borders

I Miss Record Stores

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 5 Comments

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I’m a big fan of Amazon. You can find virtually anything from music to books to movies to electronics and appliances. I think you can even order groceries there now. But I miss record stores.

I don’t even mean places like Borders that sold books and music and movies. I mean places that sold music. Period.

Granted, there are one or two record stores in Nashville– one that actually sells honest-to-goodness vinyl records like in the ye olden days. But those are on the other side of town from where I live. Not the most convenient places to go browsing.

I remember one particular music store chain called The Sound Shop. There was even Memphis-based chain in Memphis called Cat’s Music that had both new and used music.

I loved checking out the new music releases as well as hunting through the bargain bins. I especially remember seeing ads for a new Grateful Dead album coming out on October 31, 1989. I don’t know why I remember that specific memory from 25 years ago and not what I did last night, but that’s how my brain works, apparently.

I read somewhere that Vince Gill said that one of the reasons that music feels so disposable these days is that you can pay the same 99 cents for a song that you would pay for an app on your phone that makes fart noises. So much for incentives to be creative.

I believe that music more than any other form of media can trigger memories in vivid detail. I can hear a song on the radio or from one of my own personal plethora of CDs that I have accumulated over the years and instantly remember exactly where I was and what I was feeling when I first heard it.

Maybe record stores (along with bookstores) will make a comeback some day. I hope so, but I’m not overly optimistic.

 

 

Where My Trust Is Without Borders

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

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I think I’ve alluded to this in previous posts, but I am currently unemployed. I haven’t worked since January. There have been times, some of them very recently, when I wondered how I was going to pay my bills. That’s a scary place to be.

Then I sang a song during the 11:11 worship service at Brentwood Baptist Church. It spoke of keeping my eyes above the waves and walking out on the water to wherever God calls me to where my trust is without borders.

I honestly never thought until just now that that’s where I am. When you utterly reach the end of your resources, you find out where your faith and trust lie. You really understand that old cliched saying about never knowing how much you need God until He’s all you’ve got left.

So many can’t find jobs. So many probably have felt worthless and useless and unemployable. Like no one wants or needs what they have to offer.

But as I sang those words, a sweet peace came over me. My faith will be made stronger and I will know more deeply than ever how near my Savior is to those who cry out to Him in desperation. As weird as it sounds, the butterflies are still there. My stomach still feels tied up in knots. But I also know it will be okay in the end. No, more than okay. I will end up EXACTLY where God wants me to be and all this will totally have been worth it to get there.

So as much as I sound like a broken record, I’m still thankful for my life. I’m grateful for waking up this morning and living another 24 hours. I’m thankful for the best family and friends a guy could ever ask for who have stuck with me through good and bad, thick and thin (and through all sorts of other overused phrases like these).

Sometimes, faith really is believing when common sense tells you not to. It may not always look courageous. Sometimes, it may look like barely holding it together and summoning every ounce of strength to not quit on God. It may be praying the most honest prayer ever recorded in history: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief” and making it through the next five minutes.

All I know is that I have never seen God forsaking His own. I have never seen their families abandoned or left wanting (my paraphrase of a Proverb). I haven’t seen God fail me or let me down or let go of me.

I do still believe, Lord. Help my unbelief. Amen.