Sarah Mac

“Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes,
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes,
Silver white winters that melt into springs,
These are a few of my favorite things.”
-Hammerstein, Oscar; Rodgers, Richard (sung by Julie Andrews)

Its no wonder that this song in on my brain as I sit in my room. This is my den, my cubby, my warm blanket around me, my thinking room, my ponder place, my quiet place, my hiding place… I call it the green room. Everything is wooden or books or green in this room. I have taken a few snapshots for you to see where I curl up to write. I have a chair that I bought before my daughter was born that I was told is hideously ugly but I couldn’t resist it’s comfort. It rocks. It has a footstool. That is my spot. I am sitting there now and doing what I do. Looking out the window at the rain, looking fondly at my books(I stopped counting them when I reached 800) and reflecting on the hours of cozy time I’ve spent in their reading. So…come on in…bring your hot tea and curl up with me. Who knows, maybe we could write a song together. It is raining outside and the perfect weather for a good lyric…

I like to plan. Everything that I look forward to includes making a list and the process of seeing the things on the list checked off is joy to me. I dream about the future. As a young girl I dreamt of my family and my adult life and all of the things it would include. My mental checklist forming:

do well in school
establish and get a job that I love
find my husband
travel the world
own a home where a family could grow
have children
have holidays and special occasions with a joyful family
share and see big God moments throughout my life with those I love
raise my children to know the Lord in a personal/real way
grow old with my husband
see my children married
see many grandchildren born and raised in whole and happy families

I could go on and on with my list. I could get more detailed with my list but even though I am still young I have already seen and had struggles with my envisioned future crumbling and needing to be rebuilt. My original list has been thrown out and a new list made. The new list quickly getting edited and eventually thrown out as well. Each year I hold my thoughts of the future in my heart an silently pray. I have had to give what I think it should be like to my Heavenly Father and entrust each and every detail of it to Him. I have also seen many friends and loved ones struggle with this as well. People who have seen spouses die far too young, people who have lost jobs and all their savings, people who have seen their marriages fail, parents who have lost children, children who have lost parents whether to death or divorce, and I’ve seen each one of these people with the look in their eyes that cries for the loss of their envisioned future. Their grief sitting like a rock in their throats, unable to even be whispered. So what does the Father do? What safeguard did He establish for us?

Romans 8:26–28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

I just breathed in these verses…All the tension that I tend to hold in my shoulders, all the furrowing of my brow, the ache in my chest and the thoughts I can’t seem to turn into words as prayers have been heard. I have a “Ghost who lives within the confines of these carbon ribs,” as John Mark McMillan would say, and this Holy Ghost/God’s Spirit hears me. He knows me. He sees me. He intercedes for me and has the perfect prayers for me. My worries are on His lips before God. My fears are being held in His hands. They are named and seen and I am being protected from them. Today I will remember that my sighs are acknowledged and being turn into prayers before my God. My God who loves me and makes all things right.

What are our expectations of God? Do we wake every morning with the expectation of seeing Him be obvious in His love for us? Do we think that when we are really good then perhaps we might feel a bit of peace hoping nothing bad will happen or do we truly expect Him to love us unconditionally? Are you the person who thinks God stands far off and controls the “big” things in life but doesn’t have time for the little day to day things?

- Matthew 10:29-31
29 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Who knows how many hairs they had this morning? Who knows how many fell out throughout the day? When you brushed your hair as you got ready for the day? Your God does. And this may seem like such a silly thing. Who cares about the number of hairs on my head? He is making a huge point here. He knows us so thoroughly and personally. He cares about us to the point where he is even noticing the number of hairs on our heads.

God is the only one who knows the thoughts He has about us and in Psalm 139:17 it says that His thoughts about us outnumber the sand and in Jeremiah 29:11 He says they are thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give us a future and a hope.

Now with this image of God in our minds lets imagine the things we ask of Him. The things we expect from Him and His love. I can remember when I was younger praying for the man who would end up being my husband. I would pray that he would know the Lord. That he would be kept safe. That the Lord would constantly be drawing this husband to be into a stronger relationship with Himself. I would pray that the Lord would be preparing me to be a good wife for him. Then after I would pray these things I would tack onto the end of the prayer a quick “Lord please let him be good looking and tall!” Shhhhhh! It was almost like I whispered this last part in case the Lord didn’t love me enough to care about or know the desire of my heart. Of course I wanted my husband to be a godly man but I also wanted him to be cute! Psalm 37:4 says He wants to give you the desires of your heart. I need to keep in mind when I am looking to the Lord in honesty and crying out to Him from the depths of my heart whether in joy or sadness that Matthew 7:9-11 says 9 “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

My expectations of my Heavenly Father need to be huge. Psalm 72:18 says “Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, Who only does wondrous things!” Get that? ONLY and WONDROUS. He only does wondrous things and since He cares so intimately, personally, deeply about us and our lives even to the point of knowing the hairs on our heads then that means in our lives He will only do wondrous things.

