Monday's Mourning Ministry - In the Lowest Valley and Through the Valley ~The Isaacs / Walking Through the Valley Today

Monday's Mourning Ministry

In the Lowest Valley

and

Through the Valley

~The Isaacs

/

Walking Through the Valley Today

~Angie Bennett Prince, 2/27/2012

Walking through the valley today, my heart in the pits,

near despair, surrounded by shattered hopes and dreams,

One loss leads to another and another, or so it seems...

Barely navigating through this horrid valley of the Shadow of Death,

Taking it out on all around me, it seems.

Lord, I only hold on by a thread;

Without Your help, I am left, filled with dread.

Lift my spirits, keep my eyes on You,

Without Your help, Lord, I'll never make it through…

But You promise, though loss looms larger than me,

You have conquered Death;

From all this fear and dread of loss upon loss, I can be free…

Though I am winded, out of breath,

With Your presence, I can say,

"Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,

I will fear no evil…for THOU art with me…"

O Lord, please hover near me…

Ever attend to me, hear your wounded child's plea.

The Lowest Valley

~The Isaacs

Lord, I don't want to do one thing on my own

Put me where You want me Lord, where I belong

And give me the strength, Lord, to do Thy perfect will

So when I'm in the lowest valley, I can climb the highest hill

Lord I want to be what You want me to be

Lord I want to do the things You want me to do

Lord help me stay in the center of Thy will

So when I'm in the lowest valley,

I can climb the highest hill.

This world, it gets more wicked every day

People's hearts have grown so cold,

forgotten how to pray!

But if I live to be a hundred

I'll keep falling to Your hand

Until You come and take me Home

To that Promised Land.

Lord I want to be what You want me to be

Lord I want to do the things You want me to do

Lord, help me stay in the center of Thy will

And when I'm in the lowest valley,

I can climb the highest hill.

And when I'm in the lowest valley,

I can climb the highest hill.

*****

Through the Valley

~The Isaacs

So you're lookin' for a way to quench your thirst

to ease your mind, to cool the burn.

It's hard to face the road you're going down

And you're tempted to turn around.

Don't give up, just put one foot in front of the other

And just keep walkin'

Through the valley

Up the mountain

Toward the river,

Sweet redemption.

It's a measure of strength,

a shadow of grace,

a matter of faith

That'll keep you goin'

Just gotta keep on,

Gotta keep on, keep on movin'

Through the valley

Love is waiting on the other Side

It calls your name

Don't break your stride

Freedom's gonna taste twice as sweet

when you get to where you need to be

Don't lose hope;

Just hold on with all of your heart

And just keep prayin'

Through the valley

Up the mountain

Toward the river,

Sweet redemption

It's a measure of strength,

a shadow of grace,

a matter of faith

that'll keep you goin'

you just gotta keep on, gotta keep on,

keep on movin'

Through the valley, yeah

It's a measure of strength,

a shadow of grace,

a matter of faith

that'll keep you goin'

you just gotta keep on, gotta keep on,

gotta keep on, gotta keep on,

keep on movin'

Through the valley

Through the valley

You just gotta keep on,

gotta keep on, keep on movin'

Through the valley

Through the valley

http://youtu.be/8fIYKuNOjk4

http://youtu.be/JV8igGIjkBU

Monday's Mourning Ministry - Breakfast Table ~Christ Rice

Merry Katherine and her older brother Rollin

at her 19th birthday dinner

Monday's Mourning Ministry

Breakfast Table

~Christ Rice

Today, I had a wonderful Mother's Day with my hubby Tommy, my two sons Rollin and Nathan, and Rollin's wife of two years now, Stephanie. After Rollin and Stephanie left a few hours ago, I was reminded of this song that Rollin picked out soon after Merry Katherine was killed... But first, some background so you can better understand the song's significance.

***

Rollin is Merry Katherine's older brother. As children, with him the oldest, and her the youngest and both having very strong personalities, there were a lot of clashes. Nathan was the middle child and being close to both of them, was usually their peacemaker. There were probably quite a few hurtful things that transpired between Rollin and Merry Katherine over the years, a few of which I know about from what they have shared.

But when Rollin started high school, he began going to the youth group of the same church in which his daddy had gone as a child/growing teen. As Rollin began to faithfully attend all aspects of the youth group, appropriately called "Journey," his faith took on a more personal and deeper note with His Lord. He seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds, surrounded with good friends who were growing in the Lord too, as they honestly challenged one another, growing as they were being discipled by one another as well as under some great youth leaders.

Rollin's brother and sister watched skeptically, not sure they could trust such a major change in his life, but they began to see a real difference in him day-in and day-out. Merry Katherine, meanwhile, was beginning to stretch her wings and try new things in her then middle-school years, but her brothers were faithful to talk to her about their concerns and prodded her to join them in their youth group as she was leaving middle school and entering high school. So she did join them her freshman year.

