Long Distance

The radio bands were always quieter after midnight. This is what drew Lee and Bill to the back den off the kitchen on Friday and Saturday nights—quieter radio bands meant a greater chance of finding new life and new civilizations (or at least new amateur radio friends). Arlington, Texas is a long way from everywhere today, and it was even farther from everywhere during the summer of 1970. But perhaps that’s what made the radio miracle possible.

Lee and Bill had been interested in amateur (or “ham”) radio their whole lives. One of Lee’s friends at school was a licensed ham radio operator, and as soon as they could, Lee and Bill became licensed themselves. At first, all they could do was communicate on just a few bands (similar to radio stations you pick up in your car) with all the other novices; they were also required to use Morse Code. Dots and dashes flew from their code key, up the two dipole antennae in the backyard, and into the night sky, where they bounced off the ionosphere and landed in backyards across the state, across the country, and even across the world.

Many of these Morse Code communications were themselves coded messages. QRZ meant “Who is calling me?” CQ meant “I am going to announce my own call sign.” QSN was “Did you hear me?” Messages like OMG and LOL are old news to ham radio operators.

Even when Lee and Bill had earned their conditional licenses (meaning they could speak over the radio and were not restricted to Morse Code) they still used the Q codes for simplified communication. QRA meant “What is your call sign?” Each operator had their own call sign that was issued to them when they received their license. Lee’s call sign was K5MRC and Bill’s was K5MTB. Both young men had radios in their car and would sometimes call to each other when they were driving across west Texas. “CQ K5MRC, this is K5MTB, do you read, over?” Most of the time the ionosphere cooperated and the brothers could speak to each other. One night though, even though they were only 100 miles apart, nether could reach the other. An odd signal broke through. “K5MTB, I read you, I also read K5MRC, I can relay, over.” 

“QRA caller, this is K5MTB, over.” 

“This is AC4TT, I can hear you and K5MRC loud and clear.” Bill was confused by the unusual call sign. All of the ham radio operators in the US had signs that began with K or W.

“AC4TT what is your QTH (location)?”

AC4TT laughed. “I am in Tibet.”

For whatever reason, on that night the radio signals would not bounce low enough to get from point A to point B in west Texas, but the man in Tibet could hear them both.

Many nights, like that summer night in 1970, the young men found themselves in the den at the back of the house, hunched at the table covered in black boxes and coaxial cable coils. The radio transmitter sat at the back of the room, in front of the window so the brothers could keep watch on the pair of antennae in the backyard. This particular night started out no different. Lee went to the kitchen and came back with two mugs of coffee poured from the percolator on the stove. “Let’s see who we can find tonight, ok Bill?”

Bill and Lee took turns calling out to friends in Texas and also in other parts of the nation. Flips of switches and turns of dials helped them adjust the delay of the signal from one dipole antenna in the backyard to the other, miniscule tweaks that would help them focus on specific incoming radios signals. At nearly two o’clock in the morning, a weak signal came across the receiver, a tired voice sending out a distress call. “CQ, CQ, is anyone out there, over? CQ, CQ, is anyone out there, over?”

“QRA caller this is K5MRC, we hear you, your signal is very weak, over.”

“K5MRC we read you, over.”

“QRA caller this is K5MTB in Arlington, Texas, we read you, very weak signal, what is your QTH?”

“Brockton Naval Station…Antarctica.”

Bill put the large silver mike down and looked at Lee. “Did they just say…”

Lee shook his head. “We should check again.”

“QRA caller what is your QTH?”

“Brockton Naval Station, Antarctica. Yours is the first voice we’ve heard north of the Equator in six months!”

“OK Brockton, we read you, let us do some adjustments…” Bill turned a dial on the radio receiver and flipped a switch. This would send the signal on the flattest trajectory possible, as far south as possible, for as long as the ionosphere would allow.

“Brockton, do you read us, over?”

“We hear you loud and clear, Texas.”

Brockton’s signal was loud and clear, too, as if the men at the bottom of the world were in the room with them.

“Thank God, we have 24 men down here and we have not spoken to our families in 6 months. Can you call our families and let them know that we are all ok?” 