These are the thoughts that went through my head this morning while I watched my daughter think too small. I would/will give her anything she desires yet she thought she might settle for less as if this was all she could get…

I have decided that Christian music, as well as all music, comes in different forms much like food does. There is:

1. healthy ‘good for your body’ stuff that also tastes good
2. healthy stuff that doesn’t taste so good but you eat it anyway because it is good for you
3. the ‘just okay for you but tastes better and is easy to make’ stuff
4. the junk ‘oh so bad for you but tastes soooo good for you’ food

I have long been wondering why oh why healthy food can never compare in taste to a molten lava chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream? There is not a single healthy choice of food that comes close to giving my mouth the yummy satisfaction that the lava cake does. Why?

I think I have discovered the reason and this is what I also have been thinking about music as well; the lava cake has only one hope and that is to get you hooked by the instant gratification that it brings with it’s gooey chocolatey-ness. It can bring nothing else to the table except extra pounds, a huge sugar crash and a few cavities; thus, it tries to make me forget all of that by being so very good up front.

On the other hand some of my favorite healthy foods are more laid back. Cantaloupe, edamame, and water know that they can be more subtle in their goodness because I will reap rewards from a healthy eating lifestyle for years to come. Water alone may not have the delicious taste of a Dr. Pepper but it will give me good skin, refresh me, help with my metabolism, not to mention has no calories, among so so many other benefits. This drinking water habit I have will benefit me for the rest of my life in ways I will probably never know.

So, where am I going with this? There are songs on the radio and in music that will grab your attention right off with a sugary sweet melody and beat but there is nothing meaningful or purposeful (other than making some money for the record label) to these songs. I believe they also contribute to stunting your spiritual growth just like junk food hinders healthy growth. On the other hand there are songs that normally don’t even make it to radio that have so much depth and meat to them that they will be with you for the rest of your life. They will be the staples that you can look back on and remember the Lord revealing something new and fresh to you each time you hear them.

There are a few songs that I would put in my extremely meaty catagory:

1. Tears of the Saints- Leeland
2. Tear Down the Walls- Joel Houston
3. Our God Reigns- Delirious?
4. King of All Days- Dylan Thomas
5. True Love- Phil Wickham
6. How He Loves- John Mark McMillan
7. Revelation Song- Jenny Lee Riddle
8. You Hold Me Now- Reuben Morgan, Matt Crocker

There is a huge amount of depth in the songwriting as well as the musicality in these songs. They feed me and replenish me. Seek out songs like these and the people who write these songs that aren’t just sugar. Invest in their careers so that they can continue playing music and writing for our benefit and the rewards for your body, soul and spirit will be endless.

Worship: to ascribe worth to something. As a Christian, worship means ascribing worship to our God, to Jesus a lot of the times through music and singing but most of the time with our daily living. To a non-Christian it means ascribing worship to many different things and in many different ways. Oftentimes when I am trying to find freshness and newness in my worship of my Creator I look to the ways that I give worth to other aspects and people in life.

One of the things I am most excited about right now are the Olympics being held in Vancouver, Canada. As an avid runner and tomboy I have been in sports/athletic activity from a very young age and the Olympics are like a gift of pure pleasure to me to watch. I find myself Tivo-ing every sport, learning about every athlete and hold my breath as my favorites compete.

Since running is one of my favorite pastimes it is the endurance type sports portions of the Olympics that I look forward to the most. Already I’ve watched the women’s nordic skiing and seen a woman from another country fall into a whole at the side of the trail while getting ready for her event. She fell and hit a tree and rock and broke 4 ribs but before getting treated she competed in her event barely making it through the semifinals and into the final. I watched with eager anticipation as she stayed near the front throughout the whole race and then at the end pushed and pushed until she crossed the finish line and won the bronze medal. She got 3rd! Four broken ribs and who knows how many bruises and other hurting spots yet she did it! As I watched her struggle and success, I was the person alone in my house watching and jumping up and down and cheering for her! I had tears in my eyes from the pure joy and excitement of her accomplishment. I have told others about what she did and the obstacles she overcame in order to do it. I also made myself go further and run faster than normal, during my run later that day, because I was so inspired by her.

