Sarah McLachian....Pretty Cool!

Sarah McLachian is a singer/musician from Canada. She has been in the "spotlight" for quite some time now...I think better than 20 years.

 I know...she doesn't exactly support Christianity...unless she has changed her view recently that I am unaware.

 Yet what I really like about her are all those thought provoking lines in many of her ballads and songs. I really get into how she interprets everyday life...she just seems to have a "gift" to put on paper what your heart and mind are really thinking. I really love some of the "stuff" she has put "out there" for the public to hear.
 An example would be in her song: "The Arms of an Angel"...in one of her lines it goes: "You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent revelry." I have read much on how that line alone  and how it has really touched people's hearts in different ways: a lady whose daughter had passed and at her daughter's funeral she played this song and it meant so much to so many who attended the funeral, to another it helped them to find their faith in God, and yet to another it gave them hope and courage to go in life. What was the song about? It was about a guy who played keyboards for a group called Smashing Pumpkins, and he died of a heroin overdose. The "Arms of an Angel" symbolized the drug itself...a way of escape until one time...he did too much.

 Here are a few other what I call thought provoking statements she has included in some of her songs: 1. "We're constantly being told what other people think we are, and that's why it is so important to know yourself". 2. "Peace in the struggle to find peace...comfort on the way to comfort. And if I shed a tear, I won't cage it... I won't fear love. And if I rage, I won't deny it...I won't fear love." 3. "In the lonely light of morning, in a world that would not heal, it's the bitter taste of losing everything I've held so dear."4. "The more we take the less we become, the fortune of one man means less for some."

 I think what gets to me in her quotes from many of her songs...is simply the challenge...the challenge to know within the depths of my heart another great quote from a song I have cherished: "Jesus loves me this I know...for the Bible tells me so."
 I realize McLachian doesn't have the same outlook on God as I do...well at least her songs seem to indicate that, like her song "Dear God" which I hope to get into later, but I am not one to get too defensive when someone challenges my faith in the Lord Jesus, in fact, I often embrace it.
 
 The song many heard in their childhood years, "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" dates back to the 1860's. The words were actually in a best selling novel written by Anna Warner, during the Civil War. Anna lived very close to the West Point Academy, and taught Sunday School class where many West Point Cadets would attend.
 Anna Warner lived in an era where there was much pain; the Civil War bringing wounds, loss of loved ones, and death to some of the very Cadets who were in her Sunday School class.
 In her novel, a young child is dying...and there was nothing anyone could do. The pain the child was suffering seem to increase as Death drew nearer...until the person attending the child began to quote a poem: "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so....". The poem brought with its words a power...and the child's pain subsided.
 Later, a man by the name of William Bradbury, who founded a company known as "Bradbury Pianos"...put the poem to song. Here then are the words to:

                                       Jesus Loves Me This I Know Hymn

 Jesus loves me! This I know,
 For the Bible tells me so,

 Little ones to Him belong;
 They are weak, but He is strong.

Refrain

 Yes, Jesus loves me!
 Yes, Jesus loves me!
 Yes, Jesus loves me!
 The Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves me! This I know,
As He loved so long ago,
Taking children on His knee
Saying, "Let them come to Me."

Refrain

Jesus loves me still today,
Walking with me on my way,
Wanting as a friend to give,
Light and love to all who live.

Refrain

 Jesus loves me! He who died
Heaven's gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin,
Let His little child come in.

Refrain

Jesus loves me! He will stay
Close beside me all the way;
Thou hast bled and died for me,
I will henceforth live for Thee.

Refrain

I think the first thing you have to do in regards to accepting Jesus, you have to come to a place in your life where you realize you are lost...and many of our questions and thoughts in life cannot clearly be clarified until...He finds us...looking for Him. Words like Sarah McLachian shares in her ballads...are awesome...and causes me to realize I don't have the answers..within myself...

A Gleaning from Hebrews 11:6

 " Without enacting your personal faith, there really is no way to know Him... let alone please Him, apart from an effort from you to exercise faith and give Him an opportunity to come into your heart and life.
 If anyone determines within his own heart and mind that he/she really needs to find God,
 the first thing to do is to believe He is for real...He really does exist, and second, God does care...in fact He cares more than enough to respond, help, and bless those who are searching and seeking for Him."