Rollin was so precious to take the songs that had ministered so much to his heart, and introduce those songs to Merry Katherine so that they might minister to her as well. They had a very similar taste in music of all the pop culture songs anyway, but these songs were songs that seemed to penetrate the heart and soul. The songs gradually pierced her in a way too that began drawing her heart ever closer to the Lord.

It was so sweet watching both this transformation in the two siblings that fought the most with one another, and the transformations in their hearts as God was getting ahold of them with His amazing life-transforming love.

(Nathan was also growing tremendously in the Lord in their same group.) Merry Katherine continued to struggle off and on with her sin nature, and the tug-of-war between God and Satan, but God's hold on her was real. Her heart was so tender toward Him, and she too began to grow and be discipled by her friends in the youth group and by her own amazing youth group leaders.

We would often hear her belting out the songs Rollin had been sharing with her as she would sing along with her loudly-playing stereo from her bedroom, or with headphones while mowing the grass, singing out above the noise...

***

So after her death, it really touched me when Rollin came to me a couple of weeks after her funeral with the following song that he found, saying that this was the song he felt he most wanted to share with Merry Katherine, expressing his heart's sentiments in the way that he typically did with her...through song.

The song just seems to capture their personalities and their adventuresome spirits along with their newfound (over those past six years) tenderness with one another, their hearts' desire for God, and their growing relationships with Him...

Breakfast Table

Chris Rice

Was it a million miles to Heaven,

Too far to hear my lonely song?

Or is it just my imagination...I hear you humming along

I only hold you in my dreams now

I wake up with cold and empty arms

Lord help me get through this long night without you

And soon as the morning comes...

Soon as the morning comes...

Save me a seat at the breakfast table

Save me a dance around the Milky Way

And save me a thousand years to whisper in your ears

All I've wanted to say

Save me a smile and an angel's feather

Save me a walk down the streets of gold

And maybe, we'll change our minds just like old times

And maybe we'll just fly away...

Or maybe we'll stay!

You lucky dog, you're in heaven before me...

You were my taste of Heaven here

Remember we loved to talk about it, we couldn't wait to get there

So you go on and find your way around now

But remember I'm here missing you...

Do me a favor and say 'Hey' to Jesus

And tell him I'm missing Him too

Tell him I'm missing Him too

Then save me a seat at the breakfast table

Save me a dance around the Milky Way

And save me a thousand years to whisper in your ears

All I've wanted to say

Save me a smile and an angel's feather

Save me a walk down the streets of gold

And maybe, we'll change our minds just like old times

And maybe we'll just fly away!

Save me a seat at the breakfast table

Save me a dance around The Milky Way

Save me a thousand years to whisper in your ears

All I've wanted to say

Save me a smile and an angel's feather

Save me a walk down the streets of Gold

Maybe we'll change our minds just like old times

Or maybe we'll just fly away...

Maybe we'll fly away...we'll fly away...

'Cause I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you!

Baby, let's fly away! We'll fly; we'll fly; we'll fly,

We'll have forever; we'll have forever and ever

yea yea yea yea yea yea yea yea yea yea yea yea yea

I can't wait to see you

I can't wait to hold you again

You were my taste of Heaven

We'll have forever...

I can't wait to see you

I can't wait to hold you!

song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NhAdDhWpxY

Monday's Mourning Ministry - Broken

Monday's Mourning Ministry

Broken

Lifehouse

Broken

by

Lifehouse

lyrics

Songwriters: Wade, Jason

The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight

Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time

I am here still waiting though I still have my doubts

I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing

With a broken heart that's still beating

In the pain there is healing

In your name I find meaning

So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on

I'm barely holdin' on to you

The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head

I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead

And I still see your reflection inside of my eyes

That are looking for purpose, they're still looking for life

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing

With a broken heart that's still beating

In the pain is the healing

In your name I find meaning

So I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'),

I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'),

I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin')

I'm barely holdin' on to you

I'm hangin' on another day

Just to see what you will throw my way

And I'm hangin' on to the words you say

You said that I will, will be ok

The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone

I may have lost my way now, having forgotten my way home

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing

With a broken heart that's still beating

In the pain, there is healing

In your name, I find meaning

So I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'),

I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'),

I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin')

I'm barely holdin' on to you

I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'),

I'm holdin' on (I'm still holdin'),

I'm barely holdin' on to you.

Today was the kind of day ~where I feel "broken"~ more to come...

