From conception, the Lord wrote singing into the depths of my soul. Mom and Dad tell me that when I was little, I would rock in a little musical rocking chair and sing along with “Marcy” (Marcy Tigner). I can still hear Marcy’s voice as she sang for God on that old record. Since Dad and Mom were singers, I heard them singing around our home as well. Christian music was finding its way into my mind and heart. Interestingly enough, I remember being quite embarrassed and reluctant about auditioning for a part in the church youth group musical as a young teen. Then, at age 15, I spent a week as a counselor for 5th grade boys at Bay Shore Camp in Sebewaing, MI. It was on the bus ride home, as a bunch of us from the youth group were singing, that I discovered I had a voice for singing. At some point within the following year I joined the church choir. Singing was becoming a joy for me. I remember the pleasure I experienced as I sat at the piano in the basement at home, playing and singing song after song. The first solo I ever sang at church was as a teen, bringing the old classic “My God and I”.

As time moved on, I attended Bethel College in Indiana for one year. It was there that I met Debbie, who was to later become my precious wife. Subsequent to that initial year at Bethel I returned home to Flushing, MI and studied to become a Radiologic Technologist. Then, I was so blessed to land a job in CT Scanning very early in my career. We were married in Dayton, OH on October 24, 1981. God has been very gracious to bless us with three children, Luke, Elizabeth and Lance. In 2008, we gained our third son, Dan, when he married Elizabeth and we gained our second daughter when Luke married Lindsey in July, 2010.  We are blessed to be grandparents to Wesson, William, Jase, Emma, Ava, Caleb, Macie and Barrett.  We have many priceless memories of the kids as they grew up in our home. So quickly they have grown up and are now scattered around the country.  What a privilege and high calling it is to be a husband and father!

The Lord has blessed me with many opportunities to sing for Him over the years. Church choir, Christmas/Easter/July 4th Pageants, weddings, funerals, banquets, concerts, solos, duets, trios and a quartet have all been very rewarding ways He has allowed me to serve Him by serving people. I am very thankful.

In November, 2009, I lost my job when my employer was forced to close its doors. Never did I think that as a technologist in the field of Radiology would I be forced out of a job due to economic hardship. Yet, I believe that Bigger Hands were at work behind the scenes. The Lord pushed me into an intersection of life where I was forced to pray, listen and trust in a very deep way to discern God’s new will for my life. As in other dark and troublesome times in my life, it was the infinite grace of God and a deep trust in Him that sustained me. Even so, my search for a new job just wasn’t working out favorably. Nothing seemed to fit and I didn’t know where I belonged or in what direction to go. Then, the journey of my life took a sharp turn when I hit bottom on Thanksgiving Day, 2009. God met me there and gently yet clearly let me know that my next step in life was to sing for Him.

I want to share with you some of the rock-bottom lessons I’ve learned since my job loss. It is in crisis events like this that God gives my “reality vision” a new set of prescription lenses:

1. I don’t have anything but God. Losing my job was the wake-up call which taught me that I will lose everything else in life; either through death, in which case I’ll leave everything behind immediately, or else one by one, things and people will drop out of my life through one cause or another.

2. The love of God and Jesus Christ are my dearest and only secure possessions.

3. I need to live life with a dying man’s faith. The amount of faith I would be placing in Jesus during my last five minutes of life is the amount of faith in Him that I need to be living each day of my life with.

4. Friends are much more valuable than what they can do for you. They are, in and of themselves, priceless...treasure them. The heart-to-heart connection outlasts any help they can give to you.

5. The story of my life is God’s, not mine. He is writing it. I just need to leave the pen in His hands.

6. I need to keep my eyes on Christ, not my circumstances. Just as Peter started to sink into the stormy waves of the Sea of Galilee when he took his eyes off of Jesus, so do I start to sink into the waves of doubt, discouragement and fear if I take my eyes off of Him. Calmness returns when I look back to Him.

7. Heart-felt prayer and God's Word, the Bible, are absolute lifelines.

8. “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning:  great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.  The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.” (Lamentations 3:22-26)

Mom told me that I used to sing “Jesus Loves Me” as I sat in that little rocking chair. It is no coincidence that the focus that God has given me for this new ministry is “Sharing the Infinite Love of Christ Through Song”. The great theologian Karl Barth was once asked what the single greatest truth was that he had learned in all of his studies. His reply was “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Lord, make it possible for all of us “to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that (we) might be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18, 19). It is only as I realize and accept how infinitely loved I am by Christ that I can begin to become the loving person that I am intended to be. It is through heart-to-heart prayer with God and reading His Word that my loving relationship with Him is nurtured. This is how I gain the strength to go on in my day-to-day life. I pray that the music I bring will be used by God’s Spirit to help others realize just how much He really loves them and wants to strengthen them for all that they face in their lives.