Category: Music

The Mystery

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Our family celebrated Easter last weekend with a beautiful service at our amazing church. Easter is a humbling time of year.  This Easter season, I’ve been meditating on 3 things that Jesus modeled ~ which He invites me to join with Him ~ Suffering, Sacrifice and Salvation.  Philippians 3:10-11.

I can not begin to compare my sufferings to His.  I have everything I need… and more. I live in a place where I am free to worship as I choose.  I am free to follow Jesus. And I am free to tell others about my relationship with Him.  It rarely feels like I’m suffering…

On Good Friday, our church had a ‘Cross Walk’.  We walked with a group of peeps from our church down the main drag in our town, taking turns carrying a large wooden cross, for 2 1/2 miles.  We share in what Christ did when He carried His own cross to Calvary before He was crucified. And remember that He tells us we must take up our own cross to follow Him.  Matthew 16:24-28.

We ended the evening with a time of food and fellowship. Our church has celebrated Good Friday with this tradition for the past 6 years.  This year, as we were preparing to leave on the Cross Walk, our 2 year old Selah was messing around with the cross and got a taste of suffering… she got two splinters.  She kept saying, “I’m okay now”, as she bravely sucked her finger and the pain subsided.  Still, the splinters had to be removed.

Even in these simple moments of pain and bravery, I can see God teaching me more about Him and suffering…

When I became a mom nearly 8 years ago, I couldn’t believe what a sacrifice it was to take care of another person 24-7.  To give of my own life, as I was suddenly given another life to care for.  Motherhood happens instantly, there’s no transition time – in case you didn’t know, btw… and that advice was free.  The crying, the attention, the feedings, the time spent, the time I no longer had, the neediness of a baby… oh my!  I had no idea what was involved in motherhood.  The past 8 years, I have learned more… and I understand it more.  The Lord continually sums it up for me ~ sacrifice.

Even in the everyday motherhood moments, God is teaching me more about Him and I can taste of what it means to sacrifice…


The Mystery is God’s revealed plan of salvation.  I am humbled to have my salvation in Christ.  It is a mystery to fully understand, but I believe it.  I Timothy 3:16.  In Jesus I trust, surrender my life, and submit myself to.

I am thankful for each day I have to walk with Jesus, to grow in knowledge of Him, to abide in Him.  This is the most precious gift I could ever receive… salvation.

I hope and pray you have the knowledge of Christ and can share in His sufferings, sacrifice and salvation.  If not, I would love to pray with you to receive Him ~ yes, even thru this blog!

I would love to share these lyrics from one of my favorite songs, “Mystery” by Charlie Hall ~

“Sweet Jesus Christ my sanity… Sweet Jesus Christ my clarity… 

Bread of Heaven, broken for me… Cup of Salvation held up to drink… Jesus the Mystery

Christ has died and Christ is risen and Christ will come again!”

Noted By ~ Les Babs

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I hate football, actually let me restate that, I hate watching football on TV, in fact ( and I know, as a man,  I am a freak of nature here ), I actually don’t enjoy any sports on TV. Ok, so if I’m gonna be honest with you, I have watched some English premiere league soccer games ( the real deal,”football” in my opinion ), But even that has been few and far between and in the company of other dudes in a pub of some sort with the game on some big screen blaring and the sound of Flogging Molly in the background( is this the obligatory band  to be played at all Irish pubs?- what about the “other” band – you know- U2! ), and fan’s screaming Irish sounding expletive’s at the screen, and Guinness ( of course ). It’s not that I don’t like sports, I actually like them a lot. And I like them enough to think  that in order to enjoy them, you need to get of your duff and actually play them yourself.  But, to each his own….
The truth is, guys like to get together to “watch” sports because all guys know it’s really a disguise. A disguised, Sherlock Holmes, cloak and dagger, stealthy attempt of  building a friendship with other dudes. So instead of a guy saying to another guy, “you want to get together and talk sometime”, which to 99% of guys would be way-weirded out if they were asked that and would probably cause some kind of adverse reaction such as, ” I am going to avoid THAT GUY” for the rest of my life! No instead, guy’s say,

“so, uh, you uh, want to like, um, hang out sometime and uh, watch sports and stuff?”

That is guy-speak for :

” you want to try to awkwardly connect sometime and have some kind of activity going on in the background, so we can choose to either focus on that, so we don’t have to focus on talking about some deep stuff of or God forbid our dang “feelings” ?

Because, at least that way our attention can be diverted by a punt, a kick, or a pitch when the dude goes way to serious on us or challenges us to actually talk about more than the mundane – Right?
The harder than a halfback truth is: We were created for far more than deeper than  football-focused  relationships… Enter the WOMAN,
You remember Adam right, not this blogger Adam, but Adam, the first man. Adam, the one God created out of the earth and breathed life into Him. Adam, the one who walked and talked with God himself. And as we see in the Blog of all Blogs ( The Bible ) in Genesis chp. 2… Adam can also be known as the crocodile hunter, horse whisperer, and lion tamer all-in-one ( beat that Jack Hanna!).Adam was Active, hanging out in the great safari called Eden, walking with God himself, yet even then, God knew something was missing for the Man of all Men- Adam was missing this really, really complicated, totally different, intricately created; Someone. So different to Him, yet a part of Him at the same time. An “other” ( Shameless LOST reference ) called Woman.
NO Activity; no walking in the plains of the savannah with a tiger, or swimming in the sea with a shark, or wrestling with a bear could fulfill a core longing that God put in Adam- the longing for a Woman.
And before I go on, let me set the record straight for all of you reading this thinking, ya we know what Adam had a, “longing for alright”, it was some nookie ( sex in layman’s terms ). Now that is definitely a part of it, but not ALL of it, So keep posted over the next couple weeks, because don’t you worry- we’re gonna go there too.
What God acknowledged, what God recognized, what God instilled in Adam as He does in all of us, is the desire for a,” deeper than sports on tv congeniality” in our relationships. In our relationships with other guys, but even more so- in our relationships with the significant woman in your life ( Yes, your wife! ) .
God’s desire for you, His no joke, flat-out desire for you as a man is to have some real “at your core” conversation with the woman in your life. To turn off all the activities that distract you from her. To settle every exterior voice or activity vying for your attention and give all of that attention to her. To let that voice, you know the one, the one you so often silence, the one within you that is hungry.Hungry within you as a man for some real-life conversation to roll off of your tongue and release some of those thoughts that she has been CREATED to listen to. Those thoughts that have been tied up for so damn long . You can do this– just open yourself up to her a bit- and I will bet the farm on this- I bet you that when you take a step of true friendship, past congeniality with her, beyond just what’s normal, supersame, superficial, or the superblah you will  be able to quote and paraphrase a small Irish band that once sang a  line that should’ve gone a lil’ something like this;
“I think I’ve found what I’m looking for”.


Noted. By Adam  (Part 1 of 4 in Marriage/Relationship Records)