Keep Looking to The Father!

Music has always been my go to therapy.  When I need a mood change it makes me feel better; when I'm happy it makes me smile and laugh and dance, when I'm angry it let's me vent and scream out loud!, when I'm sad I can either find a song that makes me cry or one that makes me laugh (whatever the situation calls for) ... sometimes you just feel like a good cry, though!  I feel there's a song for everything.  Sometimes I feel music is weird, in that I feel it's a fairy tale, something not real or applicable to life.  Seeing life through rose colored glasses and all that.  Then again, sometimes I feel there is nothing more real than the story within a song.  Maybe that's where the magic lays within music...  It's all relative to how it affects your heart!

Dolly Parton has a song called Appalachian Memories that I just love.  It is full of imagery, heart, and strength drawn from faith in God. It starts out where somebody told them they should go North to look for work, the promise made was that "The air was filled with gold dust and fortune falls like snowflakes in your hands."  These lofty promises filled their heads with dreams and when they got there all those dreams fell in on them because "there was no land of promise."  They began longing for what they had back home.

It is SO important to realize the moment you're in and appreciate what you have when you have it.  If you are always longing for something you perceive to be better than what you have, what will you get but disappointment?  It's important to remember that nothing comes easy, and anything worth having is also something you usually have to work for.  There's struggles and hardships that will need to be overcome and maybe the sacrifices you made would become worth it in the end.  And to get through those struggles in life?  The song says:

But I'll keep leanin' on Sweet Jesus

I know He'll love and guide and lead us.

Smoky Mountain memories keep me strong.

What is your "Smoky Mountains?"  The place or feeling or longing that you call "home?"  Is it your loved ones?  Your faith?  Your family?  Let those things be the things you draw strength from, but first and foremost remember that Jesus will love and guide and lead you when you feel overwhelmed and need strength to carry on.

Ya know I've been thinkin' a whole lot lately

About what's been and what awaits me

It takes all I've got to give what life demands

You go insane if you give in to it

Life's a mill and I've been through it

I'm just thankful I'm creative with my hands

Life is so overwhelming at times, you feel like you'll sink if you don't start swimming but just the thought of trying to swim overwhelms you as well!  If you have faith in God, though, just remember this verse from 1 Corinthians 10:13:

But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.

I don't claim to be a Bible scholar and the way I interpret this verse is probably not the way anyone else in the whole wide world would interpret it, but when I read it for the first time I felt as if God was telling me that he wouldn't keep putting tests and trials in front of me if He didn't trust that I could handle it.  Sometimes I feel like, why does God trust me so much?  I don't even have enough faith in myself to believe I can accomplish some of the things He puts before me to do.  However, just the knowledge that He is there for me and has faith that I can do it, or He wouldn't have put it in front of me, keeps me striving to do better...

If I keep lookin' to the Father

he'll keep our heads above the water...

Appalachian Memories by Dolly Parton

As usual the emotion and almost prayerful way Dolly Parton sings this speaks to the soul and pulls on the heartstrings!

Addicted!

...To music that moves me, I should say!  :)

I always hear only the instrumental version of this song on Pandora and every time it comes on I LOVE it so much, I have to look and see what song it is.  I'm always like- "that one again!"  Now I found one with words! 

If You Could Hie To Kolob 
Click on the link to hear!

1. 
   
   If you could hie to Kolob
   In the twinkling of an eye,
   And then continue onward
   With that same speed to fly,
   Do you think that you could ever,
   Through all eternity,
   Find out the generation
   Where Gods began to be?
   
   
   Or see the grand beginning,
   Where space did not extend?
   Or view the last creation,
   Where Gods and matter end?
   Methinks the Spirit whispers,
   "No man has found 'pure space,'
   Nor seen the outside curtains,
   Where nothing has a place."
   
   
   The works of God continue,
   And worlds and lives abound;
   Improvement and progression
   Have one eternal round.
   There is no end to matter;
   There is no end to space;
   There is no end to spirit;
   There is no end to race.
   
