The Reason My Heart Sings

Isn't it funny the things that bring us comfort in life? I was sitting here thinking of what I would write about today and as I mulled over the days events I decided to turn on the tv and see what was on. To my pleasant surprise one of the things on tv was the movie The Sound of Music. It's been a favorite of mine ever since I can remember....some of my earliest memories in fact, include sitting with my parents on their bed, eating dinner and watching The Sound of Music together. Back then it was normal for certain movies to be on tv every single year, and without fail this one always aired around Easter. I remember that little detail vividly because the windows in our home were usually open and the fresh smell of new Spring growth filled the air of our rooms and I always imagined it was how the air smelled in the mountains. I remember when I would see the scenes of Maria singing and dancing in the mountaintop fields a feeling of total peace and happiness would overtake me. For weeks I would spin around my grandmother's backyard or my bedroom singing the title song over and over and over again.....probably until my parents wanted to strangle Rodgers and Hammerstein.

The lyrics that made my heart sing as a child were these.....as you read them, you may understand why I couldn't help but sing everytime I heard them. Even now I can't help but sing along in my head as I read them.

The hills are alive with the sound of music

With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears
My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds
that rise from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies
from a church on a breeze
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over
stones on its way
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray
I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

Years later as I was going through a particularly difficult time those lyrics resonated on a deeper level to me. I remember lying across the bed, brokenheated and down and yet again on the television was The Sound of Music. I remember watching it and listening to the all familiar words and suddenly the last four lines grabbed me like they had never grabbed me before.

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

I remember when I heard Psalm 121 read for the first time I envisioned those majestic Swiss Alps from the Sound of Music. For years it was just a mental picture of what the hills would look like....but that day when I needed to hear God speak to me.....He used the lyrics of a song to remind me of His word.

Psalm 121 (New King James Version)
1 I will lift up my eyes to the hills—from whence comes my help?
2 My help comes from the LORD,who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.
8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.

That day I realized that there IS music in my heart...there IS music in my soul....but it's not the lyrics to a song....it's the written word of my God and the gentle pull of His spirit in mine....He is the music my heart hears, and He is the reason my heart sings. Now what used to just be a song has become a reminder of the real sound of music that I hear when I go to the hills for His help.

Re-emergance

     So it's a quarter to eleven on Saturday night and I'm listening to the sounds of icy winter rain pelting the bedroom window above my head. Ben is snuggled up next to me, deep in sleep and the fuzzboy is sprawled out across the foot of the bed with his head resting near my feet. The pillows are soft and the blankets fluffed.....by all accounts it's a peaceful Winter night. I should be sleeping, afterall I am tired and I have to get up early in the morning....but for weeks I just haven't been able to shake the desire to get back to this partcular niche of the web. So tonight is the night....time to get back to the Anthem of My Heart.
    It's been almost a year since my last post, it seems almost impossible that time has passed that quickly. I've missed it, there have been so many days that I have wanted to post an entry, but for varying reasons just never got around to it. Sooooo.....I planned on taking back my blog life in January 2010, but as I sat here tonight listening to the sounds of the night, I just couldn't wait any longer.
    2009 was a pretty good year. It had it's highs and lows of course, like all other years, but overall, it was a really good year. So many changes......some horribly sad, some hard....but so many more were wonderful, not just for me and the bear, but for those around us too. We lost some very dear friends to unexpected deaths, we lost several others (in a sense) as they moved out of state, and then there were new friends brought into our lives. There were marriages, pregnancies and births. We saw God do amazing things in the lives of those around us as well as in our own lives. Answers to prayer were in abundance and more often than not, they abundantly exceeded what was expected.
   In essence, it wasn't just a good year, it was a GOD year. His fingerprints were on everything, every event left a thread that led directly back to Him and His marvelous grace. Proof that good comes out of EVERYTHING, no matter what. So, here's looking forward to sharing a year of God with you as we prepare to usher in 2010.

 “Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.”

- Alphonse Karr

The Week In Review

WOW...what a phenomenal week! So let me catch you up to speed with a quick rundown of the highlights.

• We spotted two hot air balloons floating over our downtown area so we caught up with them and as Ben drove underneath I took some great shots.
• I finally got my CPR and first Aid certifications in so now I can save somebody's life and not get sued..oh yeah!! Only took a month and a half after the class to get it...INSANE!!!
  
• My father in law went into and came out of the hospital yet again. Thankfully he is ok again.
• We had a meeting with the hospital in regards to my mother n law passing away. We finally got our chance to confront all of the department heads and tell them our concerns about care and lack thereof. They seemed to listen...so that was good...plus we just got to vent which we needed.
• We had a new sprout arrive at Sprout Central....a real cutie....he is the foster child of some friends and we kind of expected the worst regarding behavioral issues, but so far he has been a pleasure. Except at nap time however, but he's getting better so pretty soon he should be fine.
• I tried some new soup starter kits from Whole Foods and they were AMAZING!!! Can I just tell you how much I love that store. If you have one near you and have never tried them....you really must go....they are a bit more pricey on some things...but the quality you get is WELL worth it!
• I had my first day of wishing I could just go home from Sprout Central.....I swear the kids were all wired to meltdown at the exact same times that day.....I wanted to pull my hair out...lol. It's all good now though.
• We went sledding with the kids, well....I didn't sled down the hill...I let Amber and Becky do that....I just took the pictures.
• Ben and I went to our friend's John and Melissa's for a game night last night. THAT was fun....they have tons of games that I've never heard of, but are really cool. This was one of them.
  

• Sargie got himself trapped inside the recliner again. LOL...that was tonight....he has a habit of crawling inside the underneath of recliner when I have the footrest up and this time when I got up and closed the footrest he didn't have time to get out. So this time I decided to snap a picture of him before I let him out. LOL

So I think that's pretty much it for the week in review. I'm thinking that I'm going to take more daily pics though to include in the blog. I think it will add some fun to it.
Let me know what you think! :)