Songs

I have adopted this new idea for journaling this year that I learned at a journaling workshop last November. It is called “Topic du Jour”. I wrote 31 topics that related to my life on little pieces of paper, then randomly picked one at a time and list them on a paper numbered 1 to 31. (Yet another indication of my affection for lists.) Then I pasted the list into the front of my journal for easy access. The idea is to journal about the topic that coincides with the date of the month. Today’s topic was "songs". I don’t even remember now why I chose that as one of my topics, but today I enjoyed just journaling about why I like songs and how they affect me, and I also listed 4 new CDs that I bought for the new year. It seems like the New Year has been a great excuse for a lot of my recent purchases.

Here’s an excerpt from my journal: “Songs are lifelines for me-they express my heart and touch my heart in ways no other media does.” Then I go on to describe what influenced my choice of the CDs, like the titles and the cover art, more than the music artist(s). My favorite of the four is called “The Bright Sadness” and had a very unique cover that drew me in. A silhouette of a girl’s profile and then bluish green water colors superimposed with purple black cutouts of a bouquet of wildflowers.

I did not really know what kind of songs would be on it, but it actually had one song titled, “New Year”. It is an upbeat tune, and became kind of an anthem for me as I listened to it in my Green Room.


Here is the refrain: “This is a new year, this is a new day to rise
Shine, lift up your eyes
This is a new year, this is a new day to rise
Shine and point the way to God’s great life


If you want to learn more about Charlie Hall’s music and spiritual journey check out http://www.charliehall.com/


He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be astounded.
They will put their trust in the LORD. Psalm 40:3 NLT