Bill’s face broke into a grin. “We can do better than that, Brockton, we can set up a phone patch and you can tell them yourselves!”

Bill grabbed a small black box and several cables from the shelf near the table. He ran three cables to the phone patch box: one from the radio itself, one from the microphone, and a third from the rotary desk phone on the table.

“OK Brockton, what’s the first phone number?”

Lee set the handset on the table and dialed the long distance number on the rotary phone. Somewhere in America, a sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”

Lee cleared his throat. “Hello ma’am, this is Lee McRight, I am an amateur radio operator in Arlington, Texas.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“I have your son on the radio, he is calling from Antarctica.”

Sleep disappeared from the voice on the other end of the line. “Johnny?”

“Yes, mom, it’s me! I just have a few minutes, but I wanted to let you know that I’m doing okay.”

Mom’s voice was choked with tears. “I’m just so glad to hear your voice. I love you, son!”

“I love you too, Mom!”

For the next two hours Lee and Bill took turns dialing the phone. “I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of the night, ma’am, but I have your husband on the phone from Antarctica.” Wives, mothers, girlfriends, all got to speak to the men who had been out of touch for so long at the cold, dark, bottom of the world.

The last “I love you! I’ll see you soon!” had been said, the last phone call was finished. Bill picked up the microphone and squeezed the button on the side. “It was good to talk to you Brockton, this is Texas, signing off.”

There was silence on the other end. Bill and Lee looked at each other and looked back at the radio, waiting for a response. The signal that had perfectly clear just moments ago was lost, perhaps because of a sudden shift in the ionosphere.

“Brockton? This is K5MTB, over.”

Nothing. The bands were silent.

But then again, after midnight, they usually were.

The Doolittle Raiders...Men Who Did Much

Today is April 18th. Seventy-six years ago, 80 men took off in 16 planes from the deck of an aircraft carrier for the first time. Ever. Not just the first time for themselves as individuals, but for the first time in history. It was the first American offensive move in World War II. James Doolittle and his men did the unheard of in order to fight the unthinkable--attacking Tokyo with not enough gas to get home.  There is only one of these extraordinary men still left alive.

I wrote this poem for sixth graders after stumbling across the story of the Doolittle Raiders while doing research for Gourmet Learning, a curriculum company I wrote for many years ago. With the permission of Gourmet, I can publish this poem here.

If you do not know about James Doolittle and his raiders, learn the story. Our world is the way it is today because of them.

"Eighty Men in Sixteen Planes"

Eighty men in sixteen planes on the Hornet's  deck that day,

All were dressed in full flight gear prepared to fly away.

None had ever launched a plane to fly it over sea.

But this is what they had to do to strike the enemy.

James Doolittle led the man, he'd be with them when they flew.

He trusted them completely, for they were his handpicked crew.

Although the future was unsure, the pilots showed no fear.

And after fourteen days at sea, the target was drawing near.

The 18th was a dreary morn, low clouds hung from the sky.

Then through the early morning mist they heard a frantic cry.

"Alert! Alert! The've spotted us!" The enemy was at hand!

They were too far away to fly and safely get to land.

The squadron sprang into action, their planes they began to load.

In minutes all the gear and weapons they would need were stowed.

They took off from the Hornet's  deck and flew across the sea.

Courageous and confident, they wanted victory.

By that day's end it was quite clear their triumph was secure.

Truth and freedom, liberty and goodness, these things would endure.

They flew our first attack that day, the nation to defend.

If freedom you appreciate, share the tale of Jimmy's men.

In honor and in memory of the Doolittle Raiders

Resurrecting Easter: A Three Part Series

Part Three: Just Keep Breathing

This is the third part of my Easter Trilogy, but I cannot tie up all the loose ends. There is no box with a bow, no “happily ever after” as of yet. I have not come to the end of my Easter story. But that’s probably because I am still breathing. God is not finished with the path I have to walk. So I keep walking. And I keep singing, for praise is a powerful weapon against the darkness and the unknown.

And I keep breathing. I have several friends who have a “word of the year” for 2018. These are words like “Inspire,” “Grow,” “Flourish,” and so forth. My word for the year? “Breathe.” Just keep breathing. Because some days that’s all I have the strength to do…take it one breathe at a time.

