"Treasure" - Story Behind the Song

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Matthew 6:19-21

Photo credit: "Treasure Chest" by Flickr user Tom Praison
CC license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

What do laundry, a new baby, and this passage of scripture have in common? Anyone? =)

If you're scratching your head and wondering what you missed, don't worry. You didn't miss anything! =)

The answer is this song, "Treasure". The manner in how this song was written is a bit unusual, but I think the Lord works in mysterious, and might I say, unconventional ways.

Our third child was just a few days old (I say a few weeks in the video...I should have checked my notes on the song), I was in the middle of doing laundry, and there was a cry in my heart in the middle of the newborn madness for the Lord. A new baby changes life drastically, and being only a few days into the adjustment, using every waking moment to get something done, my heart was missing the quieter moments with the Lord.

And He knew that. With a touch of sweetness and humor, there I was doing laundry and out of my mouth came the first verse for "Treasure". In my laundry room! haha! I don't know how the Lord was able to speak that song to my heart, but He must have had to shout it, because I'm pretty sure I was too frazzled to hear a whisper.

But in a sense it was a whisper. It was a whisper of, "I love you and I care about you. In this crazy season of life, keep me at the center of your focus. I'm everything you need and more. I'm your Treasure," that made everything at that moment fade away while I worshiped the Lord right there in my laundry room. It was a special, sweet moment that I won't ever forget.

Photo credit: "A little treasure..." by Flickr user Simon Ska
CC license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Songwriting and being in the word of God go hand in hand. God uses the scripture that is tucked away in my heart or the verses that I've been meditating on to draw out a song. The lyrics for "Treasure" focus on some aspects of what and who God is to me. The song is certainly not exhaustive (that would be impossible), but they cover somewhat of a broad range of all that God is.

My hope is that this song encourages you in your walk with Christ and that you would be able to see all that Jesus is to you and more. Many blessings to you through Christ our Savior!

All glory to Jesus!

Adriel

"I Will Praise You" - Music Friday!

(This post is rather long...video is at the bottom!)

There's not very much to share with you as far as the story behind this song. I don't remember it and my journals are all packed up. Yes, we are in the middle of moving. Three weeks ago, moving was the last thing I imagined I'd be doing right now!

So, I will tell you the story behind our move instead, because it kind of fits in with today's song, being a praise and worship song. And this move is really a blessing that we didn't see coming. And if you can't see how this story has anything to do with the song, that's okay. Just go with it. ;)

(If you're a close friend, you've probably already have heard all this, so just skip it!)

A few years back, 2007 to be exact, before the economy went downhill (we all remember that, right?), my husband and I pursued the ultimate dream of independence and wealth and opened a restaurant. That was stupid, we know. And to add to our stupidity we took out a huge business loan to embark on this venture. My husband's main motive was to get out of debt. Yeah. Get in a lot more debt to get out of the little debt you're in. Smart. It sounded smart at the time when we looked at numbers from other stores and my husband made the business plan. Really, it did. A no-fail plan.

Everything was inflated and the expenses for build out were crazy because everything was expensive then and our home was worth twice as much as it had been when we had bought it in 2001. Do you want to guess what we did? Maybe you're afraid to. I understand. Prepare yourself...

We took out a home equity line of credit and paid off a good chunk of the business loan. We defied those naysayers that said your first year in the restaurant business was your worst. They were so wrong! Our first year was phenomenal! We did awesome! We were the star store of Arizona! Woohoo! We were successful! Ha!

And then the economy tanked. And people stopped eating out so often. And having our own business wasn't quite so appealing anymore. The reality of actually owning our own business crashed down on us, especially my husband who managed it. The hiring and firing, the endless training (there was always someone to train), the constant employee drama (there was a drug ring among some of our employees, would you believe it?!), the dwindling profit, the never-ending work that had to be done all the time, and to add to all that, the huge burden of the debt we were in.

By the grace of God, we sold that store at the end of 2010. Yes, we took a BIG loss. But it was enough to pay off the rest of the business loan and now we only had the mortgage for our house and the HELOC. "Only" isn't the best word to use, but in light of having three loans, two was better. I should add that before we sold the store, Gary had hired a manager and God had graciously provided Gary with another job in the field that he left (to open this lovely business), so we had a steady income with which we were able to cover the payments for these two loans.

