West Cocoa Chat

I love the following Rebecca St. James song, “Breathe.”

“This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your holy presence
Living in me

This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word
Spoken to me

And I, I'm desperate for You
And I, I'm lost without You
Oh Lord, I'm lost without You
I'm lost without You”

I have had a couple of “holy ground” experiences with this song. The first one was 5 years ago when my son was about to enter high school. We were visiting Greg (http://gregengland.com/) at Long Beach. Their church had started having monthly or thereabouts, evening instrumental praise services. As luck or planning would have it, Greg had planned one of those services on the week we were visiting.

That visit is special to me for a number of reasons. I knew it would be the last visit in which all of our kids would be in “school” albeit Josh and Jessica were attending college at the time while Steven was getting ready to enter High School. Man, where did the time go? Any way, Josh was commuting at the time and living at home. Steven who considers Josh a big brother, enjoyed the time hanging out with Josh.

For some reason Greg had asked me to run the sound for their service. It was the occasion of doing this that this song brought back to my mind this past Sunday. Greg’s Praise Band and Worship Team were practicing for the evening service. His sweet daughter Jessica was singing a solo on this song. For some reason after several attempts she just couldn’t make it through a certain part in “Breathe” without messing up. At one point she became emotional about it as she was singing. One of the elders’ wives, Carol, put her arm around Jessica, mothered her, and suggested they turn the song into a group effort.

As they practiced singing the song as a group, Jessica was still emotional and Carol was still mothering. There was something about that moment – Jessica growing up to be a beautiful young woman being ministered to by a shepherd’s wife and knowing that this visit was an end to an era of sorts for me and my family has made that song become very special to me.

This past Sunday our Praise Team sang that song. My son now sings and plays (yes Greg, the sickness continues) guitar on our instrumental praise team. Hearing him sing “Breathe” in our church has given that song a “home connection.” If you’ve follow the story of our church, you know our journey hasn’t been without attempts from the outside to stifle and punish us and there has been some pain inflicted. But that pain pales, I mean PALES in comparison to where we are now as a church. No, we haven’t arrived at any kind of perfect status. That will never happen as long as I’m a member. But as we sang that song, I could see it in the eyes of everyone around me. We’re desperate for Him, Jesus. Our focus and my focus isn’t to worry about keeping people happy but to try and instill a need to be “desperate for Him.”

And I, I'm desperate for You
And I, I'm lost without You
Oh Lord, I'm lost without You
I'm lost without You”