With that in mind, with this post I will follow in the path of many great writers. When you don’t know what to say, steal someone else’s words. But it’s not stealing, really, if you give credit where credit is due. So, thank you, J.R.R. Tolkien, for being so inspiring, and for writing this wonderful little conversation about the stories that really mattered.

“Yes, that’s so,” said Sam. “And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that there were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on—and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same—like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?”

“I wonder,” said Frodo. “But I don’t know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending,

but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.” (JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers)

These words brings me back to the first Resurrection weekend. The disciples didn’t know, on that Friday night or that Saturday, what Sunday would bring. We look back knowing The Rest Of The Story and think them foolish because Jesus had told them multiple times that he was going to die and then come back to life. But Jesus had said a lot of things in parables, in stories, about fig trees and pearls of great price and wedding feasts with bridegrooms and virgins and lamps…and despite all this the disciples were completely clueless, for they were in the middle of their story. They had watched their leader, their rabbi, the head of their little tribe, be executed in the most brutal way the Roman empire could imagine. No one had ever come back from being crucified. Was this just another one of His parables? How could this possibly end well? In the middle of the story, they did not know, they could not know. So perhaps we can look on their fear and trembling with some grace.

I know, today, that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, that He is now seated at the right hand of God.

I know that Frodo and Sam make it to Mount Doom, complete their mission, and then make it home again (I’m not even sorry if I spoiled it for you…the story is 80 years old, it’s not my fault if you haven’t read it or seen the movies yet.)

What I don’t know is what is going to happen tomorrow. Or next week. Or next Easter. I am still in the middle of my story. God does not give me more than a few pages of the story at a time. I see it unfold as it happens. But I can have faith that it will unfold, for God is the Author and Finisher of my story.

Is it easy to keep walking through uncertain, troubling times? Of course not. But we have such treasures of hope in the Scriptures! We know from Isaiah 25:8 that God will “swallow up death for all time, And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces.” Do we feel the sting and pain of death and loss today? Yes…yes we absolutely do. But we walk in glorious faith, knowing that Jesus, “for the joy set before Him, endured the cross and is now at the right hand of God.” (Hebrews 12:2). 

And so, until I come to the end of my story, I must keep believing that God will see me through. I keep walking. I keep singing. And. I. Just. Keep. Breathing.

Resurrecting Easter: A Three Part Series

Part Two: The Agony Of Defeat

Easter of 2010 was glorious. I had successfully given up chocolate for Lent and had subbed as the sound tech at the military chapel in Italy. Sunrise service came and went with glorious song. It was perfect. My last wonderful Easter.

Christmas of 2010 was pretty fantastic too…we got to go home for Christmas and see my family, including my grandmother (my mom’s mom), who my kids called “GG” because she refused to admit that she was actually old enough to be a “Great Grandmother.” But then GG got sick, and didn’t improve.

Plans for the spring were made with a backdoor, a “what if,” a “just in case.” Any hotel reservations I made for Spring Break had to be cancelable at the  last minute with no fee. I mean, we get used to doing this anyway with the Army, but this was just another time to be making very tentative plans. Then my husband had to go away to school in Arizona, so all those four-person plans became three-person plans and I needed a child care backup because last-minute flights to America ain’t cheap. 

On the Thursday before Easter, Maundy Thursday, I got the call that GG had passed away. I raced home and packed up the kids, packed up myself, and bought ridiculously expensive plane tickets. Dad told me not to come, but there was no way I was NOT going to be there. I spent Good Friday on a plane, on a trip that lasted forever. Easter Sunday was surreal that year, in a borrowed dress because the airline lost my luggage, surrounded by sisters and parents and nieces and nephews but SO ALONE without my own little family. I said at the time that it was the worst Easter ever. 

The next Easter was the last we would spend in Italy. It was a beautiful day, but had its own bittersweetness to it, as all “lasts” will. The cover photo on my Facebook page was taken on that day. I can’t bear to change it. The triumph of the cross, in the face of a death that is now tied to a holiday, is something I cling to even 7 years later.