A couple of years ago, our family went through a financial seminar and we were able to see, from scripture, that debt was wrong. We had always known that to a degree, but we had never considered a mortgage a "real" debt until we really examined the scriptures and the math. You pay for that house a few times with a mortgage! Goodness!

God greatly impressed on our hearts to get out of debt. And so we diligently stuck with it. We had learned to live on less in the lean months from the store before my husband had gotten another job, so we continued that lifestyle and the rest of the money went toward our debt. Last year, we paid off the mortgage for the house. We were down one with one to go!

My husband is a numbers man and he estimated we would be able to be completely out of debt and have the HELOC paid off in six to seven years. That seemed so far away, but we have been keeping at it. You feel like you're digging a tunnel through a mountain with a shovel, or maybe even a spoon. Slowly.

And then, about three weeks ago, my daughter answered the phone and took a message from the bank where we have the HELOC. After family prayer on a Monday night, my husband said rather casually, "Oh, I called that lady back and our HELOC is maturing in May." Um...!!!!! Apparently, because of changes that the Obama administration has made to these loans, our terms have suddenly changed and $100,000+ is due in May. Um, yeah. Thanks for giving us two months to cough that up. haha!

My husband and I spent some time discussing the situation that evening and the next day. It got us thinking. Really, it was just a push from the Lord in the direction He was wanting us to go in. We, as a family, have made a decision to not get into any more debt. Although we could renew the HELOC (and actually we will to protect the house in case it doesn't sell by May), we didn't have the peace about continuing to stay in debt. It didn't take long for us to arrive at a decision that we both knew was right: Sell our house, pay off the HELOC and rent. NO MORE DEBT!

We decided that if we were going to go to the trouble of moving, we wanted to move into something bigger. We are a family of six in a three-bedroom home right now with 1365 sq. ft. We are very thankful for our current house and have found creative ways to make it work for us. My husband has gone crazy with adding storage wherever he has been able to. And the truth is, we could keep living here and we would be happy. We were quite prepared to stay in this house for a number of years and pay off the HELOC little by little. But God has decided to move us into something bigger that will meet our needs better in this season of our life.

We looked at a few homes that very same week, but none were right for us. Toward the end of the week, we looked at one more. It was incredible! Gary called about it and got the initial papers turned in along with the processing fee. We found out we were first in line and there were other people after us interested in it. God literally led us to this house and everything went through and we our move in date is April 1st.

No joke, guys, this all happened so fast, we were just shocked! I mean, it was basically one week and everything was in place for a completely new direction for our lives. When God wants to move (or wants you to move, literally!), He will make it happen!

So that is the crazy story of our life right now! I am so blessed by what God has done and is doing and how He has led us. A year ago, I would be bummed out about all this. I would be focusing on everything that I'm losing. But I am so thankful to see how God has been slowly changing how I look at things and that I have been able to see how He is blessing us at this very moment through this circumstance. It amazes me how good He is!

I hope you enjoy this simple praise and worship song. May each one of you see the marvelous work of God in your lives, even in the things that don't look great at first glance. God is worthy of everything we can offer Him! Have a blessed day!

All glory to Jesus,

Adriel

"You are the Lord" - Story Behind the Song

   Well, after some weighty stories and songs, I wanted to break things up a little with a worship song that focuses primarily on our Lord and Who He is as the Son and Savior, Father, Creator and King, and the Holy Spirit and Counselor.

   God as three distinct roles is quite a mystery to me. I will not even attempt to explain it with my incredibly small amount of understanding. And yes, while I am aware that the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible, the concept of God being three-in-one is not a foreign idea in the Bible. In addition, the word "Bible" is not in the Bible either...does that mean it's not real? Of course not.

   Now, I don't intend to write an essay on the Trinity, nor do I intend to argue the point. That isn't the purpose of this post. But I wanted to touch on the Trinity briefly for the sole purpose of the fact that this song is about God as the Son, the Father, and the Spirit. Each verse highlights different aspects of our Lord in these different roles.

I hope you're having a wonderful Sunday!

All glory to Jesus,

Adriel

"Amazing" - Video

I did another quick video on Friday, which I call "Music Friday", because every week or so, my mom will let the kids hang out with her so I can work on music. That is what Music Friday is around here. =)

I wanted to share the video with you today. It's a worship song highlighting the gospel, what that means for us, and our response to the Lord in regards to what He has done for us, specifically being set free to live for Him.

