Every now and then I have an experience with my children that takes me back to the days when my mom had a fabulous wardrobe of leotards and large, geometric earrings and drove a sweet, earth toned stay wag that was named after a dinosaur.
Yesterday morning on the way to the kids’ school, we were listening to the Passion: Awakening CD. “How He Loves” was playing when we pulled into the parking lot and I brought the car to a stop right when the song was getting really good. Some of you musical people know the name for that part of the song and are saying it to me like I can hear it through the computer screen. Anyway, y’all know which part I’m talking about.
It seemed like such a shame to turn off the car before we got to sing “And we are His portion and He is our prize! Drawn to redemption by the grace is in His eyes. If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking. And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest. I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way that He loves us…” Jackson threw off his seat belt and climbed in the front seat and we sang it together with all our guts.
I remembered being only yay big and in the back of that station wagon, sitting behind my mama’s big 80’s hair and belting out some Amy Grant and Larnell Harris. Nothing in life was so urgent that we couldn’t finish “Angels Watching Over Me” before we got out of the car.
*****
This old church directory photo from FBC Victoria, Texas, came into my life this week. There is no end to how much joy it’s given me. When I look at it I feel loved.
Amy Grant was my favorite singer when I was growing up! I think I still have one of her cassette tapes. My mom also drove a station wagon! What funny memories we share!
Thanks. I love that song. I stopped to sing it as I was reading this. The truth of this song is so awesome. This song is one of times when I need to stop and say to the precious Lord Jesus thank you , I love you,too. Tears ways accompany this song at this exact time in the song. It is a blessing to know so many others also must stop and worship in Spirit and Truth!!!!!
That’s awesome!!! Ha!!!! We miss you, Amanda!!!
Amanda, thanks for sharing! Love those times !! Just last night driving home from being at my in-laws house. The sky was clear and the stars shinning at their finest and My 13 year old daughter and I singing “Free” Steven Curtis Chapman off of the deliverence cd. I love this whole cd but this song especially. I love every word of this song but when the part came that says,
“And even as I drove away I found that I could not escape the way he spoke of what the grace of God had done
I thought about how sin had sentenced us to die
and how God gave His only Son so you and I could say…
I’m Free, yeah, oh, I have been forgiven
I reached over and grabed her hand just at the part where it says “so you and I could say” as we held them up in the car and sang ” I’m Free!” at the top of our voices.
I love that you and Jackson finished the song. I hate turning the music off mid-song. It’s just wrong!
Love the photo! Y’all are so cute!
Hugs,
Adrienne
Amanda,
Loved your story! I have taught my nieces to sing in the car… We sing were wver we are going church, store, etc… before I get my seatbelt on they are saying turn it on nana……. you guys are greatly loved!!!!! Andrea
Those are such special memories Amanda. My daughters laugh so hard at my REALLY big hair, telling me they honestly did not know how I was able to hold my head up and comments like didn’t people sitting behind you in church get mad because they couldn’t see!! My son only remembers singing in the car going to preschool and our special treats on Fridays at Chick-fil-A. (a bribe for doing well on his spelling tests)I hold dear those memories even the REALLY big hair and look forward to singing in the car with the grands one day! Thanks for sharing.
I LOVE hearing my kids sing worship!!! I did not grow up in a Christian home, and my husband and I are the only Christians in our families….current favorite in Chris Tomlin’s “Where You go I’ll go, where you stay I’ll stay, where you move, I’ll move, I will follow” I must admit hearing my 7 year old sing it is my favorite, I worry/pray for him more than my 10 year old daughter…..we KNOW that woman are naturally more relational, so I want him to have that leadership/strength…..am I making ANY sense?? 🙂
precious, precious memories, both for you and Jackson!
I bet mama Beth may be thinking about making a come back with the do…which I do love. I love how your hair kind of matches your moms…and I love love love that part in the song. It just does me in. In another one of my weird pregnancy dreams I was hanging out with y’all and melissas kid…which was a girl that looked just like her and we all went to the mall including your dad. It was better than the dream the night before where I was being attacked by cats. I was sad to leave y’all and drive 14 hrs back to alabama after bible study. At least this one made sense! Haha
Tears are starting to come to my eyes as I write this. I grew up in a musical family. My fondest memories were of my Mom and me sitting at the paino for hours singing one song after the other. My Mom has dementia now but she still plays the piano everyday. This past week God gave me a precious gift, I sat down next her as she played the piano and we went through the Baptist Hymnal singing one song after another for two hours. I will cherish that time spent with her.
