Okay, it’s To-Be-Tuesday:
It’s Time…
To-Day…
To-Be…
(Something).
And on this particular Tuesday, I choose
TO BE THANKFUL.
* I am thankful today for the years of singing, traveling, and writing.
* Thankful for the turbulent teens and twenties, for the writing and sharing of melodramatic song lyrics, and for the naive confidence and brave road-trips!
* Mostly, I am thankful for the people who willingly listened to me sing my Jesus songs, my life songs, my love songs, and my Wild Horse Running songs. I am thankful for significant women writers that poured encouraging words over me! And I am thankful that whether people saw me being silly with a yodel or watched me crying through a sad song… every lovely willing listener was on the other side of my heart.
Those years were amazing, and that young lady was one that I would love for my children to meet! She exists today in certain ways, but to be able to introduce her to them would have been quite a treat. I think they would laugh at her. I’m sure they would also sing along with her. They would look into her eyes and receive the same significant encouragement from her that she received from her beloved singer friends.
So, if you were ever there for ANY of my freshly made up songs, silly raps, random yodels, worship dances, spontaneous interruptions of myself, or my favorite passionately spoken Scripture passages . . . Thank you!
Thank you for listening.
I treasure those memories.
I found a box of pix from some of those years, and thought I’d put myself out there and do a little Throw-Back-Thursday… on Tuesday. Because it is TO-day TO-Be . . . thankful.
Enjoy!
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| High School, singing some new love song out of a notebook. |
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| With my first keyboard from Costello’s Music. Aw, Costello’s, how you are missed! |
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| Spending an entire day with Annie Herring. Forever Grateful for her! |
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| 18 and in Nashville for the first time to record. Thank you, Brian Hardin. |
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| Rehearsing some Southern Gospel with my Dad at camp-meeting. |
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| Tiffany? Debbie Gibson? Nope! (How embarrassing! Hahaha!) |
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| Around that time, I met Melody Green, wife of the late Keith Green. Inspired. Still today. |
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| This picture was always one of my favorites. Simple. Comfy. |
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| Another pic taken by my beautiful friend (now writer) Kolleen! We enjoyed many fun days together!!! |
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| People used to request “The City Church Song” and this was the homeless guy from that story. Yes, in my white sunglasses with pink polka dots. (What in the WORLD am I wearing?!?) |
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| And speaking of clothes!?! . . . (Doodles? Why not?) |
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| Holy Spiral Curls and Ruffles!?!! |
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| Here, I am driving my parents’ car from the Robinson’s house in Franklin PA straight to Plant City FL. Made it in 21 hours and thus began the crazy singing adventures with the Clark Family Singers. |
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| Road trip with “The Pizza Place People” in an RV after an exhausting week. I was still sleeping in the RV when we stopped to eat. They had gone into McDonald’s and told everyone they had a Christian singer traveling with them, and when I walked in, the restaurant was full of cheering people (thinking I was someone more important than I was), so I sang a few songs on the spot, and it was a hoot! So silly! |
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| Another Kingdom Bound year. Randy Rothwell, Darlene Zschech, Worship Tent, Kids’ Worship Tent… each year singing there was completely different, and we enjoyed many MANY fun summers at KB! The year that my name was finally in the brochure, it read my favorite typo-name of all time!?! (Funny to me… afterwards.) |
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| About to sing in the Worship Tent, and someone took this pic of my biggest fan 🙂 Thank THE LORD for this man!!! |
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| Second year singing with Darlene Zschech. I can still hear her lovely Australian accent, “Ames. Stay transparent.” |
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| Late nights and time changes. Not taking ourselves too seriously. |
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| Margaret Becker and I met a few times (the first time was when I was a nervous teen and accidentally tripped right into her, spilling ice water all over her front! Yep! Proud moment for sure!). Her intimate lyrics inspired my songwriting all through high school. This pic was taken years later in ATL. |
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| I rarely ever kept shoes on my feet. No matter how hard I tried. As soon as the shoes kicked off, I could totally settle in. |
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| Singing for me changed completely in 1998 and in 2000, once the focus was 100% on creating kids’ worship music for other companies. Many MANY albums were recorded within these green walls. The Twelve Oaks Family is big and we all are thankful 🙂 |
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| Fortunately, I found a friend in ATL who appreciated the real me! (I love you Shannon Scott!!!! And yes, that is the tank top that I bought for 50¢ that had an ugly spider, which I promptly painted into a sunflower before this fun day.) |
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| I had to put an image from one kids’ worship project where you can see me sucking on a lollipop to *try* to keep my pregnancy nausea at bay. Yep, not long after this, baby J. Michael entered the world! And now, in TEN DAYS we will celebrate his birthday #10!!! |
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| Yep, those days included lots of poet shirts and silly moments. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. |
THANK YOU!!!
And for one more favorite memory, you can listen to Jaci Valesquez singing “Trust in the Lord,” a song I wrote for a children’s worship project that made its way onto other projects and grew deeply into the hidden soundtrack of my life.
Wow. That was quite little trip you just took me on! Thanks for giving me a few chances to step into the madness. Those days were truly a blessing.
Some of the very best of times, right there, man! Thank you for putting up with this free-spirited friend!
Loved reading this and looking at all the fun pictures. So blessed to have met you. I often think of the first time we really got to know each other when you first came to the Summit and we met at Starbucks. You are an inspiration even to a woman who is definitely more “mature” in years than you are.
Thank you!
And yes — I remember that coffee time together ☕️
So sweet a time.