The River

There are certain songs that are simply beautiful and real. This is one of them, I love it, love it, love it.
When I think about modern day "King Davids", Brian Doerksen is one of the worship leaders that comes to mind.

What did we do before youtube again?.

god mother

My god daughter arrived early this morning, little Alicia Ochipinti, she is gorgeous!

Do you see Jesus in your clouds?

I came across the following excerpt from the devotional, My utmost for His highest by Oswald Chambers.

In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" ( Nahum 1:3 ). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness.

It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child— a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?

There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God’s character, we do not yet know Him.

". . . they were fearful as they entered the cloud" (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is "no one anymore, but only Jesus . . ." (Mark 9:8 ; also see Mark 2-7 ).

-- No author assigned in CUT

Music

It's amazing what happens when you purpose to look for God in the daily hustles of life.
Last week I went by the Penn book store, I wanted to check out what music they had and to get an idea of how much I would spend. I found a few of the artists I was looking for but I'd not spend less than $50 on all the music. It's not a bad idea to dream, I thought well, some day I will get the music.
I was looking at Martha Munizzi, India Arie, MercyMe, Chris Tomlin and some the more recent Hillsong United.

Today I was rushing off to pick Mich and on the way I saw some CD's that had been thrown by the side of the road. I thought it would do me no harm to check them out and besides there was no one around so I did my business real fast. Interesting!, I found Martha Munizzi's "The best is yet to come", Fred Hammond's "Somethin' 'bout love", WOW 1999, and India Arie's Testimony Volume 1 and 2.

This is so cool, I'm blessed. Everyday Jesus reminds me how much He cares. I'd like to think that each of these album titles are messages for me.

Salsa

Yesterday I went for a Salsa audition.
Wharton is preparing for it's annual International Cultural Show and students and partners are welcome to participate.
I signed up for Salsa and the African dance.

So yesterday I got an email invitation for the audition and I thought cool!, finally things are coming together. It was fun, I happened to be the only partner, the rest were students but that was fine. The choreographer was very friendly and kind of put us all at ease.

He begun to play the music and man! it was nice and full of rhythm. Then he taught us a few moves and we practiced those for a while. I got a hang of it.
Then came part two, the couple dance. There were only three guys so all the ladies had to take turns dancing with them.
Wow! I begun to sweat, all over sudden the place was crammed and hot, 'open the windows people, can't breath' (it's the middle of winter girl, you don't open windows). Anyway my issue was and still is, I haven't danced up close with a guy since... well I can't remember. Yes, I'm married but you know, Sam isn't into dancing. Ok may be he does dance but in most cases we are spread out lest some one (me) loses a toe or something that drastic. By the way I had to ask for permission before putting all this info out here so don't worry, Sam and I are cool.
Everything went down hill from the "couple" stage, I was not able to concentrate and I messed up a lot.
I don't know if I will be called back for the dance but I think it's okay. Some of those moves were really hot, I went home wondering if I could actually dance. I need to cross check you know.