Power of Music

Well, for weeks now (maybe months) Brigette has been reminding me that I need to add to OUR gratitude blog. I have to say that I have well intended to do this for sometime but I have a hard time putting my thoughts of gratitude in writing not because I am not grateful, in fact very much the opposite, but because it is hard for me to condense all that I feel. My wife will be the first to tell you I often stop and say how much the Lord has blessed us and that I feel so favored by Him for all that we have. I am so grateful for my family, house, career, clothes, food, scriptures, prophets, ability to provide what we need, (not all we want, but definitely all we need). I am grateful for this as well because it is in not having all you want of everything you want that I think infuses our life with priorities, genuine humility, and respect for what you do have. It is when you have it all that you respect nothing, and when you have almost nothing that you truly begin to respect it all.

So here I go! You can begin to see why I have a hard time sitting down and publishing my gratitude; because it is in every waking minute that the Lord has blessed my eyes to be open to all that he has given me and to share would take days upon days. No joke! In fact, as I write this my wife not knowing what I have written but realizing the time I have spent at the computer, just said: Are you writing everything you are grateful for? I just had to laugh because that is my cue to get on task about one focused thing.

My intent was to write how grateful I am for my family, but specifically how much I love putting my babies to bed. No, not after they are down, but rather the process of putting them down. I love that it is my time to sing to them, yes, I sing not well, but they still love it. Anyway, just after giving Ethan a bottle I always take him in the nursery and depending on how tired he and I both are, I get to sing between 3-5 hymns to him. Two hymns that I always sing are: “I Need Thee Every Hour” Hymn 98 and a compilation of “I Families Can Be Together Forever” and “Love at Home”. A few nights ago, while I was holding Ethan in my arms and singing “I Need the Every Hour,” I had a deeply spiritual experience.

I have always loved this Hymn because it reminds me of just how much I really do need and rely on Christ. But this time I was deeply drawn to the closing words of the Hymn which state…. “I come to Thee”. It was then that I realized that to be totally clean for our short comings, to completely get the Lords help, to be flooded with the Lords blessings and guidance, We must submit ourselves to him. We must remove ourselves from what we want and sacrifice our worldly ambitions, desires and, will and then come unto Him. That is when we will understand true and complete happiness. That is when he can really make more out of our lives than we and our selfish will ever could. I am grateful for these spiritual witnesses given to me in a sacred time of love and bonding with my children, as I am strongly reminded I am His child. God sure loves all of us and for that I am thankful.