Easter of 2013 found us in America, in Clarksville, Tennessee. This was not a good year for us. Moving back to the states, with the “reverse culture shock,” had been very difficult and I was sick most of the time. Add to this that my husband was gone for about half of our time there..including Easter. That year the holiday fell on Spring Break and the kids and I drove down to “the farm” to spend time with my husband’s family. When we got there, we found that Grandma Faye was very ill and not expected to recover. I don’t remember much about that week except for two phone conversations. I called my Aunt crying, “I don’t want to lose another Grandmother on Easter, I’ve done this already and I don’t want to do it again.” The other was with my husband, as we tried to decide when to head back to Tennessee or to stay for the funeral, should Grandma Faye pass while we were there. “What do you want to do?” he asked. “I want to stay in New Braunfels forever and not go back to Tennessee,” I bawled. But go back we did. We left Texas on Saturday and drove for two days to get home. That was probably the first time in my life that I was not in church on Easter Sunday. We got home and heard that Grandma Fay had passed on Easter Sunday afternoon.

Easter was losing “treasured holiday” status as fast as it had been gained.

We got out of the Army in November of 2013 and limped back to “the farm” to lick our wounds and determine what civilian life would look like. Eventually we found a house of our own, a church of our own, and several Easters passed without incident. There was still a heaviness that surrounded the holiday. Joy was there in full force because Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! But the holiday remained a reminder of loss. Slowly, though, one Easter at a time, it became easier to handle.

Until March 29, 2017, when a bus crash killed 13 members of our church, two and a half weeks before Easter. I am not going to dwell on that night because I have written about it before (here and also here). That Easter was a Sunday like no other. I experienced the power of song in ways that I had not before. My broken soul wept and rejoiced at the same time, for even though we do walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we fear no evil, for we know the Lord is with us and He is triumphant.

Easter this year is on April 1. Just two days after the anniversary of the bus accident. I have been dreading it for months. So many hurts tied up in one holiday, and each pain seems to amplify the other. I find myself walking a dark road emotionally at this time, going through unrelated struggles greater than any I have faced before. It’s hard. It’s stupid hard. I know that God will see me through, every step of the way. But that doesn’t make the way easier.

Resurrecting Easter: A Three Part Series

Part One: In The Beginning

Christmas is my FAVORITE holiday. Bells. Lights. Snow. (Well...in Texas...we can pretend.) Cookies. Special movies. THE BEST MUSIC. Everything about Christmas makes me giddy, bouncing on my toes, clapping my hands and squealing like a little girl. Easter…Easter is different.

Easter was a joyous holiday when I was a child. Baskets. Bunnies. Bonnets. New matching dresses each year that Mom usually made for her three little blonde girls. White shoes (finally!). Christ the Lord is Risen Today! Haaaaaaaaaa-le-lu-ia! It was a day to look forward to every year for many reasons. 

Resurrection Sunday is a holy day, a day to celebrate for sure. But growing up Baptist I had no lead up to Easter, not really. It just…was…one Sunday, sudden and unpredictable date-wise, although different from other Sundays. I had Catholic friends in high school and they suddenly ate fish on Fridays (I resolved every year to give up broccoli for Lent but Mom would have none of it.) But other than that, for me, Easter…just…happened.

It wasn’t until we moved to New Braunfels that Easter gained real meaning. Our pastor preached one Sunday that “Christmas is Easter, Part One; and Easter is Christmas, Part Two.” Suddenly the two church holidays were connected in a new way. Bookends, if you will. I began looking for, and finding, connections between the two days. Many Christmas carols point to the cross. Bethlehem would always lead to Calvary. I paid more attention, sort of, to the days leading up to Easter. But for Texas Baptist Laura, Easter was still a day that snuck up on me with that silly moveable date habit that it has. It had a special holiness, especially with the connection to Christmas, but it still…just…happened. Until we moved to Italy.

