Category Archives: Stuff I Actually Think

Song for a Sunday ~ The Blood Will Never Lose its Power

1 Christ is All, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

Andrae Crouch.  Demos Shakarian.  Beth Moore.  And a song…

It started with my dad making me watching Jesus Explo ’72, nearly having to drag me from my room at the time, which I wrote veeeeeery extensively about HERE (click!).

Andrae Crouch and the Disciples sang and oh, I loved their sound, oh yes!  I sang my heart out to many an 8-track or cassette tape of his music.  Andrae is the soundtrack of my spiritual heart and soul from about 1972-1980.

I just completed my first-ever Beth Moore Bible Study(confetti flying through the air- bells and whistles going off, and all that jazz).  In one of the sessions toward the end, she was preaching up a storm about the blood of Jesus and started quoting the lyrics to Andrae’s song,  “The Blood Will Never Lose its’ Power.”  Wow-it brought back a flood of  memories – maybe especially because just that very day, the physical therapist I have been seeing about the Labor-Day-weekend knee-wrenching episode, had said, “You know, it is probably time to get the MRI and look at getting surgery.  And oh how I hated that.  You see, this very same knee had been broken and mangled before and after two+ years of 24/7 pain, God just healed it.  Just like that.  While I was running up and down these massive industrial stairs to the finance office at Heaven Fest 2009.  It was crazy!

So Beth quotes the words to this great song, resisting, she says, the urge to actually sing it out.

And I remember.  1972.  Davenport, Iowa. 

I had the flu, apparently.  Achy beyond comprehension.  A fever of 104.  Sort of delirious.  Just misery.  It was a Sunday, but I was 12, and old enough to be alone in my utter despair, so off to church my parents and family went…me left on the couch, just sort of moaning.  My mom had the left the television on very low, I couldn’t really hear it beyond my whimpering, but it was background noise, as I lay there suspended in a gauzy pain, the kind that makes you cry out to Jesus for relief making you acutely aware that you haven’t been crying out to Him for much of anything recently.  You think about making deals, promises, but haven’t the strength and know He is probably glad for that.

At some point, however, the sound of TV seemed suddenly to have become louder.  I became aware of what was on.  Demos Shakerian was hosting his weekly Full Gospel Buisiness Men’s Fellowship International show.  And his guest?  Andrae Crouch.  I don’t remember what they talked about, but at some point, Andrae moved to a grand piano and started singing this song.  And I am telling you, the Presence rode in on that melody and just poured over me.  That room turned in to a holy place as that song filled the air, the volume somehow mysteriously louder, clearer than it had been (in the days before you could just use a remote to change the volume!). 

“The blood that gives me strength from day to day…”

I started to cry as I heard those words which were etching truth into my very heart.  Andrae sang and I felt healing surge through me as pain just – went!  Gone.  My head stopped throbbing, I started worshiping. It was strong, but tender; it was mighty and powerful, but for me, not against me.  Andrae sang and sang and angels must have been singing along.  I was very suddenly and immediately energized and whole – like not one thing was wrong, not one.  No more pain, moaning, no more achiness – all of it: gone!  I grabbed the thermometer and took my temp, it had instantly fallen to exactly normal!  I felt light as a feather, ready to dance with joy.

I hopped up, got dressed and walked 2 1/2 miles to church.  Didn’t even get a day off school because of that flu.

The knee.

Just finished up a big fundraiser.  About 2/3 of the way through the evening last night in heels (covering lots of area at high speed), it started popping out of place again.  Today it is so very sore.   Today it feels like I will be a cripple forever.  I am on the couch on  a Sunday morning, sort of achy all over from the last few crazy days, wondering: is there a numerical limit to how many healings one knee gets?  Or could He do it again?  Would He?…

Short Version by CeCe Winans

Someday I hope to find the footage of Andrae on that Demos Shakarian show

Isaiah 53.5 

But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed.

SkateMinistry.Org

1 Christ is All, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , , ,

 I {actually}  have plans for Saturday night!

Patrick’s Vimeo page…couldn’t keep hold of the embed, for some reason?

Guess where I’ll be?  I am directing the first-ever fundraising dinner for SkateMinistry led by Uriel Leubcke.  It has turned in to quite the event, almost double in attendance to our projections.  My bestie, Patrice of Patrice’s Pantry is serving Beef Wellington (I’m in!), Chicken Cordon Bleu and Gluten-free Vegetarian Lasagne.  This cool video by my friend Patricko (I added the “o”) will kick off the program.  The evening’s festivities will end with a professional Skate Demo and Uriel preaching it up in case any of the guests don’t know Jesus.  The music will be Christian reggae and the vibe?  Nothing less than super cool.

