Dear Christian Friend, 
Have you ever had a time in your life when you felt that there was something that you just had to do? Not really knowing how to do it, you feel really inadequate about how to accomplish it. Telling yourself that there is really a purpose for doing it while knowing that you couldn’t put your time to accomplish anything more beneficial. The harder you try to convince yourself that it would be too difficult and serve no real purpose the more deeply you feel that it should be done and you are made to feel unfulfilled or ashamed for not attempting it. You know that it would not be an easy task and to do it would cause you to sacrifice or place yourself in a place of discomfort? Mixed feelings and a feeling of inadequacy have for sure stopped a lot of needed accomplishments from being started and I am sure that there has been a numberless amount of needed things left uncompleted because of doubt and indecision. Even after giving into your inner feelings and attempting to accomplish what you so deeply felt you must, there is still this feeling that what you have struggled to accomplish just really doesn’t quite measure up and is really quite inadequate or insufficient. You are left feeling uneasy about sharing your aspirations and accomplishments with others but somehow you feel a need to do so not out of an attempt to obtain praise but out of a true feeling or desire to be of assistance, to make a difference.
I have found myself going down this road, being made to feel inferior and defeated. It is truly a lonely feeling one of worthlessness, but it is also a situation that has a simple solution. I must allow God to take control of all aspects of my life and accept His leadership for my daily life as well as for my eternal future. Sometimes the solutions to our problem(s) are very simple but we as humans allow ourselves to get in the way and to complicate them. I know that in my life I have made many bad decisions and the only way that I have been able to deal with them is to give them all to the Lord. I am nothing at my best but I have no cause to doubt that in Him I can accomplish great things, I can accomplish His will for my life. What in life is so important that it cannot be sacrificed for the enrichment of humanity? Who am I to determine or dictate what is right or proper? What in my life has given me the right to limit God or to say what He can do or what He cannot do with little I have given Him? Nothing ever occurs to God. The many things that He does each day are Him just being God, when to man here on earth they are life giving miracles. All that I can and must do is to follow Him seeking His eternal will for my life. I must give Him what I have and what I am and then willingly step behind to follow Him wherever His will so chooses to take me. For me this has not been easy but has always been the way that I know it must be if I am to achieve any peace and joy in my life. Giving it to Him, it’s no longer my problem it belongs to Him. The really great thing about this arrangement is that it is the way He wants it. If I am to please Him, He expects me to give it all to Him. I no longer feel guilty or defeated in my life but I am given peace knowing that He is always there for me to meet the needs that I could never in my self be able to accomplish or solve. How much better can it get? What else in life is there that promises me more peace or contentment?
While I was raising my children I often met times when I forcefully had to inform my child that as the drill went. “You are the child, I am the Father!” “I make the rules you simply must follow.” The lessons that I had chosen to teach my children were for their own well being and advancement, I wanted to spare them from experiencing many of the problems I myself had created and experienced. It did not take me long to find out that just because I wanted things to be good they would automatically turn out to be good or that I could control or limit the undesirable by just wishing it would not occur. The love that I felt for my children was not grown or diminished by their willingness to resist or obey, it was an inherent part of my life, it was what I was all about. Somehow I feel that this is what God is all about. His love is not contingent on whether we as His children love and obey Him, it is unconditional. He wants for all His children to have a good life and I am for sure He is disappointed in us when we refuse to obey Him. He has done everything that He can possibly do as a good father to provide us the very best but He cannot and will not force us to accept His love and direction.
