That would be me...:)

 
       I bought a biography yesterday...  I'm sure all my friends are totally shocked to hear that.... ;)  This blog is not primarily about the biography however, because I'm not completely  sure what to make of the whole thing.   What I am sure of   is  the fact that the  author mentions two songs which helped bring him out of a very confused, self-destructive life style. Music that I guess you could say eventually helped lead him into the light of Christ's love.  In the whole book -just two songs were mentioned as having a powerful impact on him when he was at his absolute worst - which was, by any standards, very, very bad.
     To my amazement, one song was Dennis Jernigan's You Are My All in All - one of the songs that I had just mentioned in my blog yesterday!! And probably the only song I've ever hunted literally for months to find on a CD.  The author heard this song one time and it haunted him for months and even years afterward.  I found that interesting.
     The other song mentioned in the book was one that I planned to write about yesterday. But, being a single-track person, once I listened to the Jernigan song, I could never "sing" enough of my other selection in order to get enough of the lyrics to track it down on Youtube, if that makes sense. Every time I tried to mentally "sing" snatches of the second song, I'd end up singing You Are My All in All  or You Are My Hiding Place.  So I gave it up and I didn't really think it  mattered anyway  because I had more than enough to write about yesterday as it was. Too much really.
    Then as I'm reading in this new biography tonight, what do I see but the mention of the other song that I wanted to write about yesterday.  Only two songs in the whole book and both of them were in the top ten for my blog list!!!   So I've linked a video of it here: Shout to the Lord.

     Why was this particular song important to me?

     When our Russian daughter lived with us, sometimes we would go to the Oasis Retreat Center together.  I'd take my Bible and often a hymnal as well.  But Yana was a music major and knew so many songs by heart; she  just loved to sing.  (I remember one Christmas  when we took cookies to people in the neighborhood and she  linked her arm in mine and said, "Let's sing!"  So we caroled together and as we approached one neighbor's house with a container of homemade soup [he was diabetic], he said that we woke him from his nap and it sounded like angels were singing at his door... Well, maybe like one angel was singing at his door; two?  No way!!)  

   At any rate,  one Thanksgiving morning we were at the Oasis,  it was drizzling rain,  the skies were a leaden grey.  But it was a holiday so once again, Yana took my arm as we walked the trails and said, "Let's sing!" And sing we did!  Our very  favorite song was Shout to the Lord. And that's why, all these years later,  I wanted to include it in my blog - for two years, during the time that she lived with us, we sang that song together many times and in that way, made it a part of our lives.   

    At the beginning of this blog, I talked about a biography where the author mentioned these two specific songs and how they helped him.  This is the bottom line: the author was writing about coming out of Satanism. Twenty years of it.   During those years, he says that he infiltrated various churches, trying to twist Scripture to sow confusion, trying to seduce women, just doing whatever to reap havoc. His favorite strategy was to visit small group Bible studies.  On the other hand, the one thing he could not stand and tried to avoid whenever possible, was the music part of a worship service; he avoided praise and worship music like the plague.

   Then he was finally saved and he said he played praise and worship songs almost 24/7, couldn't get enough of them!

   I don't know how to judge this person's writing, feel it's true but am not convinced it's good to wallow in such a graphic account of cruelty and inhumanity.  Am definitely not ready to recommend it yet.

  What I do know is that  tonight I dug out some of my old praise and worship CD's and will probably buy some new ones in the near future.

   I figure if a Satan worshiper doesn't like it; then that's good enough for me.
   So if you pass a dirty white Malibu with a senior citizen mamma in it jammin' to cranked-up worship and praise songs - that would be me..:)
   .