Since we are, in fact, “in the time of Christmas”, I wanted to share one of the songs from the Christmas album I released a couple years ago.  This one, the Coventry Carol, is an old carol from the 1500s, and it’s one that, every time I would hear it during my childhood, always captured my attention with its gentle early-music vibe.  I only knew the lyrics of the first verse, which read “Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child, bye bye, lully, lullay”, and I always assumed it was a lullaby Mary was singing to Jesus.

It wasn’t until 2016, when I had decided to add the Coventry Carol to my Christmas album, that I read the real, heart-wrenching backstory to this piece.  It was written for a play performed in the 16th century that centered on Matthew 2, when Herod discovers from the three wise men that there is a special baby born - Jesus, the Messiah, the great King who has been prophesied about for centuries, and who he is sure will eventually try to usurp his throne.  So Herod does a horrible thing - since he knows Jesus was born sometime in the last couple years, he orders his soldiers to find and murder all the baby boys in Bethlehem two years old and under, in hopes that Jesus is one of them.  This song is the lullaby that the anguished, helpless mothers are singing to their doomed babies.

This part of the circumstances surrounding our Savior’s birth is one that is hard to comprehend, and painful to even think about for very long.  We celebrate His birth, and the joy that came with it - the shepherds, the heralding angels, the wise men traveling such a long distance to worship Him.  But Herod’s despicable act is also part of this story, and one that is a reminder of what evil is and wants to do in the face of such selfless Love.  This, sadly, was also prophesied about in Jeremiah 31, where “a cry was heard in Ramah - weeping and great mourning.  Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.”

In light of that, instead of doing this carol with the classic early music instruments and voices I’d always heard it performed with, I decided to make it a little more contemporary, and a little darker, adding in a synth throughout that creates an underlying tension, the vocals a lament without words, and the haunting guitar (which was beautifully performed by classical guitarist Ryan Cummings).

This Christmas, may we remember that though that kind of evil and hatred exists, this was the whole reason Christ came - to shine His light of hope and love into the darkest, most hopeless corners.  Let’s truly celebrate Him, and do all we can to share His love and joy with those around us.

Merry Christmas!

2017 was a year of emotional upheaval for us.  And from all the things I’ve been hearing  about and reading lately from friends and family, it sounds like we weren’t exactly alone in that.  If you had a rough year too, my heart goes out to you, and my prayer is that in it you found a deeper Strength that goes beyond your own, and the Peace that passes all understanding.

I’ll tell you what, I’ve never felt so much like clay on a potter’s wheel as I did in the year that just passed.  Pulled, flopped, mashed, squeezed, reshaped - all while spinning fast enough to take my breath away.  Nothing was delicate.  Everything familiar was carelessly upended.  My 3D world - which wasn’t perfect but at least made sense - turned into a Picasso painting literally overnight.

At this point I’m not going to go into all the details, mostly because I’m not completely sure yet what they all are.  I think I will have to take some time first to sort through them all and see what shape comes out.  I will say that things seem to be steadying once again, and we are walking, armed with faith, into the new year and a new chapter.

I am not sorry to see 2017 go, but I wouldn’t trade what I’ve learned through it for the world.  I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.

I’m coming out of this last year having gained a much stronger knowledge of a few things than I had going into it: One, plans and perspectives are fragile and can turn on a dime.  They’re certainly not the sure foundations we sometimes make them out to be.  There’s a much better Rock than these inconstant things to build on...  Two, finding the things that really matter and clinging to them like your life depends on it can be difficult and painful, yet strangely satisfying.  Three, finding the things that you can’t control and letting them blow as they will is also strangely satisfying.  And four, God knows what He’s doing, especially when we don’t, and He’s a GOOD Father.

I can’t even tell you how grateful I am for His loving kindness, His patience, His wisdom, His attention to detail, His SOLIDNESS.  Wow.  The love He has shown, sometimes through the well-timed (and sometimes unknowingly given) support of a friend, and sometimes just from Himself, when everything else is sinking sand, and I’m flailing and I have to hang on to something that isn’t whirling, and He’s there - it’s a beautiful thing.

