Can you believe it’s almost August?  Nope, it can't be!  Boy, I've been quite negligent in my journaling lately!  It's been a busy, busy month - getting used to my new position at our church, doing some traveling, not to mention the "stuff of life" that always seems to be piling up on my proverbial desk.  Mark and I are grateful to be back in Colorado and are enjoying some unusually cool weather for July! (75 degrees for a high today!  Love it!) Last week I returned from the Saddleback Worship Conference in California.  I attended with our other worship leader, our choir director and our worship leader's daughter.  This was the first worship conference I've actually had the privilege of just attending!  Other than the one night singing with Paul Baloche (which was a sheer joy), I got to sit and soak and worship.  What a concept!  It rocked!  There were great classes and fabulous speakers all week.  Because I hit the ground running when I got back to Colorado, I still need to take the time to digest everything that I "ingested" while I was there.  Contemplative, processing time with the Lord is so important, otherwise everything we learn or receive just goes in one ear and out the other, right?

I've been thankful lately to have had some time to be songwriting again.  I had really slacked off there for a while, due to sheer busyness, and God's been pointing me to my piano quite a bit as of late.   I feel a definite stirring in my spirit to begin preparing for another recording sometime soon.  I would appreciate all of your prayers for direction in this area!  Something about leading worship on a regular basis again, like I was doing while I was at Christ for the Nations, always stirs my heart to begin writing more.  It's almost as if I'm in an incubator of his presence.  So many folks who spoke or taught at the Saddleback conference kept saying that churches need songs that are birthed from within - their own personal, corporate expressions - instead of just doing all the songs that everybody else is doing, in the same key and in the same arrangement!  I say "Amen" to that!  So I came back stoked to write! 

I pray that God will make His loving presence more and more known to you this month and that the richness of His grace will be poured out to you in abundance!  He is a faithful, faithful God - no doubt about it.