This Year

I'd like to thank you all so much for your support and encouragement this year. It sure has been an exciting one, with the release of 2 albums and all these videos, concerts and so many changes. I am so honored that you have stuck with me through all my marketing experiments and new ideas. I have so many more videos and concert ideas planned for next year. I have Advent/Christmas concerts this month in Yelm, WA and Concord, NC. Visit my Concerts Page for details. I am also full for Lent 2012 with Way of the Cross concerts. (They are not all posted yet.) At one point I won't get to go home for 3 weeks. I'm a little scared of being away from home and kids for that long, though. I keep telling myself, "Once a year won't be that bad, will it?" We'll soon see. One can only....hope.

Hope

It's that most wonderful time of the year again and I wanted to share a few things with you.

Advent is a time of HOPE and I love what the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1817) says about it:

"Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life as our happiness...Relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit...Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people which has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice. Paul'sLetter to the Romans says of Abraham that "hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the father of many nations" (Rom 4:18).

And Psalm 56:9 "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust without a fear. What can flesh do to me?...This I know, that God is for me."

May God's words fill you with consolation and strength. Keep your hope in Him.

Thank You!!

After yesterday's Divine Mercy Concert, a gentleman and his 5 year old son came up to me to say "hi." He was dressed in his army camos and told me that my CDs got him through Afganistan. All I thought to say was that I was glad he enjoyed the music and "welcome home." I wish I had the sense to also say "thank you" to him for fighting for our nation and being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and for being proactive in protecting my homeland. I've seen the memorials of too many fallen and my heart is full of gratitude and my eyes are full of tears. They are even now. I'm not always quick with the words that I feel, but I still wanted to share it. And so to ALL in the military, please know, I say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.