Do I ever do this with God? Do I ever wait on the edge of my seat for the moment that is coming where I get to see Him and respond with jumping up and down, cheering, tear-filled, joyful adoration? Do I ever run out immediately and tell anyone and everyone about what He has done? Do I ever spend time imitating Him because of the way He has inspired my life?

If I find myself doing this then I find myself worshipping Him and believe me, He is much more accomplished and worthy of my worship than any medal winning, world record breaking athlete. He is God!

Without a doubt I had no problem quickly singing along the first time I heard “Here I Am To Worship.” I was about to head out on tour with Michael W. Smith (I was his background singer as well as his acoustic guitarist) and was learning the songs we would be singing on that tour. Michael introduced this song to us during rehearsals and even though we were in a rehearsal space and not a church service I closed my eyes and sang it out with a worshippers heart. There have been many songs throughout my life that have been written, usually by guys, that have had an impact on me like this one but I can’t help but notice that very few of them are written by females. My husband one time looked at me while I was singing along to the radio and said “Why do you always sing along to songs in harmony.” I’m not sure what I answered at that time but I think my answer should’ve been “because this song is not written in a woman’s key.” Usually when a guy is leading worship at church the songs are either too high or too low for girls to sing along in the melody so we either sing a harmony (mine usually alto) or we sing in a crazy high falsetto that just sounds weird. It’s because of this that I am so excited about Vicky Beeching’s new cd. I have been hearing her songs being recorded by my husband for the past few months and have been eagerly awaiting the moment when everyone else gets to hear them as well. She is one of the few female worship leaders out there who is writing great congregational worship songs that I think will connect quickly with the church due to a freshness lyrically, creativity musically, and just the flat out fact that she is giving us the words that we need to say to our Father in worship of Him. Now adding to that, she is singing on the record in keys that I can worship right along with in melody. I don’t have to jump around looking for a harmony because the song is too high or low like a Chris Tomlin song would be. I can’t imagine how quickly my windows would shatter if I tried to sing along with him on his recording of “How Great Is Our God.” It is so unbelievably high (or low) for a woman because it is in a man’s key. Vicky’s new full length record is set to be released April 6th which I would strongly advise anyone to go out straight away and buy but before you can do that you can get her 3 song EP tomorrow. Wake up, grab your coffee, walk to your computer with your blurry-I-just-woke-up-eyes and download her EP on ITunes. Then let those 3 worship songs set the tone for your day. Enjoy!

This morning’s run was extra special. First of all I love the time I get outside alone with my year and a half old, Scarlett (aka: Red). She is always calm and smiley when we head outside. She hummms, talks, sings, looks for birds and just over all loves the outside but the whole time she is is only singing or talking to herself. Its like she knows that when we go running it is time to sort through whats going on in our heads. There with the sky blanketed around us and the birds our serenade, we run and think. Its amazing how thoughts drift toward the Lord and His magnificence. The further I run from all the man made and get lost in the God made, trees, wind, sun, the more I see Him more clearly. I hope that one day my daughter will be having the same thoughts. Maybe she already knows this and wonders why it takes me so long to be reminded. I will keep up these runs and hold on to the promise I find in Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made….”

Writing Christian music is hard. Writing congregational worship songs is harder. At least to me it is. There is pressure in writing congregational worship. #1. People need to be able to follow along and be able to sing it easily. #2 people need to want to sing it. Those two things are what trip me up. How do I simplify and write something that is fresh and relevant? I’ll go to the Psalms. How did David do it? David’s visually imagery in his Psalms is simple yet thought provoking. How did he do this? If I look at Psalm 23 I can see a stunning metaphor of my God as my shepherd. Although I haven’t done a lot of shepherding in my life I can get the idea of what he is trying to get across. Now imagine if I had lived during David’s time when shepherding was among the major occupations. I would know that during that time “shepherds walked in front of their flock. A flock new its shepherd’s voice and would follow only him. Often for protection, flocks were lodged together at night and separated in the morning when the shepherds called their sheep by name. They provided their flocks with water and food. They knew each sheep and lamb. When one was lost, they went out to find it. Small lambs, unable to keep up with the flock, were often carried next to a shepherd’s breast inside the fold of his outer garment. The shepherd also protected his flock, risking his life if necessary.”(New King James Study Bible) So now knowing this I can imagine that when David presented this Psalm the people might have turned to each other and said “ohhhh! God is like my shepherd! I get it. I know what that means,” and then would’ve been able to tuck that revelation of the Lord right into their memory banks to call upon when needing reminding. People are not going to remember “Praise Phrase.” That is my term for the Christian-ese phrases that songwriters plop into their songs when they are out of fresh insight. They think, “I know I’ll just add a little praise phrase and maybe no one will notice I was being a lazy songwriter or that I am having writers block.” The problem if we let ourselves be lazy then we are stoking a huge fire. The vast majority of people from the ages of 16-41 attended a Christian church during their high school years. But now days this group is less likely to return to church later. Why is this? I think that if I am writing music that has no depth or real-ness to it then I am portraying a God that has no depth or real-ness to Him. If I write songs that show a real God working in real ways in my life then the congregation will see there is a real God who can also work in real ways in their lives. These are the songs they want to respond to. These are the songs that will resonate with the church. One last example. My friend Brenton Brown is a songwriter for the church. His songs have been sung all over the world and many of his songs are on the charts as the most popular worship songs in the world. Looking at his song “Everlasting God” I know where his inspiration came from. After being on the road with him I heard him tell the church many times about his life and where he was when this song was birthed. Brenton had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrom. This is a syndrome of prolonged and severe tiredness or weariness (fatigue) that is not relieved by rest. It was in this moment of weariness that Brenton read Isaiah 40:28-31. It says:

28 Have you never heard or understood? Don’t you know that the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth? He never grows faint or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. 29 He gives power to those who are tired and worn out; he offers strength to the weak. 30 Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up. 31 But those who wait on the LORD will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

Brenton’s real life application of these passages into song has now ministered to people worldwide. It has connected. He said exactly what we need to say and now we have the song to sing out loudly as a proclamation to Lord as if it is our own words. I am thankful for the worship songwriters out there who humble themselves and write so that we can have the right words to sing. I’m thankful that they don’t allow themselves to be lazy and let their notoriety or nice voices carry their songs. I’m encouraged by them and hope that I will be constantly reminded to do the same each time I put pen to paper.

Let’s be honest. If you’re good you’re good. Sarah Watkins is great. She is in the other room in my studio and she is “fooling around” on her fiddle/violin while Jonny gets the tones set to record her on a cd by our friend Hillary Watson and I am playing studio hostess just so I can listen in. I’ll grab tea, water, honey or whatever I need to just to be able to be an observer to what is the beauty of her playing. You may ask yourself “Who is Sarah Watkins?” She is one third of the band Nickel Creek. Lets just assume for your benefit that you have heard of and love this band. Their “Why should the fire die?” cd is one of my favorites and is a cd that I need for those moments when driving through the mountains, curling up inside when outside it is snowing, or I’m just feeling nostalgic about my country roots. So here I am…an observer. Just being in here has made me reflect about other times I have gotten to be an observer to musical beauty that has impacted me. I remember going to a Muse concert in 1999 just after their 1st cd was released in the U.S. They weren’t very well know here yet so they were playing in a very small club and I got to be abnormally close to such an extrememly talented band. One day they would be filliing up huge arenas and $50 tickets would only get you a seat in the nosebleed section. So here I am watching and wondering how they are going to pull off the things on their record with just the 3 of them. Also, one of their big songs at that point was a song that had an important piano part in it and this night there was no piano seen on the stage to be played. I think one of 2 things is going to happen and I’m not happy about either of them. 1. They are going to play the piano part on tracks (this means that no one in the band will be playing them but the piano part will mysteriously come out of the speakers from an unknown source). I know that if this happens then the huge amount of respect that I have for them will take a beating. When I go pay money to see someone perform live I don’t want them to play to their cd. I have the cd at home already. I came to see them pull off what is on the cd. So then I’m thinking the other option is 2. They just will play the song without the part. This will be a bummer because it is a huge hook in the song but it will be preferable to tracks. So here comes the song…what will it be? What kind of band are they? Lead singer stands with his electric guitar held high and starts playing the very difficult classical sounding piano piece on his guitar. Of course, this is what a real band does. They don’t fake it, they don’t abandon it they brainstorm and figure out a way to do it. Oh I was all smiles and excitement. They are the real deal and I was getting to observe. Another of my favorites was sitting in a club in San Diego and watching Patty Griffin sing like I had never heard someone sing live before. Sure she sings the roof off on her cd but now days I know the tricks that producers can do in the studio to make someone sound like they can sing when in fact they really can’t so I wasn’t getting my hopes up. So she begins…and proceeds to sing the roof off of the club. I am sure at that moment that the clubs walls had never heard such real honest singing. Her voice perfectly colors and compliments her every word. Each and every huge note was hit perfectly in pitch as well as passion. It was an evening, and this is rare, that I left feeling that her amazing vocals on her cd had actually been topped by her vocals live. Thank you Miss Griffin for letting me be an observer. So how about you? Where did you have one of these moments? How did it impact you and encourage you in this wonderful thing called music?

I’ll admit, my studio rocks. Not only does it have an amazing view but it also has the best mascot