Responsibility, everyone has their own list of duties, everyone has their own place to serve. Even an all powerful God has reserved for Himself responsibilities that are in His control alone, things that He has chosen that make Himself sovereign. Without His eternal love and care the good life would cease to exist and we would find ourselves in a situation of total disarray and panic, a situation of total hopelessness. Without a sense of order everything becomes confused and bewildering. Without a sense of authority everything becomes confused and unworkable. It is Him and only Him that can place any order or reason into a life of total insanity. It is Him and only Him that can give true purpose and meaning into a life of complete hopelessness. It seem that in my life I have been given this sense of urgency to accomplish something that will enrich society as a whole and thereby help the singular individual one on one. Up front it seems that you would class this as a noble cause and a good reason for existence but in my case it is not that simple. I have always wanted to be of help to those I call my friends but somehow life just isn’t that simplified. Wanting and doing are not always that cooperative. They say that God must have had a sense of humor and I sometimes concur but so many times I don’t feel that He is doing what He has chosen to do out of a sense of being witty but a sense of urgency. It’s kinda like what is funny or humorous to some is really crude or insensitive to others, it’s all a sense of perspective.
My own life for instance, I have been given this feeling that somehow I have been placed here for a greater purpose, something that will be of assistance to humanity but I have never felt that I have been a good enough example to do so. I have considered writing a book but in school English was one of my worst subjects and my spelling tests really didn’t excel. I have never considered myself anything special but I have always been willing to give it my best effort. I want to be used by God and I really don’t care how He chooses to use me, I know His way is best. Lately, out of a series of unforeseen occurrences, I have been writing lyrics and attempting to create a music melody for each. I have a somewhat extensive college experience having achieved a Masters degree in Fine Arts and design, but when it comes to music… zero experience. I don’t know one note from another and if I did I wouldn’t know what to do with them. I can’t really sing a lick but I must do so if I am to get this melody that is penetrating my brain expressed. My wife and children have been blessed with Heavenly voices but when I give them the words that I have written they look at me and ask me what I expect them to do with them… they can’t read my mind. I have been blessed with this dilemma and after due course I have discovered the solution. Give it to God! If He can use my humble efforts than they are His to use, it’s all about Him anyway. Even when I am thoroughly convinced with what I must do, I am left with some reservation. I am a somewhat reserved, private individual, what some people call a “loner” or “backward”. I enjoy my privacy but I am left to feel insecure about it when I am convinced that I may hold the key to a dear soul’s salvation. I am made to dwell upon the Bible story about the five loaves and two small fishes. The lads’ offering was small indeed when considering the dilemma, feeding of five thousand, but with God all things are not only possible they are probable. God’s Word is for everyone and is not to be hoarded. Lately I have been led to believe that we as Christians have not been willing to do what Christ has commissioned us to do and there has developed a void where the sins of this world has been allowed to flourish. I have been challenged by past occurrences that it is past time to take up my cross and to do what God has commissioned every Christian to do, FOLLOW! Will it be easy? Probably not but I don’t recall anywhere in God’s Word where He tells us to take the easy road or ever gives us the opportunity in His service to do so. All instances of biblical record identify the cross as an act of servitude or sacrifice. His promise is to never leave or forsake us as one of His own.
Lately I am made to feel that accomplishing some great feat is only surpassed by the reason you have chosen to attempt it. If you have chosen to do it for selfish reasons or your motivation is purely self-sustaining or self-gratifying the returns will for sure be less rewarding or insignificant. I never want to find myself doing things for my own purpose but I want to be sure that what I am doing is the best that I have to offer to a God that deserves my very best. It is in this tone that I will continue doing what I feel I am expected to do. I am not trying to please mankind or myself. I know to many what I am doing is very inadequate or even foolish. If I were really good at what I do I am sure I would also be proud or vain. It would be more of “Look what I’ve done.” instead of giving it to Him and allowing Him to do as He pleases. A biblical truth is that God has chosen the simple to confound the wise. I have chosen to consider myself simple and to seek His wisdom as I live my daily life.
I feel that God is directing me to share my work with others. I do not consider what I have done spectacular or a work of art but I just want to share what I have accomplished and to do that I know no better way than sharing part of myself. It is somewhat of a revelation how we as God’s children look at our meager efforts to serve Him as very inadequate and unassuming but if we are doing His will, He (God) looks at them as gold and precious stones. I do not know what the future will hold in the light of my endeavors but I feel His will leading me to share what I feel He has given me. I have prayerfully asked Him to give me a job to do that will bring praise to His name and give hope and comfort to a lost and dying world. I will do whatever He ask me to do.