CLICK FOR VIDEO:  Skate Ministry:: The Story of Uriel Luebcke from J Patrick Kennedy on Vimeo.

Running a fundraiser is kind of like doing a wedding (I did 5 last spring).  There’ll be 200 at this one.  There is venue, vendors, music, decor.  You have to make seating arrangements, hound people about RSVPs, print prgrams and fill packets.  There are catering issues (like we are double what we thought so we need more ovens) and rentals and making sure the parties involved are dressed correctly.  The PowerPoint loop during dinner to inspire, and a video that will cause chills…Lighting and candles and pens that work are big deals in a fundraiser.  Making sure to thank everyone appropriately and give gifts is important, too.  Weeks of prep com down to one crazy-event-filled evening.  There just isn’t an emotional bride given to teary outbursts with a fundraiser.  Oh, wait…that is me in this scenario.  *sniff, sniff

Can’t wait to spend a Saturday night with my new bunch of great friends {a lot of whom have crazy-amazing balance and unbelieveable endurance…AND love Jesus!}.

I’ll Love You Forever

Stuff I Actually Think

My heart is tender towards you.  You are valuable and important to me.  I grieve when I think of the ways I have disappointed you or wounded your spirit.  Because I care so much, I hate seeing the door close between us.  I wish you could see I am trying, have been trying…to listen, to hear. 

To love you takes no effort.  No special sun in the sky.  No lavish gifts or flowery words.  No perfection on your part, no jumping through hoops, or backflips. 

As long as I am living.  Love you, I will.

Sometimes, as Shakespeare said, “the course of true love never did run smooth.”  (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and every loving relationship (marriage, kids, friends, spiritual family) gets challenged.  But like DC Talk sang to us so many years ago, “Love is a verb.”  And it is worth the risk, the pain, the possibility of both the good times and the bad to love, to do love and to guard love, once you have love.  Because real love is so rare.  Sometimes we are just too quick to throw in the towel with some one we love.  But because I need all the love I can get, I want to learn to give it, too, unabashedly, lavishly and eternally.  To give that kind of love ~ admirable, worth it.  To receive it, beyond words!…

Just the Way You Are

2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 7 Keep Christmas, Stuff I Actually Think

 

 

Got to hang with cousins Hunter and Averi recently, which was lovely.

     

click on thumbnails for a larger view

  

And Rocky sang to Jovan for her birthday.

A Bruno Mars song.  She loved it.  His mommy may even have cried a little at the romance of such sweetness.  Isn’t it nice when we can love someone just the way they are (even if we’d tweek them a little here or there if it were up to us??}?  And isn’t it glorious beyond comprehension when some one loves us that way???

And my little Kelley-sisters-grandbebes visited

 

Under the canopy of yellow-leafed Aspens just beyond the patio.  We use Christmas lights in trees even in summer for magical nights under blue-blue skies.

And this is a SNEAK PEEK at some Rhoades family fun we had at the farm this weekend.  More to come!

 

Song for a Sunday ~ Make You Feel My Love

5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

Bob Dylan has a real call of God on his life.  Seriously, he does.  I actually think a lot of really talented musicians and songwriters who are not Christ-followers, have been infused by God with special gifts of anointed melody and insightful lyric. They were born to sing the song of the Lord, but sometimes, you know, people get sidetracked along the way.   Rocky theorizes that some have achieved huge fame by keeping some of what should have been God’s glory to themselves.  Probably true. 

But I also know that the glory of God is written across the heavens.  It’s been written on walls of the pagans (see the book of Daniel in the Bible) and I am keenly aware that it permeates art and story, music and lyric.  I can see Him in movies with transcendental deep love that could only reflect the Creator.  His glory is visible and real, strong and prevalent, even when the ones who don’t yet know Him, aren’t yet following, are reaching for something, creating from a place they can’t even explain.

So, this Bob Dylan song came to mind a few days back, as I was praying for some treasured ones and I thought I actually heard God singing this very song over them.  Garth Brooks made it famous for the soundtrack to the movie “Hope Floats,” and Billy Joel, Tricia Yearwood, Ronan Keating and Bob-D himself, among others, have recorded it.  This is Adele’s version.  And the more I see and hear the words, the more I am convinced this love song is straight from heaven…

Make You Feel My Love by Bob Dylan

When the rain is blowing in your face

And the whole world is on your case

I could offer you a warm embrace

To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear

And there is no one there to dry your tears

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet

But I would never do you wrong

I’ve known it from the moment that we met

No doubt in my mind where you belong

I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue

I’d go crawling down the avenue

There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do

To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rollin’ sea

And on the highway of regret

The winds of change are blowing wild and free

You ain’t seen nothing like me yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true

Nothing that I wouldn’t do

Go to the ends of the earth for you

To make you feel my love

Copyright © 1997 by Special Rider Music

The Average Family

Stuff I Actually Think

“WalMart saves the average family $2800 a year, no matter where they shop.” 