I give a rather lengthy background and commentary on the song, so I won't repeat that here. You certainly don't need to hear it twice! And if you don't like listening to people talk, especially people like me that rattle on and on, the actual song is around 4:25. Yeah, I talk for almost 4-1/2 minutes! I'm not sure I'd do that in real life...I'm kind of shy, believe it or not...but the camera is not as intimidating as actual people, even though I know I'm talking to someone real. Anyway, I'm rambling again...here's the video. God bless you today! ~ Adriel

"It's You I Adore" - Story Behind the Song

(Link to listen is at the bottom for those of you in a rush.)

I've been saving my least favorites of the batch of songs I recorded eight years ago for awhile now. I keep putting it off. I'm honestly embarrassed to let you hear these. I'm not pleased with them. They either didn't turn out sounding as polished as I would have liked, they ended up sounding tacky, I didn't sing a certain part just so, the music doesn't really fit the song, and on and on my reasons go.

The story behind this song, "It's You I Adore", is sweet and simple. I was privileged many years ago, to be invited to participate in the organization of the worship time for an upcoming women's retreat. One of the women from our church had invited a friend of hers (sorry, I don't remember her name), who was very gifted in music, to basically lead. A group of four to six of us met once each week in preparation, and I gleaned a lot from the leader. "Free worship" was a gift of hers, which I had experienced as a kid, but not at this particular church. It took some effort for some of us to get out of that comfort zone we'd been used to, but once we began to sing out things on our heart to the Lord as the music kept going, the response came easier. I treasured that time and still do to this day.

This song was an overflow from that experience. It is based on the book of Song of Solomon (or Songs), and is just a love song to the Lord. I hope to one day record a more appropriate version of this song - I'm thinking acoustic, no electronic stuff. You live and learn!

Of course, the whole "free worship" thing, also known as "spontaneous worship", can become weird and disorderly, and that is certainly not what I am talking about here. I know are movements that have popularized this type of worship and they are way off. With the right leader who is truly in tune with the right Spirit, the Holy Spirit, (not something weird), free worship can truly be beautiful. =)

You can listen to "It's You I Adore" and/or download it for free on SoundCloud HERE (you may have to register, but it's free and easy), and lyrics are also there in the description, as well as HERE.

All glory to Jesus,

Adriel

Sunday Encouragement

Happy Sunday! I hope you're having a nice day and that your weekend is going well. We enjoyed the service today with a great worship service and encouraging message. 

Yesterday, my family and I went to an apple orchard and picked around 100 pounds of apples. We weren't able to go last year, so it was a blessing to be able to go this year.

Today we are busy peeling, coring and slicing the apples for applesauce and freezing. I'm at my parents' today, so I don't have access to my song files, but I decided to share a song with you from SoundCloud that I've enjoyed recently. I hope it blesses you, too. =)

The song is called "Celebrate" by Dan James and is a great worship song with the truth of the gospel woven in beautifully. Hope you enjoy it! Click HERE to listen.

All glory to Jesus,

Adriel

"I Exist for You" - Story Behind the Song

   Today, I am sharing the recording and lyrics for the song "I Exist for You" and the background of this song.

  From my journal entry for 11/24/2005:

  "God works in wonders! I can have faith in the God who made the world from nothing! And from this faith, I have righteousness.
  God, give me the faith to believe in You. To believe that You can do anything and everything. Nothing is beyond You. Nothing is above you. You created everything that exists and it all exists for You. You've ordained every minute of my life and planned out the path for my life. It is all for You, Jesus. It is all for You."
  
  On a Wednesday night gathering back in 2005, we were studying Romans and on this particular week we had studied chapter 4. My dad shared and his insights, along with with the Lord revealing His word to us, gave all of us such a clear picture about faith and righteousness. It was incredibly amazing!
  
  The next evening, I was going back over the chapter and I wrote the journal entry (which I quoted in this post) and alongside it the words for this song. This song was written in five minutes. That is truly the Lord!

Here is a link where you can listen to and download for free "I Exist for You" (you may have to make an account to listen, but it's free and painless) and also a link to view the lyrics.

I hope it encourages you!

All glory to Jesus,
Adriel