To tell you a little about myself, I have included this profile that I place in each of my CD’s. I started doing this when I decided to donate some of my music to the Cancer Society of Bourbon County, Kansas. My wife is a cancer survivor and I have joined their organization to support the detection and defeat of cancer.
You may be somewhat curious about my music and to answer some of your questions, I have included this short profile. As you have already guessed I am not a professional, but I simply do what I do because I love doing it and I feel it is what God has called me to do. I am retired and have been doing my music for only about 10 years. I began writing a short time after the death of my mother and I attribute my writing to the influence she had on me. I have had no music training of any kind but have always wanted to play the piano. When she became ill and was confined to the hospital I started singing songs from the church hymnal and taking them for her to listen hoping they would cheer her up a bit. I sang all the songs that I knew from 3 or 4 songbooks and soon ran out of material to sing. After she passed away I felt that I couldn’t stop what I was doing but I wanted some different material. I did not know where I could obtain new material and could really not afford to purchase it. I really don’t know how to read music that well so I came up with the idea of creating my own. Almost ten years later and I have written approximately 700 songs.
After writing the lyric I wanted to take it the next step and attempt a melody. I do not have a singing ability but I decided that I should attempt to do the best that I could and sing what I had just written. I have always been told “You don’t know what you can do until you try it.” Many of the songs that I have written were for my lovely daughter to sing but I had no sheet music for her and she gently declined to do them.
I have small ability as far as writing, singing, playing an instrument so why would I want to continue to create something that I know so little about? First, I felt that I was being led of God to do so. After sharing some of my music with friends, I received a positive response as to God’s working in my life as well as in the lives of the ones that I had shared my music with. I could not deny that God can and will take whatever He so chooses to accomplish His will. I have asked God this question. If He has chosen to use my feeble attempts of praising Him, why did He not give me the voice and the training to do so? His answer, He is not concerned about how well I did it but was only concerned that I was ready and willing to do it. If what I have written were to only be seen by my eyes alone, it would for sure need to be done because I felt it was what He has wanted me to do. What He (God) chooses to do with it is entirely up to Him even though I would like for it to be used to bless those who see and hear it. I don’t know what will happen with what I have accomplished but I do know that I am at peace knowing that I have a God that loves me and is only concerned about what is best for me as His child. It is in this thought that I have given it totally to Him thanking Him for a opportunity to serve.
About the songs: Most of what I have written took me thirty minutes to an hour to compose, although some of them took me several days to complete. Looking back on what I have written, knowing myself, I wonder how it was accomplished. Many of them were written with little thought, just writing down what I felt that in my heart I was to write. I, in my mind, had intended to go back and improve or correct what I had already written but my passion to write more kept me from doing so. Most of the songs I have sang only once or twice so I really don’t know how or couldn’t sing them again without the CD. I have serious problems with allergies (COPD) and in many cases found it difficult to sing them even the first time. I have an extensive education in the arts having obtained a Masters Science degree in fine arts and I am somewhat of a stickler for quality, I take pride in my work. In feeling this way, I am sometimes prone to discomfort when doing inferior or incomplete work and strive not to do so. This has been a problem for me in my writing not only for my own comfort but because I in no way wish to tarnish or disgrace the One I have written about. Having little knowledge about music but wanting to do what I feel I am led to do, I have found comfort in taking my efforts as far as my knowledge and talent will allow me to and then giving it to God and letting Him do whatever He wills.
I pray that you will enjoy my efforts and that you will let Him speak to you as you listen. As I wrote each word my prayer was that God would bless my humble efforts and that comfort and guidance would follow all that hear. GLH MY OWN MELODY, LLC 2006 -2019
SONG, “I’M ALL ABOUT JESUS” written and sang by GLH 09-20-2008