Ginny Owens

Once a month Mike gets Worship Leader magazine and each magazine comes with a Song DISCovery CD with new worship songs.  There’s usually around 13 of them and they range from really awesome to okay.  The CD this month came a couple days ago and there was a song by Ginny Owens on it called “Just as I Am.”  I have since gone on Amazon and bought her latest worship CD that has a song by the same name and I’m hoping it will be the same one.  I’m telling you these CD’s are helpful – they even give the song a theme and focus verse.  The theme that they gave this one was “Repentance and commitment” and the focus verse is John 6:37 – “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away;” (NRSV) The song is no where on youtube but here’s a link to it http://iLike.com/s/92ZOU as just the music.

Some friends from college and I saw Ginny Owens way back in 2001 before she hit it big.  It was completely random.  We were on our way back from Carolina Place mall (there wasn’t much civilization in Rock Hill back then so we went to Pineville all the time) and we were listening to the Runaway Bride soundtrack in my car.  We were singing at the top of our lungs the Dixie Chicks version of “You Can’t Hurry Love.”  Needless to say – hilarious.  Anyway as we drove down Cherry Road I saw this random homemade poster sign that Ginny Owens in Concert Tonight.  I thought surely this couldn’t be true, so I dropped everyone off at their various residence halls and went back down Eden Terrace to investigate.  Lo and behold, Ginny Owens was going to play in concert that night at Sullivan Middle School.  How random is that?

So I call everyone up – I have no clue who even sponsored this thing – and there we went.  We had barely heard of Ginny Owens at that point but she had been rocking some songs on the radio that we already loved – If You Want Me To, Be Thou My Vision, and Free to Dance and I had been reading in my CCM magazine that Michael W. Smith had signed her to Rocketown Records.  I’ll never forget that night.  I’m not going to go into all of Ginny’s story because that’s hers to share and I know you’ll be able to look up more info if you’d like.  But Ginny is blind.  We had no clue about that before going to the concert.  When someone walked her out on stage I know I was shocked.  And just amazed at the power of her lyrics and music and story.  She has always been an inspiration and her songs resonate even years later.

It was a gift for one of her songs to be on that CD and I’m thankful for it.  Can’t wait to get the new CD’s in the mail and get to hear more.  It never ceases to amaze me that somehow in the midst we get those little things that spur us on and keep us going forward.  We are given that bread for the journey to keep us sustained, nurtured and moving towards new life and new beginnings!

Thank y’all again for the prayers and for being my fellow journeyers.  Yesterday I was pumped to get the news, last night I was exhausted and today I’m kind of in between.  Thank God that we don’t have to be ready to go and “on” every day, but that sometimes we can just be – and that’s okay.  My favorite response to yesterday’s news was from my crazy probably sleep deprived and sun stroked father who’s still at the college world series.  I know we have both Carolina and Clemson fans out there so I’m not going to make any disparaging remarks about any particular team but I need to see if Enoch’s gamecock t-shirt still fits.  Anyway – I sent out a text to family telling them the results and Dad texted back (he’s not necessarily the most adept of texters but that’s okay) “Praise the 555”  and then a few seconds later “Lord.”  Bahahahahahaha…who in the heck is the 555?  So we called him and he said well, I wanted to make sure I capitalized Lord but then I must have mashed the wrong button and said 555.  Then again I guess it’s better than 666 or KKK.  Could have been a lot worse.  But Praise the 555.  Still making me chuckle.  Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord of our lives that goes with us, beside us and before us.

Watch out for the weird wolf thing at the end…but I did like this version.

Be Thou My Vision.

Want to hear from Ginny Owens herself?  Here’s some of her story.