This song has a heart-breaking history. Horatio Spafford, a well-to-do Christian man went through the very trials of Job. His wife and daughters traveled by ship to England ahead of Spafford. Their ship was struck by an iron vessel and sank in 12 minutes. Only his wife Anna survived. Spafford took a ship to England to be with her. As the ship passed over the spot where his 4 daughters had been lost, the ship's captain informed Spafford. He went down to his cabin and wrote this song. The rest of Spafford's story is one of heartbreak and triumph. The Spafford's are buried in Jerusalem where they finished their lives doing mission work.
The song is performed by Acapeldridge, a "group" consisting of just one guy singing all 4 parts, which accounts for the amazing blend of voices. A sad but as hopeful a song as you'll ever hear.
I love "I Can Only Imagine". It's very powerful. We played it at Micah's memorial service. The song was one of his favorites. This version is incredible. Masafumi "Masa" Fukuda, a Japanese-American songwriter, composer and music arranger is the choir director and founder of One Voice Children's Choir. He gifted and does incredible things with the children he draws together from across American culture. His music includes religious and non-religious numbers, but there is always a kind of spiritual kind of reverence for the well-chosen pieces the choir performs. I sat through this song tonight and had tears running down my face and I'm not ashamed.
This piece is nothing short of awesome (and not the sort of awesome people throw out for something that is merely pretty good).
This song expresses something lodged in my heart and more so as I'm looking toward the end of my life. Friends and family are going to their rest right and left as I get older. Many I look forward to seeing again when Jesus comes. At the same time I worry that the dust and wear and tear of life has left some old wounds in my family that stubbornly refuse to heal. I have a son and brother who have gone on ahead to their rest. Both I'm sure I will see again. Both of them were close and I knew their hearts. We'll all do a little happy dance when we find ourselves together again looking up to see Him coming in the clouds.
Like the song talks about, the difficulties we run into in life can distance us from those we love. With family, you hope these things can "wash out in the water." At the same time you fear that what will wash out is the bond of blood that once held you close together.
Things sadly can happen, hurts deliberate or inadvertent push us apart. We don't talk for years. We stop getting together at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Sometimes that's because of distance. Sometimes it's ruffled feathers or old offenses. It might be politics. It might that someone can't stand your religion.
It's heartbreaking that people who loved each other once can find themselves standing off to avoid stirring up old hurts. Myself, I can't think of anyone I share blood with that I could not throw my arms around and be thrilled to see. I fear that it's not shared. Perhaps I'm such an awful person I can't be forgiven. If so, God forgive me. I've tried to be kind and fair and decent to everyone I come into contact with. I certainly hope that love and forgiveness is "In the Blood".
Someone once said that family is the place you can go for refuge and they can never turn you away. I hope that's true. It's certainly true for Sheila and I. Each day I pray that God leads us all home. I have big plans for family get-togethers in The Earth Made New. I plan to build a schooner and take everybody sailing. Then we'll have a big potluck and a jam session. We'll drag out guitars, banjos, harmonicas, flutes, drums, mandolins and a washtub bass and sing wonderful old songs we remember and new ones we've made up.
Forgive me guys if I've offended. I never meant any harm.
Peter Hollen is an amazing indie artist and here he gets together with the equally amazing "Home Free" acapella men's quintet for the most Amazing song in the Christian Hymnals. All they needed was some bagpipes.
This is another one of those songs that make me go for the handkerchief (albeit a manly bandana sort of one). I can remember heart searing prayers, that battered me to my knees before God, and finally realizing He had already said "No," despite my weeping. That's hard and a real test of faith for anyone. But you do manage to get through it knowing that it will all work out for good if t love God and are called according to His purpose*.
Jill Paquette's heart-rending song gets to me every time. Losing a baby brother to measles, losing a brother to a shooting accident when he was 16, all of that was tough. Losing Dad to murder by my stepmother was hard too. But doing CPR for 30 minutes all the time listening for the ambulance that came too late to help save my son. That was a moment I never want to relive. I'm sure I will face other tragedies. A son who has severe bipolar who in a manic break getting himself put in prison unjustly, job loss, my Sweet Baboo's own struggle with bipolar, job loss, financial disaster and homelessness - the devil has pounded us hard, but we still are standing.
Our faith holds - sometimes it's by our fingernails. Sometimes by less. But God is love and whatever happens in this life, it will work together for our good.
I am reminded of that popular poster of the kitten hanging from a rod with the caption "Hang in there Baby!" Sound advice, especially when God says, "No."
I do like MercyMe a lot, mostly because their music was some of Micah's favorite music. This song is important to me. John Thurber, the man who baptized me in the frigid waters of the Jefferson Academy swimming pool at Bible Conference in 1971, introduced our youth groups to this old hym and taught us to sing it with harmony and reverence. These beautiful words make me cry sometimes.
Bart Millard's version is quite lovely. He captures the passion of the words wonderfully well.
Big Wedgwood fan back during the great folk music schism in the church. I have always thought that I want this song played at my funeral. I like the part where it goes, "Then sweeping up to glory, I'll see his blessed face, where rivers of delight shall ever roll. The Lily of the Valley always gives me a thrill and I like Wedgwood's version the best.
I couldn't find a live performance of this song, but there is a clip from this lovely album on Youtube. I bought this album some years ago and it hearkens back to Ladysmith Black Mambazo's gospel roots. This album combines the South African musical style with a Latin hymn and an English Chamber Orchestra. It's really a lovely happy little song. It makes for a kind of "wake up and go to church" music. Enjoy!
This version of Softly and Tenderly is by Cynthia Clawson and is from the 1985 movie "Trip to Bountiful" with Geraldine Page as an elderly woman striking out on her own to take one last trip home before she dies. It's a sad and lovely movie and this is Sheila's favorite version of this song.