   
   There is no end to virtue;
   There is no end to might;
   There is no end to wisdom;
   There is no end to light.
   There is no end to union;
   There is no end to youth;
   There is no end to priesthood;
   There is no end to truth.
   
   
   There is no end to glory;
   There is no end to love;
   There is no end to being;
   There is no death above.
   There is no end to glory;
   There is no end to love;
   There is no end to being;
   There is no death above.
    
   Text: William W. Phelps, 1792-1872

He's Alive!

I recently told a friend of mine that everything I learned about God and Faith I learned from Dolly Parton.  As I was thinking of this statement later I began thinking that she probably thinks I'm a true and certified lunatic!  So then I thought I should give her some examples and prove it to her.  Today is Dolly Parton's birthday, (January 19th) what better day than this to begin the first in a series (I hope) of showing the many ways that Dolly Parton shared her faith with me, and, I'm sure, countless others.  I may have over stated "everything I learned" but I could say "a lot of what I believe" came from Dolly Parton.

In 1989 I was 7 years old.  In 1989 Dolly Parton released the album entitled "White Limozeen."  The last song on this tape was called "He's Alive!" and I loved the power and conviction with which Dolly sang those lyrics!  I watched everything that had Dolly Parton in it, I was enamored with her; her beautiful voice, her beautiful clothes and hair and her beautiful spirit of Love.  Luckily, my parents recorded everything that had Dolly Parton in it so I could watch it over and over again...One such program was the 1989 Country Music Awards (CMA's).  Watch it for yourself! Dolly Parton- He's Alive!

My favorite part of this song is toward the end, after everyone has seen Jesus die upon the cross and had gone back to his tomb, only to find it empty.  They return home and the song goes: "the guilt and anguish came, everything I'd promised him just added to my shame.  When at last it came to choices, I denied I knew his name, and even if he was alive...It wouldn't be the same."

But suddenly the air was filled

With a strange and sweet perfume

Light that came from everywhere

Drove shadows from the room

And Jesus stood before me

With His arms held open wide

And I fell down on my knees 

And I just clung to Him and cried

Imagine seeing Jesus after He has been resurrected.  Maybe feeling unworthy of His love because you lost hope at that moment and in your despair you doubted all the promises He had made.  Then you see Him, alive as He said would happen!  How could you have doubted the One who had never let you down.  How can He ever forgive you?

Then He raised me to my feet

And as I looked into His yes

The love was shining out from Him

Like sunlight from the skies

Guilt in my confusion

Disappeared in sweet release

And every fear I ever had

Just melted into peace

But Jesus IS LOVE!   He knows you are only human and loves you anyway, loves you because of it, gave His own life that you may live!   Feel the peace this knowledge brings!  So, the lesson learned from this Dolly Parton song, even at the age of 7--Jesus loves us, He knows us, He knows our weaknesses but also our strengths and He will always lift us up when we have fallen in despair.  And He will look at us with love, bright shining love! if we just look to Him and seek Him and strive to do His will.

Today, in church, pictures from the gospel were passed around and we were to choose one that meant something to us and tell the group what that story meant to us.  I chose "The Resurrected Jesus Christ."

In this picture, Jesus has is "arms held open wide" and "love is shining out from Him like sunlight from the skies!"  He gave his life to atone for our sins that we might have eternal life and live again with Him someday!  We can do this by living the way He taught us to and doing what He asks of us.  I didn't tell the whole story of why I love this depiction so much, telling about the Dolly Parton song that brought the resurrected Savior to life for me, but it IS what I was thinking of as I looked at the picture today.  Now I share the rest of the story here... (Yes, I did feel a bit like Paul Harvey saying that...)

When that time comes do we want to be filled with fear and shame, guilt and anguish?

Or with the knowledge of our Savior's Love and Light?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  John 3:16