I have a feeling another song your mom sang aloud with you may have been ” Our God Is An Awesome God”! Oh how I loved to belt that one with my kids in the back of the VW Van back in the day. Thanks for reminding me of sweet memories~
TAKE ME BACK!!!! Ah! those driving to school days….the last time all 3 of my children were in the same school at the same time was 1998…as soon as we got in the school car line we started praying – they learned that year that nothing is too small to pray about, you can LAUGH with God, and you can pray in the car with your eyes open!! Now, here were are many years later and 2 of those 3 children are living a prodigal lifestyle…yes, as a mom I have a lot of regrets, but CAR TIME COUNTED!!!! USE IT GIRLS!!! Every single day I pray for those seeds that were planted back then to be watered and start sproutn’!
Welcome back siesta! I know that you’ve never truly left but it’s good to hear from you. How sweet. Now those are the memories life is made of. Love the song, know the part..have no idea that it had a name but I will be searching the comments for it.
That picture has me looking at your Mom and thinking about all that God has and is accomplishing through her and her family. It encourages me because I see that as we change externally, we should also be changing internally..spiritually. I see your Mom now and see that she is more beautiful now than ever before. Externally and spiritually. I want my kids to see that when they look at old pictures of me. I don’t want them to see the same woman externally or spiritually. I want them to REMEMBER our own family memories and moments of singing out loud together. But, I want them to SEE God’s transforming power!
That’s what I see and I say HA-LE-LU-JAH!
I thought I would share something about my daughter as well. She is 7 years old. As she was taking a “bath-shower” this last week, we could hear her singing in there. As I got closer to the bathroom to actually hear what she was singing, my heart sang!
She was singing “Reign in Me.” I heard her singing, “Lord reign in me, reign in Your power, over all my dreams, in my darkest hour. You are the Lord of all I am. So won’t you reign in me again.”
I can’t tell you how much joy that brought me! Keep singing His praises to your little ones!
I love the picture and the “love of song” message! Sometimes, you just need to do the song and let the world go by!
I’ve facilitated almost all of the BM Bible studies and have seen her hair dos for the past 15+ years and have never seen this doo. I just love it.
So glad you posted this one and I’m going to turn on some music!
Thanks for checking in, Amanda! Love to hear from you!How awesome to be praising God with your boy! My oldest daughter would sing like that,too. We loved Psalty the Singing Songbook, the Donut Man & Veggietales. Loved the pic,too! I needed a laugh, it has been a heavy week. Have a great one! Joan
Amanda, so glad you could share life w/us! Glad you are all good. . .Sadly I have no sweet memories of my childhood like that but do have many from my own children. One of my favorites is singing Days of Elijah and my son at around 2 with all his might singing, “There is no God like Jebovah!” over and over. His favorite now is “He never lets go” of course, over and over. And I know that deep within those songs engraved on his heart will keep him in God’s word, for God never fails!! He also loves to dance while singing at church and jump up and down now at 9 it is hard to hold him back and I love his excitement of loving the Lord with all his might. Thank you Amanda for reminding me to have more fun loving the Lord.
Jackie, Little Rock, AR
My 4 year old, Rachel is still into a little kids Christian music CD for the most part, but ever since she was a baby, her favorite lullabies were Jesus Loves Me and Amazing Grace, which I still sing her and baby Rebekah to sleep with. She does love some Tobey Mac and will do some “funky monkey” moves while wecsing along and it is such a blessing!
Totally awesome!
Thanks Amanda!! You are such a wonderful mom. Oh, the power of song in the lives of our children! I love it. You reminded me of my little one sitting in a shopping cart and suddenly singing at the top of her lovely voice “we shall reign over all the earth” … the whole song … throughout the whole store! I guess she thought she better let everyone know now …
Ah! I read this over a few times , trying to picture your mom ‘hopping’ out of the back seat of a station wagon after singing Angels Watching Over Me in the 80s.It was all a little unsettling, really–until I happened to notice someone thanking ‘Amanda’ in the comments!
What a nice surprise. 🙂 I’m a fairly new blog follower, and didn’t realize the posts were shared.
