A blessed Christmas time to you all as we celebrate the beautiful story of God coming to be the best gift of all! I'm winding up a 4-week trip to Wisconsin and none too soon! The cold weather is hitting hard. It's 4 above at 8pm right now! Seriously, I grew up in Montana and lived quite a while in Alaska but I have to say the South has kind of ruined my tolerance for cold weather. Now I really like wearing sandals and cargo shorts. But I also really like playing music for my brothers and sisters. I've had wonderful experiences singing my songs and telling the story of God's undeserved love for sinners. But I came up here for another purpose and have some great news: I've just completed my new CD. It's called Jesus Wins! with 12 brand-new songs. I've made use of the talents of a good crowd of people on this one. I wrote or co-wrote 8 songs and the others were written by Jayne Nitz, Pastor Chad Walta and Steve Bautista. I also recorded an old folk number called "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" - a song I really love because it kind of describes my life. There is a sort of theme going on in this CD. For one thing, lots of stuff about heaven and End Times. And many songs are quite personal, reflecting my own life of unbelief and then saving faith. My first pastor, Jim Oldfield, told me that a Christian goes to bed each night weeping with remorse for how he has grieved God by breaking his law and also weeping with joy and gratitude because of God's perfect love and grace. I'm going to have copies of Jesus Wins! available on my next trip, which will be to Florida in January and February, and I'll be singing many of the new songs too!
(Photo by Emily R. Ebeling, Ebeling Art Studio)