Christmas Music Season Kickoff

Look. I know.

I post this video almost every year. I have to do it in case any of you have missed it. You need to listen to this version of this song...daily. Probably for the rest of your stinkin life. And don't stop 3 minutes in. The last minute and thirty seconds are good enough to make a Baptist dance. Trust me here.

And to any of you who would complain that is to early for Christmas music.

1. Bite me.
2. My aunt Lana says that the weekend of Christmas Village is the official kickoff to the Christmas music season. I don't know why she is in charge of this but she is. Just accept it and move on.


Also, this is probably as good a time as any to tell my David Phelps story. I have been a huge fan of him for probably ten years. (If you never listen to any kind of Christian music, chances are good you have no idea who he is. It's nothing to be ashamed of, I just feel so bad that you have wasted so much of your life.) His voice to me is really beyond any other vocalist I have ever heard. Listening to him makes me feel like I am taking the perfect bubble bath. From me, this is the highest praise.

So... once upon a time, my husband left me with three kids and I was forced to leave my domestic headquarters and get a 'real' job. I found said job at a hospital. I can't tell you where I worked but let's just say that people came there for voice training, care, etc. One of the employees there was a voice teacher ( aPhD!) who worked with a lot of big stars. Not so much to fix anything wrong with their voices but, often, just to help them take better care of their 'instrument'. So one horrible day I was at work. I was in my tiny 3 wall office leaning my head against the outer wall in abject despair. I was just as sad as I could ever remember being. And the worse part was that I could not envision ever not being sad again. I don't know how long I had sat there wallowing in that state when I heard the voice. Drifting through those flimsy walls from the voice doctor's office to mine was David Phelps...singing.

I'm sure, if you are a skeptic, that you could never believe that God would arrange events to bring Mr Phelps to this specific place at that specific time just to give me a much needed 'boost'. But I believe that is exactly what happened. You just cannot imagine how much God loves me (he feel the same about you). It's just the kind of thing He would do.

And, no, I didn't get up from that desk and find my whole life changed in an instant. I still had a cruddy job, a mind numbing commute and a crappy minivan. I would live many years after that day still alone and sad. But that miraculous serenade proved something very important. I knew then and still that God sees me. He doesn't just love and think about me. He sees me. And that's a revelation that changed my life.