Do you know who Bill Gaither is? When I was a little girl I basically lived with my grandparents. They lived just next door and my brother spent a lot of time in the hospital, and since 5 year olds don't find hospitals too thrilling, I hung out with Mamaw and Papaw.
If you walk into my grandparents' house today there will be one of three things on the television; Cubs games, the History Channel, or a Gaither DVD.
Bill Gaither is the pioneer of southern gospel, hymn writing, and a catalyst of camp meetings everywhere. My grandma is the epitome of southern gospel. My great grandpa and great grandma were from Kentucky and they preached in the Nazarene church their entire lives. They had 5 children and all of them grew up in the Nazarene church, two became Nazarene pastors and bred more Nazarene pastors. My family reunion last month was like a southern gospel camp meeting, and man was it awesome. I cried a lot that day, especially when my 80 year old grandma got up with her siblings to sing "Blessed Assurance". My great uncle Jay's wife got up to talk about God's redeeming love and that is something I have thought about a lot this week.
Yesterday I had a conversation with two coworkers, one is a brand new Christian who revealed she doesn't even have a Bible yet and another has been on countless mission trips and grew up in the church. We sat and talked about redeeming love and it was so amazing. We stressed one important thing, "God is good, people are not. Do not get the two confused." We had just read an intake for a client at work and all three of us sat crying in the office as we read about the horrible abuse this child had suffered. How can you believe in a God that lets things like that happen? We said it's no wonder a lot of the kids we work with don't believe in God. The three of us just sat and talked about how amazing it is that we do, and how it's such a gift to have God's redeeming love.
I sometimes get down on myself. I'm 24, I'm single, I live alone, I've made some bad decisions and if I focus on all of this it's not hard to be sad. I am focusing on myself right now and all that it entails, a relationship with God, a love for myself, and doing what I was called to do. I refuse to sacrifice anything for relationships again. It's easy to sit and pity yourself but you really need to sit and think sometimes. I got where I am by not listening to God for 3 years, and guess what? When I started listening, my life got infinitely better. God never abandoned me, I just stopped listening. I can literally pinpoint when God started shifting inside me again. That's when I started at the academy, when I met people that lifted me up instead of pushing me down.
Back to my first point though...Bill Gaither...is what I've been listening to a lot lately. Good ol' homecoming gospel music with great old names like Vestal Goodman, Sue Dodge, Jake Hess and more. It reminds me of my grandparents, of my great grandma who could out pray anyone. I've made some decisions in my life. They make me giggle, but they're important, they're values I have now that I didn't realize before.
I don't know what God has in store for me but if it's marriage and a family then that's great, if not, that's great too. I'm not going to worry about who God has, but I have different standards than I did 6 months ago. I want the most beautiful part of me to be my heart. If someone falls in love with me, I want it to be because every word that comes out of my mouth is God inspired and every act I do is God driven. I want a Southern gentleman, whose heart yearns for God first and me second. I want someone that grew up on the Gaither's and has a heart built by southern gospel, sweet tea and camp meetings. I can't wait to get to heaven and have everyday be like a camp meeting and actually get to sit back and sing with Vestal Goodman. That thought alone makes me well up a bit. What an amazing gift.
What's making me smile today? This thought:
How can you not smile when you know there's an entire book written about God's love for you?
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