I absolutely love the piano. I love the grandeur and subtlety of the sound, the evocative and rhythmic range and the feel of the smooth keys. I love the roar of the lower octaves and the tinkling sweetness of the higher ones. The piano can make me dance and cry and sing all at once. […]
Worship
A Sacrifice Of Praise?
I grew up in church worship ministry. I have seen the highs and lows of this ministry, endured much heartache and had some amazing, life-changing experiences. (Maybe one day I will write a book about surviving worship ministry.) I have also developed a few pet peeves. One of them is the oft-repeated concept of the […]
Love Is A Diamond
Love has many facets. It can be fun, passionate, enduring, broken, healed, playful, reverent, bold, intimate, verbose and silent. It has highs and lows and plateaus. It can have different chapters, like a book, and it can deepen and mellow with age, like a fine wine. It can be like a multi-faceted diamond. This presents […]
Fragrance
‘One thing I have asked of the Lord, And that I will seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in his presence] All the days of my life, To gaze upon the beauty [the delightful loveliness and majestic grandeur] of the Lord And to meditate in his temple.’ (Psalm 27:4 Amplified) […]
Linger
When I was a kid, I loved going on sleepovers. It was about the whispered sharing of secrets and stories by torchlight while snuggled in sleeping bags. It was about gorging ourselves on junk food. It was about movie marathons and video game tournaments. It was definitely about not having any grown-ups around. But it […]
Unrestrained
I used to be self-conscious about worshipping God in public. As a teenager, I would look around church on a Sunday morning, watching other worshippers engaging rapturously in songs of praise. They would sing, eyes closed, some with arms lifted, expressing their adoration for Jesus. Some of the less self-conscious ones would dance on the […]
The Worship Suite
Ever since I can remember, I have loved singing to God. When I was a child, I would put on kids’ praise and worship cassette tapes (yes, I am betraying my age here) and sing my lungs out. I know that I sang my lungs out because my parents would tell me. In no uncertain […]
Go With The Flow
When I wake up on my writing day, my brain is often awash with creative ideas and projects. I sometimes have several competing blog ideas swirling around in my head. It can be hard to know which one to blog. And it is not just blogging that fires up my creativity. There is the allure […]
Lament and Repent
As much as people have been panicking lately, we have seen acts of incredible kindness of generosity. It is a silver lining of crisis. Unfortunately, we have also seen some of the worst of human behaviour. I think this says a lot about humanity – and how pandemics can pull the curtain back on our […]
Jesus in Isolation
Now that Easter has passed, I find myself thinking about Jesus and his times of isolation. I must have isolation on the brain. I wonder why. In these trying times, it can be tempting to think others who have gone before us have not experienced this hardship. When it comes to Jesus, we may be […]