So it’s the New Year, and the time when everyone talks about new resolutions.  I don’t usually make any because I end up breaking them anyway (ha!), but this year I’m resolving to be sober-minded yet full of hopeful anticipation in these coming months.  Whatever is in our path, I know God is fully aware of it, and if we lean on Him He will equip us in His perfect way with what we need, when we need it.​

Welcome, 2018!

Things have been rather eventful around the Tucker house these days. First of all, my new album, In The Time Of Christmas, has just officially released today! I’m pretty excited! But more on that in a bit...

So, two days ago it was raining, as it has been mostly for two months now. This is, after all, Oregon, and I’m learning that what makes the beautiful summers are the very rainy winters. And I’m a little surprised to find that so far I don’t mind the rain. But this time was different. The temperature was right around freezing, but instead of changing the rain to snow, it just froze what landed on the street, trees, and grass. It was pretty cool for a while, seeing the way the ice was encasing the foliage and making things look all magical and stuff - until that evening when it became so thick and heavy on the trees that whole huge limbs started breaking off and falling on our roof, front lawn, and driveway. Thank goodness my husband had moved the cars off the driveway and onto the street when he had first seen the ice forming, or that would have been a mess... But it wasn’t just our tree that was breaking. We could hear cracks like artillery all over the neighborhood as other trees were shedding too-heavy limbs as well. And then, the power went out.

I’ve been in power outages before, and usually they’re a little bit annoying at first but then we do what we can to bring some fun into it - turning on flashlights, playing games and reading to the kids by candlelight, and by the time we’re finally running out of things to do, the power comes back on. But this was different than what we’ve been used to. We’re in a house that’s heated by a pellet stove, which is very cozy, but when there’s no electricity, there’s no fire, thus no heat. And being surrounded by large icy things that are falling when you’re in the cold dark is.....well, a little disconcerting. When we woke up early the next morning to news of school being cancelled because of conditions, and realized that 17,000 other people in the city were also without power, we knew we were in for the long haul. Two days later, we’re still in subfreezing temperatures, the beautiful ice is still encasing the trees, and we still have no power and have been told it could be several days before we do.

Sigh.....

BUT, in the middle of the rather relentless cold the last few days, there’s been some pretty cool things that have happened. Little things. Like yesterday on our Drive To Keep Warm, we dicovered a new tasty breakfast place. Friends kindly opened their homes as a place for us to stay if needed. Last night my sweet, resourceful husband grilled water (secret recipe, of course!) to make me a cup of tea. It’s funny what a candle and a simple cup of hot something will do for my spirits when I’m cold, and it’s dark, with no electricity... Then this morning I woke up to our neighbor, who is also without power, bringing over hot coffee from a thermos for us to drink, God bless him. Then, at the point where we were seeing our breath because it was so cold in the house (and, by the way, it’s not the funnest thing to have to take a cold shower when the house is so cold you can see your breath), my husband went around to three different stores until he found a generator, which he got set up and connected the pellet stove to, and now - Oh, beautiful sight! - we have a roaring fire going in our living room. Also, this year we decided to do a special Christmas Advent devotional every night of the season in anticipation of celebrating Christ’s birth, and the last couple nights it’s been lovely to see my two Tuckerlings’ faces in the glow of the candlelight as they listen intently to the reading, wrapped up in cozy blankets.

Sometimes, it truly is the Little Things that bring so much joy. A cup of hot coffee. Neighborliness. Warm fires. Family. Warm drives to hot breakfast.

I was going to talk a little about the new album, but that will be for another post, on another day.

Probably tomorrow. When I’m hopefully a little warmer.

​Until then, may your hearts (and houses!) be warm and joyful.

Christmas is in the air here in Oregon!

Ok, not really.  Just in MY house.  Uh, actually just in my studio, to be exact.  I have a few projects going on right now, and one in particular that I am REALLY excited about and finally ready to share....

I’m recording a Christmas album!  Yep, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, and I get to live it for several months in a row!  The good thing is, the coldish rainy season has recently been making its appearance here in my little corner of the country, so it’s not quite such a stretch to add in the Christmas cheer.  And another exciting thing is that my sweet husband is helping me design and build a small portable studio to create the dead space I need for a good recording.  It’s kind-of an experimental sound booth - something having to do with PVC pipes and moving blankets - so this could either be Really Awesome, or......well, NOT Really Awesome.  But, you know, necessity being the mother of invention, and all that.  My hopes are high.