"I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing

With a broken heart that's still beating"

Picture: http://twitpic.com/vfsoo

Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvJeRldZId0

Monday’s Mourning Ministry — It Is Well with My Soul

Monday’s Mourning Ministry

It Is Well with My Soul

It Is Well with My Soul: 29 years ago, 1980, this beautiful, soul-felt song was played at my brother Buddy's funeral. The congregation sang; my sisters and I cried all the way through it... My brother was only 38 years old when he died from cancer, leaving behind his loving wife of 16 years and his precious 14-year-old son Curt who needed his daddy, his football coach, his discipler in Christ. Buddy was my oldest brother, my parents' oldest child.

24 years later, 2004, this song was played once again, this time at my father's funeral, our congregation singing of our daddy's beautiful soul that faithfully touched our church family, our community, his beloved wife of 65 years, and each of us, his children, so faithfully and so deeply.

2 years later, 2006…My only daughter, Merry Katherine, who deeply loved her Lord, often belting out songs of praise to Him in the privacy of her room was killed in a crash along with two of her friends as they were on their way to the beach. We played this sweet song at her funeral knowing that after such a sudden death, she was actually in the presence of her Lord, now singing her soul-felt praises to Him, but now, face-to-face. Merry Katherine is our youngest child and my parents' youngest grandchild.

******

Singer Wintley Phipps shared these words God put on his heart on another occasion before singing this song:

It is in the quiet crucible of your personal private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given in compensation for what you’ve been through…

And so, Horatio Gates Spafford (1873) was given this blessed song that has ministered to my entire family’s heart as well as millions of others through the years.

And now, I want to share this song with you. Take note of the song's poignant history as Sonya Isaacs shares the circumstances in which it had been written.

How timely for us grieving parents to hear a fellow sufferer, a fellow struggler, share the words of his heart with us. Despite his greatest heart-ache amidst a parent’s worst nightmare, even so Horatio Spafford could write and sing these words from his heart,

“Even so, it is well with my soul…”

It is Well With My Soul

The Isaacs

******

I learned this weekend that another singer, one of our own contemporary Christian artists, Steven Curtis Chapman has written and sung the songs of a father’s own heart-felt agony over the loss of his baby girl on a new album called "Beauty Will Rise":

Singer Copes With His Daughter's Death

Posted Friday 13 November 04:30 PM By: PopEater Staff

Christian music singer Steven Curtis Chapman is still coping with the death of his adopted daughter, 5-year-old Maria, who was accidentally struck in the family's driveway by one of her brothers who was returning home in his truck in May 2008.

Chapman, who has been singing Christian music for more than 20 years, told CNN that he felt like he was in a black hole and faced with a God he had not known before. Everything he thought about God was different, he said, and he began to wrestle with his beliefs.

An investigation called the tragedy an accident and no charges were filed. Maria was rushed to the hospital in Nashville, but died of her injuries there. The accident occurred on May 21, 2008 at Chapman's home in Franklin, Tennessee. Maria had been playing behind the family's home when she ran towards her brother's truck and was struck.

Chapman's wife, Mary Beth, told him they had to accept her destiny. "It was after a few minutes that my wife, with her hand on my shoulder, said, 'I really think we are supposed to let her go for now,'" Chapman said to CNN.

In the days after Maria's death, the whole family -- Chapman, his wife, their two sons, their daughter and two other adopted daughters -- grieved together. Chapman couldn't imagine his life without his daughter.

He recalls the instant connection he had when he met her in her native China while she was an infant. He and his wife had already adopted two children from there, and weren't looking for another. But Maria "touched a special place in my heart," and he called his wife just to tell her about the baby girl. "I can't put it into words, but I've picked up a lot of little orphan boys and girls over the years," he said. "I've never had anything happen to my heart like what happened when I held this little girl in my arms for a few minutes."

Although Chapman doubted he would want to write and sing again, he slowly put his fears and hopes into music. Even though he didn't plan on doing an album, songwriting was helping him heal. "Songs are really cathartic for me," he said, "because they force me to put my feelings and thoughts into a capsule and say, 'There it is.' "

The raw, emotional journey he recorded will now be his 19th album, entitled 'Beauty Will Rise.' The album is his personal testament to Maria's life and the overwhelming belief that they will be together again one day, he said.

With his raw emotions splattered across the album, Chapman said, "It just felt like that's honest. This is life going on. It's the day-to-day pain, just walking the journey."

When asked by CNN what song he thought would be Maria's favorite, Chapman paused for a while. Then he thought of the title track, "Beauty Will Rise." "She likes loud, she liked it fast," he said, the smile returning to his voice. "She likes the one with all the energy and the one she could bounce in the car to."

******

I am looking forward to hearing Steven Curtis Chapman’s upcoming album, written from the depths of the pain of yet another fellow strugger in the agony of grief over the loss of his child. You may want to follow him on Twitter as I do: @StevenCurtis

Steven Curtis Chapman story: http://bit.ly/2N2I7d

It Is Well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaar6Ij55ig

Clouds Picture - Let there be light by Christolakis http://bit.ly/11pFHR