Great photo of that fabulous big 80s hair, too. I was a new Christian in the 80s, so those are the songs I remember being ‘brought up’ with (though I was older). Hope to hear more from you.
Yikes–I just realized your name is actually in brackets after the title. I’ll have to chalk this up to a pre-menopause moment. Feel free not to post these comments. 🙂 God bless.
Amanda, this is so random but I had to comment..we lived in Victoria, Texas for just a little over a year when I was 4 years old. It was the only other place I have EVER lived besides my hometown of Lynchburg, VA. We moved there as a church planting effort and left once the church was established. Seeing your picture instantly took me back. My parents eerily resemble yours (must be those great 80’s hairstyles!) and I felt so safe and at home because I was with them, I didn’t know what it was like to feel homesick. I never knew any different – I would have felt safe with them anywhere! Just for laughs I thought I would share the only things I can remember from that year:
1 – Fire ants – lots of them
2 – Mosquitos – LOTS of them
3 – Locusts **it must have been the year of the insect
4 – Lubby’s Cafeteria
5 – Taping our windows for protection against hurricane
Allen
6 – Wearing shorts and a t-shirt outside on Christmas Day
7 – I came home from Texas with a baby sister!
Thanks for sharing!
Love this. Thanks for the story and the picture. Now I’ve got a whole Amy Grant album stuck in my head. 🙂
Oh, how very special!! I love to look at the old church directories…..always brings back memories!!
~Beth
Yes! Such sweet wonderful memories! My granddaughter just turned one a couple of weeks ago so her vocabulary is very limited but she shouts out the parts in “Indescribable” and “lifts her hands in the sanctuary’. good times…
What a precious heritage! Thank you for sharing.
That pic is crazy beautiful 🙂
Love the song, love the photo, love hearing from you. Enjoy your season!
Oh, how I love that song! And isn’t it awesome when you hear praise and worship songs flowing out of children? I feel like God is really smiling when He hears the sweet words from those sweet babies!
Can anyone tell me in which Bible study Beth had the Jewish ladies sing the Shema? I want to hear it again.
My first thought is Stepping Up…does that sound right?
I believe it is Daniel.
The intro to each video in Jesus the One and Only has the Shema being played and sung.
The CD for it is SH’MA ISRAEL by Barry & Batya Segal
Oh, how you made my day in posting that picture! Thanks!
Can’t tell you how many times I have set in my driveway and let a song finish before going in…
I love this, Amanda. My story about one of my girls and I is such a bittersweet one. It was a few months after we bid my son and her brother a heart-wrenching “See You in Heaven” and commended him on to Jesus. I had bought several Mark Shultz and Casting Crowns CDs at the time.
We drove the half hour home from shopping bawling our eyes out and hitting the repeat button on the CD player. But the words were just so meaningful as Mark Hall sang “Praise You in this Storm” and Mark Shutlz sang about a Cloud of Witnesses and Learning to Let Go… Oh My word… We were undone, but singing along as we wept and wept. In hindsight they were the kind of tears that ultimately bring healing, but at the time it just felt so sad. We love God so at our house. My girl often will tell me – Mom you will love this song.
One of my fondest memories of Justin was after he attended his first Planet Wisdom Conference with the youth. He came home out of breath as he announced, “Mom, you should’ve been there. Mercy Me was there and they were singing your song.” “My song” was “I can Only Imagine.” It was my song because when it came on the airwaves I would turn it up and belt it out with all my heart. We even had to sit in the parking lot at Wal-Mart the first time we heard it so we could get the name and artist. [Thank you Jesus for Shazam which saves me the wait…]
My son’s favorite song was House of God by Mercy Me and I would often let him sit and finish the song out when we would arrive at our destination mid-stream. 🙂
Sweet memories -thanks for calling them up! 🙂
Blessings,
Michelle
LOVE That!! Brought back great memories and a huge smile to my face.
How fun! Love it
What a photo, thanks for letting us have a look.
you were a cute little girl, Amanda.
Enjoy those moments with your little ones. you’re right, there is anything that demanding that we can’t take a moment and finish listening to a song and sing it with our kids. when they become teens and this happens…well, it’s a little different….they look at you as if you’ve lost your mind….and look around to make sure no one else is looking.
It was good to hear from you again. until next time.