When it comes to Christmas music, I have several different genre moods that hit me throughout the season.  And if you’re the person who has the Christmas playlist cued up and waiting for the following Christmas by February, you’ll understand.  And I know, I know, there are the “Bah Humbug” people out there that cringe every time the 24-hour Christmas music starts playing on the radio (which I’m pretty sure last year began sometime in July...).  Anyway, my hope is that this album will be pleasant enough to charm even the Scroogiest of Christmas Music Dreaders.  I’m having a lot of fun with it so far, especially as it’s employing the lovely talents of some long-distance artists I know and love, but more on that later.  My goal is to have it finished by the beginning of December so it can be enjoyed all season long.  I’ll be posting more updates soon, so stay tuned!  

​So, can I get away with saying an early Merry Christmas, or is that just pushing it a little too far.....?

So it’s September.  The dust has begun to settle from our cross-country move three months ago (sheesh, time flies!), and school has started up for the kiddos after an especially long and busy summer.

Since our move I’ve been getting used to my new music studio, which is beautiful, but which also happens to be right off the dining room - WHICH of course means that it doesn’t get quiet in there very often due to having two precious Tuckerlings who make noise even when they’re not trying...  So now that I have some quiet happening during the day while they’re at school, I’m beginning to hear the Music again, and that always means a new music project.  I’m not going to talk details just yet, but I will say I’m pretty excited about it and I can’t wait until it’s time to share it!  

I love having new projects.  It means new purpose, and a goal, and craziness (the good kind), and stress (not so good), and a growing pile of new ideas to filter through, and something I love the very best - seeing progress!  After doing things where I don’t get to really ever see a finished product (for instance, keeping up with laundry and trying like mad to keep the house clean), I’ll admit I feel a slightly excessive satisfaction when I get to see something reach a goal line, where I can look at a project and say, “Ah, that’s done.”  It just makes me smile.  And when that project has to do with music, well, it can’t get any better than that!

​So, if you need me come find me - I’ll be hunkered down in my music lair getting my focus on, throwing a mass of notes into my keyboard and praying for something amazing to pop out.  And if you want to send some love my way, I’d sure appreciate it.  And I’ll send some back to you, too.

Thirty-three years.  In the Scheme of Things and the Passing of Time it’s barely a blip, but for me it’s a lifetime.

My family moved here to Georgia when I was 8 years old.  I don’t remember a whole lot about it, except that I’d slammed my thumb in a car door while my sisters and I were playing the night before we moved (oh, my poor parents!), an accident that ended up costing me my thumb nail a couple weeks later.  I don’t remember being all that sad or scared about the move.  I’d made one already when I was 5, from California to Kansas.  I know I was excited about a new adventure.  I hadn’t lived long enough yet to make many memories, but the ones I do have of living in Kansas are sweet - I remember the day I finally conquered my fear and learned how to ride a bike while the neighborhood kids shouted encouragement, the fun we had making snow ice cream in the winter, the carrots we grew in our little backyard garden (sweetest ones I ever remember eating), the scary yet exciting nighttime storms that would flash light so bright it turned our rooms brilliant purple for an instant, and the three perfect climbing trees in our backyard that my sisters and I would be up in for hours with our pillows, books, and bags of snacks.  When we moved I think the only “indelible mark” that I left was the few drops of blood that dripped from my throbbing thumb onto the garage floor that night, and I’m sure those are long since gone.

I’ve been living here for 33 years now.  And I’ve learned that there is no way to wrap a span of time that takes me all the way through my preteens and teens, 20s, and 30s into a cute little package of memories.  It’s my life.  And if I try to just open the door a crack and only let a few memories in, they all come barging through and I’m in danger of being overwhelmed.

But somehow now I have to, because I’m leaving here and moving to a completely new place, all the way across These United States, to Oregon.

