the wilderness:

• When we get to the wilderness, it crucifies false superficial spirituality; it removes our self effort, plans, projects and phony disciplines.
  
• We are dependant on God (Rom. 12:3). We should not think that we are better than we really are; we're not that good! It's in the wilderness where we realize were priviledged to be in this position. Without God, we can do NOTHING! We need him now man than we ever did before (Psalm 27:9).
  
• The wilderness always proceeds revelation. He'll take us through the wilderness to see if we can handle it. If we want a breakthrough or a blessing, we must realize that there will also be times in the wilderness; there will also be dry times. The wilderness will always come before blessing.

And there are purposes for the wilderness:

• Brokenness: it's equivalent to humility. The wilderness is necessary to wash away all confidence in our flesh and a deeper, more intimate dependant relationship on God. Blessed are the poor in spirit. HE IS ABLE!! Brokenness is continual. Brokenness is where you know God is doing something in my life (Is. 57:15). "God doesn't make junk; He recycles it!"
  
• To understand God's ways. Sit still and be quiet before the Lord; learn his ways before things aren't pretty and when you're in the wilderness so that when the dry times come, you'll stand! "When God puts you on hold, my business is to not hang up...but to hold on!"


• To experience God's victory. How could we give a personal story about God if we don't go through the wilderness? 1 Sam. 17; Psalm 23-24.
  

Lastly, I really believe that the third theme we saw today was "Community." We heard tonight from Shane Claiborne, author of "Jesus for President." He is an unsuspected character when you meet him. I wouldn't have realized that he was an author of any kind. He's unique, fresh and relative for our culture. He dresses like an old hippee, complete with dreads and he speaks with a very southern accent. Yet his heart is as genuine as I've seen for quite some time. What adds to his complete package was his desire to think ourside the box and examine his own life and allowing others throughthe example of his life to think of our North American culture in a completely uncomfortable way: basically learn simplicity and live on little so that you may gain more. Christ's message and life emphasis of "leave all that you have to come and follow me" really seems to be his motto and I must say I was convicted after hearing from him.

I do believe that it's good to be shaken to think in a different way than one has always thought. It's important to be grounded in who you are and in the essentials of what Christ has taught us. There just aren't many of us that are willing to go without many of our earthly comforts for the sake of the Kingdom and what is eternal, what is unseen, rather than what is seen. A timely message to hear considering recent topics Josh has been teaching on in youth group.

Tenth Avenue North

Music is such a powerful form of personal expression. I, like many others, enjoy communicating my thoughts and feelings through music, especially worship music. And any time I hear a song that touches me, I love to share that with others. This band and this CD are no different!

Tenth Avenue North and their latest CD, "Over and Underneath" show how their musical genius mixed with heartfelt and inspirational lyrics can really bring their listeners closer to God. Since first hearing their song, "Love is Here" on Air1, I haven't been able to get the powerful words out of my head. I was so excited when I found out who the band was and that there was more of their great tunes on their latest CD. I highly recommend this band! It isn't often that an entire CD is worth hearing over and over again, but this one is uniquely genuine.

Below are some of the lyrics to their songs and I hope they will movivate you to purchase their entire CD!

LOVE IS HERE:

come to the waters, you who thirst and you'll thirst no more. come to the father, you who work and you'll work no more. and all you who labor in vain and to the broken and shamed: love is here. love is now. love is pouring from his hands, from his brows. love is near,it satisfies. streams of mercy flowing from his side. cuz love is here. come to the treasure, you who search and you'll search no more. come to the lover you who want and you'll want no more, no. and all you who labor in vain and to the broken and shamed, yeah: love is here. love is now. love is pouring from his hands, from his brows. love is near, it satisfies. streams of mercy flowing from his side. yeah and to the bruised and fallen, captives, bound, and broken hearted. he is the lord he is the lord, yeah by his stripes he's paid our ransom from his wounds we drink salvation he is the lord he is the lord love is here. love is now. love is pouring from his hands, from his brows. love is near, it satisfies. streams of mercy flowing from his side. streams of mercy flowing from his side. cuz love is here love is here.

"Beloved"

Love of my life Look deep in my eyes There you will find what you need Give me your life Lust and the lies The past you’re afraid I might see You’ve been running away from me You’re my beloved Lover I’m yours Death shall not part us It’s you I died for For better or worse Forever we’ll be Our Love it unites us It binds you to me It’s a mystery Love of my life Look deep in my eyes There you will find what you need I‘m the giver of life I’ll clothe you in whine My immaculate bride you will be Oh come running home to me You’re my beloved Lover I’m yours Death shall not part us It’s you I died for For better or worse Forever we’ll be Our Love it unites us It binds you to me Well you’ve been a mistress, my wife Chasing lovers it won’t satisfy Won’t you let me make you my bride You will drink of my lips And you’ll taste new life Cause you’re my beloved Lover I’m yours Death shall not part us It’s you I died for For better or worse Forever we’ll be Our Love it unites us & it binds you to me You’re my beloved Forever we’ll be Our love it unites us And it binds you to me It’s a mystery It’s a mystery