• Songs

    Let Me Lead You Home {New Music Monday}

    I’m excited to bring back New Music Mondays. I wrote the following song to submit for an exhibition at St. Andrew’s College in Scotland. (Here’s a link to the call they put out for artists.) They did not choose to use my song, but I am still looking forward to viewing the other artists’ work. The exhibition begins on Friday, March 19. It was both challenging and fun to prepare a song for submission–I’ve never done that before, and I would definitely do it again. The theme of the exhibition is “In/break,” and one idea listed is “an intrusion of hope.” I used this idea in my song, and also…

  • Songs

    Through This World’s Lonely Pass {New Music Monday}

    I hope this poem, and the music that accompanies it, encourage you to stand firm on Jesus, our only hope in this age and the age to come! We need not fear as he stays near,His love and protection a fountain.Our hope stands firm, year after year,The pinnacle of a mountain. With words, he builds the foundation,With trust, we climb higher still.Each rock works for our salvation,Each stone a path to goodwill. Flowing like crystalline watersFrom stores in the mountain’s side:Grace for his sons and daughters,Comfort through him who died. O Jesus, Our Emmanuel,We praise you who on earth did dwell.Bring us through this world’s lonely pass,Safely home, loved, protected–with…

  • Poems

    A Hello and Goodbye Sonnet

    Home: a place I may never reach by road;An elusive idea roaming free,Where I may unpack my burdensome load,For I know the occupants and they know me. Hello, dear house, you served us well a while.I watched my children grow within your walls.I see my children in the garden smile,I see laughter in every leaf that falls. Goodbye, dear house, now we travel onward.Your memory stays with me as I go.I look back with joy as I look forward,I climb to the high hills from valleys low. O Lord, make our new house feel like our home,Even though till Heaven calls this earth we roam.

  • Life updates,  Poems

    Friendship, Thankfulness, and a Going-Away Poem

    Everybody has those friends–the ones they can call for help, the ones they trust for wise advice, and the ones who are right there with them in the trenches who understand every wayward emotion and thought–the ones they will dearly miss if ever they move away. I’d like to tell you about a few of my closest friends. I thank God for these ladies, and I will miss them when we pack up our things for good and say goodbye in a couple short weeks. Sometimes a good friend comes into your life at the last minute and makes you think, “If only I’d invited her to bring her boys…

  • Poems

    Lupine and Sweet William

    In clusters bright and pink,In clusters white and snowy,In clusters violet and variablePop flowers, fragrant and showy. From showers in the springTo bowers as they singOf newness, life, and beauty,Flowers possess a solemn duty: To show God’s love afreshWith no hint of bitterness,Or indignant lack of charm;A flower trusts God’s sovereign arm. It doesn’t shake or tremble,Except in winds or storms or rain.However it stays rooted firmly,And next year blooms again In clusters tall and slender,In clusters small and light,In violets, pinks, and snowy hues–Among the greens pop flowers bright.