THIS is what the narrator on a currently-running, family-oriented TV ad says.  In small print below you see the words, “Based on WalMart’s impact on the economy.”

I never have to shop there again.  I can shop at Target and WalMart will STILL save me $2800 a year.  This a magnificent development and joyful news to me. 

Or possibly WalMart thinking more highly of themselves than they should…very debatable marketing on their part, I am thinking?  Just wish I could live near a WalMart with great management.  It isn’t like I don’t try to shop there happily.  Dave and I have a collection of photos of ourselves in WalMarts from when we travel: Maui, Steamboat Springs, Puerto Rico, Springfield… I have been to some decent WalMart stores before, but most of them are managed so poorly.  I get so excited once a year or so when I get great customer service that I write a comment card then.  I am so used to being treated poorly or ignored by low-energy nincompoops and finding the store in utter chaos that a good-WalMart-experience shocks and delights me.  If it were any other establishment, I’d never even try again.  But some days you just really need cheap, and they are not in short supply of cheap.

What’s up, WalMart?

I  stood 10 feet away from Sam Walton once when he visited my local store.  He tipped his hat to me and nodded his head.  I miss the Sam-days.  Oh, yes, I do.  Satisfaction guaranteed?  I don’t think so.

Oh and – how much does an ABOVE-average family save? ;p

Shake your boot-ies

6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Think

My mom turned me on to boots while I was yet a toddler.  I started loving them when I was 3 and they were Majorette boots, thank-you very much. {thank-YOU, mommiekins!}

These boots were made for marching

At barely 10, I got my white go-go boots, a  highly-treasured Christmas gift.

When I was twelve I thoroughly loved my black patent leather boots, which I wore with wide-collared dresses and hair long, parted down the middle.

I bought some dark blue platforms from Famous Footwear with babysitting money when I was 14.  I loved those boots.  They were simply Soul-Train-GROOVY!  And I love-love-love being tall!

 

These boots were made for strutting

There was the “Urban Cowboy” phase and yes, I had cowgirl boots like Debra Winger, and a suede leather vest or two…in deep purple and dusty blue.

The eighties were all about dressy-ness and high heels with textured and patterned pantyhose and tights and green suede ankle boots.

 

Speaking of the 80s, remember leg-warmers?  Yes.  O yes.  I actually did do this ~ fishnets*, white pumps and all.  Kinda boot-esque, huh?

Guess what!!??  I just got an email from Famous Footwear and they have boots on sale and they want me to stop in and try them on! Isn’t that thoughtful of them?  So sweet!

*I wore my first chartreuse-colored fishnets when I was 7…to church with a groovy paisley dress.  I know my whole life history is important to you!

google images…someone kept my boot record!

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

How do you do it?  How do you make it right when you have hurt some one?  What happens when an apology isn’t enough, doesn’t even make a dent in the mess?  How can you re-open some one’s heart to you when you have disappointed them, so let them down?  Are some things just irreparable?

The BeeGees sang it.

On the cause and cure of a wounded spirit C.H. Spurgeon preached, “Take sin away and give me a spirit washed in the fountain filled with blood, and I can patiently go through anything and everything, the Lord being my Helper.”

Daddy, What If…sniff sniff

5 Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think, , , ,

I LOVED this song when I was about 14.  I bought the 45.  The other day I taught it to GemGem.  Only she had to sing “Nonna, What if…”  It was hilarious.  Everytime we got to the end and I’d ask, “Do you love me, Gemma?”  She would smile, declare a very decided yes and grab me and hug me, as if she were really concerned I might not know,  and then she would always be late coming in on singing the final refrain, “You better start loving me again, again…you better start loving me again!”  It was so sweet!

Not a ballpoint in the bunch

Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , ,

I miss my Pentel Tetra Rollerball (non-refillable) Pens  {why, o why did every store I shop at quit selling them????)}.  And I know I will never love like that again, but meanwhile, I do believe in a free-flowing ink.  These were at the bottom of my bag during a recent cleaning/re-org.  All beautiful in their own way.  All very fluid, some gel, some marker.  Just not my smooth, glaze-a-licious rollerball.  Not my Tetra.  *sigh…

Inks in purple, blue, black, green, even red.  They try.  They do so try…