When I was young and arrogant, I thought Christian hymns were predictable, boring and not very good poetry. I
think I thought that because I'd heard them all my life and the lines
rattled around in my head much to the dismay of my determined
agnosticism. Then I met Christ.
And the old hymns began to mean something to me. This scene from the 20005 movie "Junebug" is a sweet rendition of a hymn that became one of my favorites. The lyrics no longer seemed trite and foolish. This song and its brothers and sisters tucked inside my church hymnal became the echoes of my own heart. My choir teachers in academy taught us to sing four part harmony and how to follow the notes and the parts in the music.
My Sweet Baboo grew up singing hymns and one of the things we did quite a lot after we were married was to break out in old hymns while washing dishes or driving in the car or walking along a path on a Sabbath walk. Old hymns became old friends.
This rendition of the old hymn "My Jesus I Love Thee" sounds much like the version the kids at Bible Conference sang on the night I accepted Christ - May 1, 1971. That makes me a 47 year old Christian. It has been a long walk with Him since that night and I have sung this song to comfort myself many times since that night and the subsequent Sabbath morning when Elder John Thurber baptized me in a freshly filled and very cold Jefferson Academy swimming pool. I caught the Spirit. Brother John caught pneumonia.
This song has a little history behind it for me. First of all, it was the theme song to the 1888 Seventh-day Adventist General Conference at which the doctrine of Righteousness by Faith was emphasized and first became a major element of Adventist preaching. In the late 60s and early 70s of the 20th century, the Righteousness by Faith doctrine experienced a resurgence among Adventist Youth, bolstered by a lot of new religious music, not limited to the pages of the Adventist hymnal and even more youthful enthusiasm. This song, "Jesus Paid it All", was one of the few numbers I coaxed my public singing shy wife, Sheila to sing with me. We performed it at the Melrose New Mexico SDA church in 1979 and enjoyed a nice potluck afterward. Sheila hasn't sung publicly with me since, although during her college days she toured with the Arkansas-Louisiana Good News Singers.
Fortunately, my daughter inherited her mother's voice and has blessed many a service with her singing which sounds amazingly like her Mom's. I have a couple of surreptitious, videos of the two of them singing together. Sounds like angels.
We still, on occasion, sing this song together over the sink while washing dishes - the only audience the hummingbirds, wrens and chickadees.
This is one of my favorite hymns as interpreted by Chris Tomlin. I still like the original, but there is a kind of reverence and passion to this version that I find compelling. This song was sung the night I accepted Christ. May 2, 1971. My rebirth day.
Happy Sabbath all.
Tom King
Here's a more solemn and traditional version by the Generations Gospel Choir. I really like this one better.
This according to some is the definitive version of this song. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band sings a rousing bluegrass rendition of the popular funeral song here with Del and Ronnie McCrory. Lots of country musicians have done this song including Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson below in a concert in Austin, confidently singing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" There's the question if you're a Christian. Will the circle indeed be unbroken?
Apparently not, if you listen to what Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson have to sing about it. Perhaps the song is only some sort of fire insurance for these guys, given the lifestyle they lead, but hey? Even the mighty Elvis Presley put out a Gospel album to make his mama happy.
Meanwhile we get to enjoy this joyful rendering of the old Southern Gospel standard.
Once again, my second favorite singer in all the world (her Mama is
still my #1 favorite) with a song for Sabbath. I tell people Meghan got her singing ability
from me because her Mom still has hers. Actually, she got her perfect
pitch and lovely voice from the gene pool on her Mom's side. On my side
we play guitar and kind of hum along in the background because we've
been told not to sing too loud. It throws the others off. We tend to wander off key a lot. I've
gotten better at it, but Miss Sheila still has to stop up her ears
whenever I get musical.
Not so with Miss Meghan. I have a few
brief clips of the two of them singing together. One day I'll post them
on Youtube and here. In the meantime here's Meghan singing a lovely song
call Do They See Jesus in Me? Knowing my daughter, I think they can.
I love this Petra song. It's been a standard for youth song services where I've played. It's not hard to play and the words are quite lovely. My Primary Sabbath School kids requested The Coloring Song almost every week. We even got a bunch of rhythm band instruments and they used to do this drumbeat/cymbals sort of thing in time with the song. It gave it a Celtic kind of sound. All we needed was for someone to learn the recorder line for the opening and chorus.
This cherubic Swedish-American gospel singer, Evie Tornquist, introduced me to this lovely little song. I've played guitar for other singers for church services over the years and it was a favorite we sang for youth song services. This is another one that makes me all weepy. Here's "Give Them All to Jesus".
This lovely old song by Charlotte Elliott with music by William B. Bradburywas originally written in 1835 and published in 1836 in a hymnal she edited. Charlotte related later that she was troubled about her own salvation. She often comforted herself by writing verse. She took pen and paper from a nearby table and deliberately set down to write what she later called "the formulae of her faith." In this familiar altar call hymn, Charlotte restated the Gospel of pardon, peace, and heaven.
I remember this hymn fondly from the ministry of former Voice of Prophecy Quartet singer, John Thurber. Brother John taught his Adventist Youth in Action (AYA) teams and the kids who came to youth meetings how to sing this song. He always got amazing harmony out of us. This song in particular used to really reach me.
On May 1, 1971, Brother John baptized me in the swimming pool at Jefferson Academy - Just as I was. Here's Michael W. Smith's rendition of this lovely hymn at the funeral of Billy Graham. This song was the altar call at the 1934 revival meeting at which Billy Graham came forward and was converted. The song became Graham's traditional altar call song throughout his career as an evangelist.