Amanda, this brings back memories of raising my now 26-yr-old son and 23-yr-old daughter. Thank you! “How He Loves” means much to me. We moved our daughter to Dallas Bapt. Univ. in Aug. for grad school. She had been accepted to Southwestern Seminary (SWBTS) in Ft. Worth to their counseling program her senior year in college; we were devastated when that program was discontinued last spring. It seemed as the Lord had worked everything out–precious roommate in an apt. complex at SWBTS near her newlywed brother (grad student at SWBTS) and sis-in-law she loves dearly. But, in the loss, He had plans for GOOD!! Provided a job for her at DBU and precious roommates! As her dad and I drove onto DBU’s campus last Aug., we were rejoicing in the Lord, thanking Him so very much. I asked my husband to pull over so I could take pics of the entrance of the campus, and when I got out of his truck, “How He Loves” was playing loudly on campus on a Sat. morning! Don’t know where it was coming from, but I know His sweetness allowed it just for us. 🙂 And we sobbed.
I do the same thing and my husband thinks I am crazy! I am glad to hear I am not.
Oh I do love your post Amanda! Glad to hear from you. Once my girls (age 8 & 5) were playing Barbies in the other room and Chris Tomlin’s song, Great is Our God was playing in the background- when he got to the part “sing with me….” it’s like they couldn’t deny the request and stopped what they were doing and started singing with him.
….and I often think how wonderful that the soundtrack of my children’s lives are worship songs.
I love this! My 5 yr old just learned all the words to a new song (new to us) by Disciple “Dear X” – not for the faint but it touched me soooo deeply so we play it over and over. He yelled out the part “You don’t own me!!” then added “SATAN!!!” Ha ha ha ha! They are listening and getting a hold of those lyrics, I love it!
How precious! And what a sweet memory with your little one. The picture is also precious. I had the same hairdo back in 1982. I worked out at home to a Jazzercize album (complete with black leotards) because I had two boys fourteen months apart and they were 3 and 2 years old back then. We sang along to the Christian Radio station–one of our favorites was–Turn Up the Radio by Phillips, Craig, and Dean!
I’ve had some of the best times of worship in my car!
Oh did that bring back memories. In the late 70’s our son was 5 years old and we always had Christian music on in the car(8 tracks). One Sunday as we were heading for Church we were all joining in singing an oldie “I shall not be moved”. When it came to the chorus which goes ” I shall not be, I shall not be moved” Our son sang out with full force and thinking that he had the correct words, “mushy, mushy, mushy, mushy moo. It was just the funniest thing, it was what he heard from that back seat I guess. We still laugh about that one and he’s now 37!!
We now have 2 granddaughters who also love to sing as they ride along with us.
Thanks for stirring up the memories Amanda!
Hi Amanda !
I am so glad that I am not the only one who waits for a song on Christian radio to end before leaving the car !
And, yes, Amy Grant’s “Angels” was/is perfect for doing that . . . 🙂
Lately, one of those songs has been “Imagine”, ever since my dear Dad passed away from Leukemia 3 years ago this coming March 24th. However, if seeing our Lord & Savior face to face is anything like the intense feelings that I felt during and after my sweet salvation, I will be “flat on my face” before Him, not able to utter a word, except maybe His Precious Name………
In Christ’s Love,
Jennifer
Southern Wisconsin
Amamda, It was nice to read/hear your story. I could hear my sweet and gentle Heather singing in the back seat of our car when she was then 2, 4, 5, 10 and 15.What a lovely sound to the ears of a mother and what a wonderful experience to praise our God with our beloved children. Heather’s twenty now and is not walking with the Lord.I had so hoped that she would avoid alot of the pitfalls one can fall into by going the world’s way, but it has happened. God has reassured me that Heather had 16 years of his word poored into her and he will be talking to her through those words, lovelying drawing her back to Him. I hope with all my heart she will someday be singing songs of worship again to our God, and that her little ones(should she have children) climb over the back seat of their car to sing with her, to the tops of their lungs, praises our God. Praises be to you Father forever and ever and ever! We love you Lord!
Oh, that makes me smile! I am always “finishing a song” when I get places! 🙂
I love remembering… I was saved at nine years old and many times the Lord brings back memories to encourage me. I love family history too… I guess that’s why I scrapbook… 🙂 and, I still have Amy Grants first album when she was just 16 years old.
My “baby” boy (he is 19 now) first sang along to TESTIFY TO LOVE by Avalon…..way back when.
Loved this post! Thank you for sharing your heart with us.