roses in my heart

Amy & Vince Tonight!


I have looked forward to this concert for a long time...probably most of my life...and now it's finally here. Tonight Les is taking me to see Amy Grant and Vince Gill in concert!

Why does that excite me? Well first of all, it's a date with my handsome and amazing husband! That alone would be reason enough to be excited, but you see there is more...I have been a fan of Amy Grant since I was very young and have never seen her in concert. When I was a girl, singing into highlighters in the privacy of my bedroom, more often than not the singer I was singing with was Amy Grant. Then as I got older and my own relationship with Jesus became more personal, as I would drive between Saskatoon and Regina on the weekends, the singer who accompanied me on more of my trips than any other was Amy Grant. I not only sang her songs, but I found myself in them. It was amazing how her lyrics spoke my heart, and in a way discipled me in a time when my faith was maturing. ('Arms of Love', 'Raining on the Inside', 'I Love a Lonely Day', 'Father's Eyes', 'If These Walls Could Speak', 'Ask Me', 'That's What Love is For', 'All I Ever Have to Be', 'If I Have to Die', 'So Glad'...and so many more...)

Now I know there are many out there that simply don't like her music. I know that there are those who don't consider her to be an artist with depth. Perhaps you are more familiar with the exceptions, song-wise, that the rules of what sort of songs she usually writes or records, I don't know. All I do know is that as someone who took music lessons for over 8 years and vocal lessons later on, I see a lot I admire in this artist, and identify more than I can put into words with the lyrics she writes.

There is, of course, another objection that some of you may have...which is that she is somewhat of a 'fallen' person...she's had some pretty public 'failures' by the Christian community's standards. To that I say what I believe Jesus would say, "Let you without sin cast the first stone..." I actually think that I have heard some of her best work since the controversy over her marriage. Legacy, her hymns album from two years ago is one of the best albums I own, and I think I've learned a lot about grace from her recent album, Simple Things, with songs like 'Innocence Lost' and 'Out in the Open'...

They were the sweetest words I'd ever heard
My heart could barely take it in
Like water offered to the lips
Of a tired and thirsty man

Cuz
it's a tangled web I've woven
I don't know all the reasons
But it amazes
me to wake up
To your mercy every morning

So I'm standing here
spinning around
In the fields of freedom
And I'm still alive and
reaching out
And I can feel the healing

Cuz you say
Come on out
come on out
Come on out come on out
Out in the open
Come on out come
on out
Come on out come onout
Into the light
There is no jury
There is no judge
Ready and waiting
Are the steady arms of love

For the sake of never making waves I
Kept my secrets to myself
And no one ever really knew the
Darker shadows of my heart

But I
will be a witness
That there's nothing in me dark enough
The power of
forgiveness
Cannot resuce from the deep

So I'm standing here
spinning around
In the fields of freedom
And I'm still alive and
reaching out
And I can feel the healing

And you say
Come on out
come out
Come on out come out
Out in the open
Come on out come on
out
Come on out come on out
Into the light
There is no jury
There is no judge
Ready and waiting
Are the steady arms of love

Oh how those words have helped me as I've walked beside a friend going through a dark time herself. That song has been like a personal witness of the truths in the Bible as we've read about Jesus and the woman at the well, the prodigal son and even the woman caught in the act.

Probably my favourite Amy Grant song is 'Open Arms'. It's an older one and you may not know it, but it's so personal to me. It's about God's wooing me and always being in His arms...

Guess I've got a lot of learning to do
About the
way that You love.
If it had been left up to me,
I'd given up a long
time ago.
But You've got a way of wooing me,
Tender and true,
And
though I don't deserve it,
I'm falling into Your

Open arms.
Your
love has taken hold,
And I can't fight it;
I'm giving in to Your
Open arms.
They pull me to You;
They wrap Your love around me;
I'll rest in Your open arms.

Only yesterday the thought came the to
me,
Is Your love as deep as they say?
Wonder where those questions come
from.
Soon as I learn, I'll chase them away.
'Cause I've had a taste of
tenderness,
Simple and true,
It drives away the doubting
And draws
me into Your

Open arms.
Your love has taken hold,
And I can't
fight it.
I'm giving in to Your
Open arms.
They pull me to You;
They wrap Your love around me;
I'll rest in Your open arms.

So that's where I'll be tonight...in God's open arms, with the man of my dreams listening to a singer who, through her vunerability over the years, has meant a lot to me, along with her husband who is such an amazing musician... It's going to be an great night!