About a year and a half ago my husband and I started feeling like something was going to change, to shift, and the idea that there might be a move in the future came up, but we had no idea when, where, or how far.  Through twistings and turnings and circumstances over the next many months, we found God leading us to this new state.  My dad was born there, and I’ve been there a few times in my life to visit extended family, but it is entirely new for my husband and kids, and might as well be for me too.  So we are leaving what has become so comfortably familiar and going somewhere that is almost unknown to us, but we hear the call from the One we love, so we follow.  And there is Excitement because it’s an adventure.  And there is Anticipation of what God has for us there.

And there is Sadness, because of what we are leaving.

I will miss some places here, and I’ll miss some of the food, and I’ll miss our familiar routine and all the beautiful opportunities that God has opened up for me here.  And I'm sure there are things that I won't even know I'll miss until we've left.

But mostly I will miss people.  The friendships I have built over 33 years.  It doesn’t even matter whether they are people I’ve known since I first came here, or ones I just met in the last year - they have all become part of my life in some capacity and it will be hard to let go.

How do I say goodbye to all these people who have made an impression, who have blessed me and my little family so much?  How do I leave my beautiful family members who live here and who I love with all my heart, and those friends who are so close to my heart that they have become like family?  In the midst of the excitement of new things, and the inescapable stress of moving, there are the emotions that hit me, sometimes out of nowhere, and I have to take a moment to accept them and let them in.  And although sometimes they are almost overwhelming, I am thankful for them, because it means there has been an “indelible mark” made, one that will never be erased.

I am so thankful for that.  I am thankful that I leave part of my heart here, and that in its place I take a part of others’ hearts with me.  I am thankful that God created memories.  I am thankful for the love I have learned to give and take here.  I am thankful for the love that overwhelms me when I think of each precious friend and know we are all together in the hands of the God who created that love, who IS that Love.

I am thankful for the new path that, though unknown to me right now, is led by my good Father, and in that I can rest, and trust, and walk.

Sacrifice.  Today that word has a different connotation than it did in the days of the Old Testament.  Many times we think of sacrifice as giving something up to get something better.  Like sacrificing our favorite foods so we can reach our goal of losing weight.  Sacrificing time and energy (and sometimes sanity) to finish a certain project, or get to a place in life we want to be.  

But sacrifice involves more than just giving something up.  It involves death.

That’s pretty final.

We have seen that played out very literally recently, with people all over the world who have had to sacrifice their lives for what they believe.  It’s sobering.

But even when our lives are not on the line, making sacrifices is a difficult thing.

We’re ok with sacrificing something we want in the hopes of getting something better down the line.  But what about when sacrificing means completely giving up something we want...for good.  Letting it die because that is what God asked of us.  With seemingly no payback or open window in place of the shut door.  Would we be willing then?  

We hear stories, and maybe have some of our own, where success has been achieved after making many sacrifices along the way.  And the success makes it all worth it.

But what about when the success we gain from the sacrifice isn’t tangible, when nothing seems to change on the outside?  What if the sacrifice itself is to simply maintain, day after day, being faithful in the road God is leading us on, even if it feels like a wilderness that is going nowhere for a seemingly indefinite amount of time?  Will we trust God even when there are no scary but exciting leaps to take, no acute trials to walk through that give us a shot of adrenaline and grace - when it’s just seeing the same path every day, in the same sand, across the same desert?  I will be honest and say that this is where I have found myself recently in some areas of my life, where all I can do is learn to give up on the struggle, lift my hands to God holding my dying hopes, and let Him do whatever needs to be done inside of me.

I believe one of the ways true strength and character are built is when we reach the place where we can learn to completely let go of ourselves, where our earthly desires can be replaced by something so much greater, so much deeper, so much more valuable.  Where the exhaustion and discouragement we sometimes feel after struggling and finally surrendering our deepest desires to God are miraculously, but oftentimes quietly, morphed into beautiful things like perseverance... faith... hope... unselfishness... trust........ Love.

​If you find yourself in the middle of the Letting Go and are losing strength, I hope I can encourage you that you are not alone, and there is Hope.  Cry if you need to, but look up.  Keep your faith.  Find the joy of being safe in the heart of your Father God, even in the sacrifice.  Allow Him to do whatever is His perfect will in your life.  God loves you more than you will ever know, and He leads you, and His plans for you are good.  They will bring you to an expected and beautiful conclusion that is worth any sacrifice.