Moving to a foreign country changes the way you see the world. Moving to Catholic Country also changed the way I saw the calendar. I attended a Bible Study on post with friends of many different denominations…Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and I even became friends with a few Catholics. There were banners hanging in the chapel that were changed every so often, and one day I finally asked someone why they were changed and what the different colors meant. I learned about the concept of the Liturgical Calendar, with Lent and Advent and Ordinary Time. The organization of the thing was fascinating and new, and added pieces to the puzzle of the connection between Christmas and Easter. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the Liturgical Calendar, it goes a like this: Advent is the beginning, the four weeks before Christmas. The “Christmas Season” is actually the 12 days from December 25 to January 6 which is Epiphany, traditionally the day the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem to see the Christ Child. After this there is a small period of Ordinary Time, the lull between Christmas and Lent. Many cultures celebrate Carnivale, or Mardi Gras, right before the beginning of Lent, which is the 6 weeks leading up to Easter. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. Then we have Passion Sunday, or Palm Sunday, which is the Sunday before Easter. (This is the point in the year in which all the Baptists go, wait, Easter is NEXT SUNDAY?) Then there is Passion Week, which includes Maundy Thursday (the night Jesus partook of the Last Supper), Good Friday, and then Easter Sunday. The Easter Season is the 6 weeks after this, ending with Pentecost. Then we are in Ordinary Time for the next several months. The banners in the chapel were purple for Advent and Lent, red for Passion week, white for Easter Sunday, purple for Easter Season (I think) and then green for Ordinary Time.

During our 7 years in Italy we celebrated many Easters at the chapel, including several Sunrise Services. The most blessed Easter season for me was the year I subbed as the sound tech.

This was also the year I had given up chocolate for Lent. The first week of that experiment was miserable…chocolate was EVERYWHERE and unavoidable. But the longer I went without it, the less I missed it, and I found myself walking down the candy aisle of the commissary thinking “If Jesus endured 6 hours on the cross and three days in the tomb, I can go 6 weeks without chocolate.” Somehow this first “giving up” made the Passion more real still, as it was something I was doing intentionally with a specific reminder that Jesus Died For Me. 

Each night of Holy Week I was at the chapel early in the evening, helping Father Mike set up for service and making sure everything was in working order. I was allowed to join in with the walking of the Stations of the Cross, something else I had never done before. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, even Midnight Mass, I was there, celebrating the Passion of the Christ with my fellow believers. I remember the exhilaration of being able to eat a piece of chocolate cake at the fellowship after Midnight Mass. Lent was over, after all…it was Easter Sunday even if it was only 12:30 in the morning. A few hours later the pianist (who had also been there every evening) and I greeted each other with exhausted waves at the Sunrise Service. Christ the Lord is risen today. Haaaaa-le-lu-ia! 

It was a beautiful service, that Easter morning of 2010. It was my last truly wonderful Easter. 

Praise Is My Fight Song

I do not ever remember a time when music was NOT a part of my life. I sang as soon as I could talk, danced as soon as I could walk. Mom sat me on the piano bench as soon as I could sit up alone. (I have pictures to prove it.)

When I was old enough, I was in children’s choir at church. Elementary school meant ballet and tap lessons. Seventh grade brought new opportunities like handbells and BAND. OH MY GOODNESS BAND. Marching band in high school gave me more opportunity to do music with my whole self…and probably contributed to my inability to sit still when there is music playing.

When I started college I was a music major at a Baptist college. It was like living at band camp and also church camp that never ended. There was band and piano lessons and choir and voice lessons and Bible classes and church and music all the time. It was perfect, until carpal tunnel reared its ugly head and boom…that was the end of my career as a professional pianist.

Changing majors and changing universities did not mean that the music ended. There was still church choir. College choir. Teaching children’s choir and volunteering with the youth choir. Music was how I lived, how I dreamed, how I judged whether a movie was worthwhile (it was good but the soundtrack was AMAZING!). How I shared my faith. The best moments of my life have been tied to music. I have special songs from the day each of my children were born and special music that will always remind me of my wedding day.

I’ve written recently about the opportunity to sing Mozart’s Requiem in 2002. The recording of that performance is my favorite CD and I have listened to it many many times in the past few days. It is beautiful complex music, running the gamut from fast to slow, from high to low, trills and arpeggios that dissolve and resolve perfectly. It’s difficult to sing, probably the most complex piece I have ever performed. I listen to the Requiem over and over again because of the last three words: “Quia pius est” (Because You are Holy.) A full hour of perfectly arranged, painstakingly rehearsed, transcendentally performed, ethereal music, which exists because GOD IS HOLY. It still gives me chills.

