You're Looking at Them
That moment struck me. I was reading in Mark 8, and 8:33 wouldn't let go of me. Peter is rebuking Jesus, telling him that these things (his death) were not going to happen to him, to not talk like that, or something of the sort. “But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter….” In Russian it says “He, having turned and looked at his disciples, forbade Peter, saying….” I couldn’t help it. Why did he look at them? What was he thinking when he looked at them? For me it was one of those moments that in a movie would have been in slow motion, the sound muffled and echoing, as he looks at them, and all those thoughts go through his head….what were they? I could say more about it, but I think it’s all in the song.
Go Down There
My children are adopted. And my husband’s sister and brother–in-law had just gone through the adoption process. They called us one evening (their morning – we’re half a world away, but that’s part of another song) to let us know that they had just gotten the call that their daughter had been born, and they were packing up the car and otherwise getting ready to go get her. We shared in the high emotions that they were experiencing – as much as anyone can share in someone else’s intense moments – and relived our own as we remembered our experience. I had just started reading in Ephesians and the next morning I read Ephesians 2:11-22. The song is for them, of course, for Mary Beth and Brent. I guess indirectly it’s for Mabry, too. It’s for our own experience with our children. But it’s also for those who go to get someone in other ways. For anyone that God sends to give of themselves trying to help someone. Moses. Ultimately, of course, it’s about Jesus. I’m not going to say too much about the song because I think it speaks for itself. And it’s nothing more than a collection of some of the thoughts in Ephesians 2:11-22, which of course says it all.
Bartimaeus
One of the things that I have been praying about for many years is that the Lord would give me eyes that truly see. So when I got to this passage when I was reading through Mark, I naturally wrote a song about it. I have other songs about sight. Maybe someday I’ll be able to record some of them.
Voice in the Wilderness
One day I had spent time with two different friends, one of whom was new to Novosibirsk and the other had lived in Novosibirsk all her life. In a space of just a few hours, each of them shared with me some of her current (at that time) struggles, and then each said, more or less (in her own way and her own language), “you would probably never feel like that”. The second time I was no less startled than the first. I don’t remember the exact words I used in answering them, particularly since it was 2 different conversations, but the rest of the day I couldn’t get those conversations out of my mind, and the words “don’t think of me more highly than you ought” and “I am not what you think I am” kept reoccurring in my thoughts. As I was doing the dishes that evening I was still mulling over it and John the Baptist began intruding himself into those thoughts. I can’t remember exactly how thoughts of him began introducing themselves, (I probably have it written down somewhere, though), but after doing the dishes I went and read all the places that talk about him in the New Testament. And either that evening – or maybe it was the next morning, in the time I set aside to pray, read the Bible, and in other ways spend time with God – (I don’t remember exactly but I’m sure I have it written down ) – I wrote this song.