Opportunities for music became one of the markers for how we chose a church…could I sing? Could I play? If the church was so small that there was no choir, I was the pianist. Or at least in the praise band.

I also had opportunities to write and arrange, but not enough courage to do it often. There are two hymn medleys on my piano, one for Easter and one for Christmas. There is a chorus called “You Can’t Turn Left in Clarksville” which is simply about traffic difficulties in Tennessee. My favorite of my own compositions is a silly little almost-country song called “When I Die I Wanna Go To Venice.” Music has been fun, silly, beautiful, holy, and exciting.

But recently I have come to see music, especially praise music, as a form of rebellion. I know. This is crazy talk. Praise music? Church music? Hymns? Rebelling? Against what? This makes no sense. I know. I would not have thought in those terms until about a year ago.

On March 29th, 2017, a bus crash took the lives of 13 senior adults in our church, including my son’s Sunday School teacher. I have written about that previously. Easter fell on April 16, just two weeks later. How. How could we do this? How could we sing “Up From The Grave He Arose” and “Christ The Lord is Risen Today” when we had just buried so many beloved friends? How could we do it? Because music, especially praise music, is powerful. We had been working on a song called “Unto The Lamb." And when the song begins “I can see Jesus, high and exalted,” pain takes a backseat for a while. “All of the angels cry HOLY, all of the saints cry HOLY…HOLY IS THE LAMB.” And I stood that morning in the front row of the choir loft (it’s where they put the short altos…) and with tears streaming down my face, I sang the chorus “All praise unto the Lamb, Who sits on the throne, Honor and power dominion and Praise, unto the Lamb, who was and is, And is to come!” My hands were curled into fists in defiance of the pain and anger and hurt that threatened to overcome that holy day. But when my voice wasn’t choked with tears, it was strong. And with the music as both a weapon and a healing balm, the church began to recover.

Until November 5th. When there was a mass shooting at a church about an hour away. All the hurt and pain of the bus accident returned in full force, knocking me off my feet again. I did not want to go to church the next Sunday. I was scared about going to church for the first time in my life. But we had a special day called Generational Worship planned, and both of my kids were going to be in the choir with me. I do not remember the songs we sang that day. What I do remember is standing there, holding my son’s hand, weeping again, and knowing that if there was a shooter in our midst that there was no better way to go than lifting up the name of the LORD. So I curled my hands into fists again and praised God, who gives strength and power and grace in so many ways. And again, slowly, we began to heal.

Until January 19th. Four long and short days ago. When we found out that a young man in our youth group had passed away. This sudden, tragic, senseless loss took the church’s collective breath away. Again we gathered as a church body to mourn and weep. And then again it was Sunday. The family had spoken with the music minister and said “We just want to worship.” Our opening song was “Rejoice, The LORD is King.” Rejoice. Give thanks. Sing. And triumph evermore. Lift up your voice.

Oh dear God in Heaven. How? How, again?

But music is powerful. And praise is a form of rebellion. Because it would be so easy, so much easier, to just curl up in a ball and drown in all the sorrow, pain, agony, loss, and despair. But God calls us to more. And He has given us the tools for more. So again, I stand in the front row of the choir loft, wringing my hands, fists clenched, tears streaming, at times unable to breathe. But I sing. REJOICE. LIFT UP YOUR VOICE. REJOICE. THE KEYS OF DEATH AND HELL ARE TO OUR JESUS GIVEN. I almost shout the words. We live in a fallen, sinful, pain-filled, wretched world. And it threatens to overcome the joy that God has given me, especially when the pain comes in so many waves so close together. But I stand and sing in defiance of the pain, rebelling against the wretchedness.

My friends say they love to watch me sing, that all my emotions show on my face, that I am brave to sing, especially on a day like today. I don’t know how brave I am. I cried a lot today. I do know that it is God who gives me any courage, strength or power that I possess. And that God gives me all of these through music. 

Praise is, indeed, my fight song.