Awakening.  Breathing.  Listening.  Discovering.  Creating.

These words are just a few of many that involve getting under the surface, getting quiet, getting to the place where our souls truly live - where we find the inspiration that bubbles up when we break through to the molten core of our beings.  It’s exciting, it’s life, it’s where things begin.  

It’s pure.  

And by “pure” I don’t mean “perfect”.  Perfection and purity are two different things.   Perfection is being without fault or defect, which of course none of us are.  Pure, by the official definition, is something “not mixed or adulterated with any other substance or material.”  "Pure" doesn't always mean "good".  Something can be pure and terrible.  Like sulphur, for instance.  Pure sulphur is, well, something I would really want to stay away from.  But I digress...  

The “pure” I mean here is being the absolute, unadulterated version of who God created  each of us to be as individuals.  It’s hard to get there.  I think the closest we come in a natural way is as children - before much of life happens, before we’re influenced by everything around us.  But I believe even as adults we can still get there, or at least pretty close, although it’s certainly not easy.  It takes shutting out all the noise, distractions, learned social behaviors, and other clutter to find the real essence of who we are.  It’s like getting on an elevator and going down past all the surface levels until you reach the ground floor, where no one is but you and God.  And that’s the place where the real Listening and Creativity often happens.

When I was in college, although my major was in music it was my astronomy class which, I found, made the biggest impression on me, due to the fact that it was exciting and maddening all at the same time.  Space has always been intriguing to me and I loved learning even the small surface scratch that was taught in that class.  But one of the things that ended up actually being frustrating for me was our short study of Jupiter.  

As you may know, the colors and red “eye” we see in pictures of Jupiter are not the actual planet itself, but the atmosphere that surrounds it.  Over the years there have been several attempts to get to the surface of the planet so scientists could study it, but its atmosphere is so dense that everything scientists sent in to get through it, even probes made of titanium that cost millions, was crushed by the pressure only a little way in.  So, so far, no one knows what Jupiter is really like, and it made me crazy for weeks knowing that it will most likely not be discovered during my lifetime.

Sometimes I think that getting to the real heart of each of us is like trying to get to Jupiter’s surface.  The “atmosphere” that we build around ourselves is oftentimes so thick that it’s almost impossible to get through to the real thing.  And then it's easy to forget who we truly are, hidden by the facades we wear and have built upon.

Who would you be without your “atmosphere”?  Are you afraid or embarrassed to know that person?  Have you forgotten who the pure you is?  I would challenge you to take some time to get quiet - and I mean REALLY get quiet, in a place where there are no computers, cell phones, TVs, and lots of Things To Do - and get on that elevator, go down past all the floors, until you reach the Ground Floor.  Find your passion again, the one God gave especially to you before it was tainted with the layers of dust that collect as we walk through life.  Search hard, and long if necessary.  Be relentless.  Be unafraid.

And discover what wonderful things God can do with that pure you.

Faith.

It’s a small word, yet means something so, so big.

I know when God’s trying to get through to me about something, because I start seeing or hearing about it everywhere I turn.  When I wake up, when I am falling asleep, it’s there in my head.  And right now, what He’s trying to get me to learn is FAITH.

I’m kinda bad at faith.  I often struggle with believing that God is a truly caring and involved God who personally guides each of us, and who gives honest-to-goodness gifts - not stones and scorpions - because He loves.  And because I’m bad at faith, I’ve let it slide.  I’ve allowed it to be this magical sort-of luxury that I can’t attain.  

I’ve allowed myself to continually be defeated because of what I do or don’t feel at any given time.

But then I read this:  “And it is impossible to please God without faith.  Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.” (Heb 11:6, NLT)  And I realize it’s not a luxury.  And it’s certainly not magic.  Or a feeling.  Like love, it’s an absolutely necessary building block.

Which makes me wonder, How long have I been displeasing God?

My mind and emotions are a constant battle-ground.  It’s the place that the enemy of my soul knows he can target and I’ll usually buckle, especially in this last year.  And it’s a pretty tactical move on his part, because when that happens it affects so many layers of me.  When he can make me feel that chaos of unbelief in my mind, it spreads first to my logic and to my perceptions of the world and people around me, which in turn affects my relationships, then cripples my strength and effectiveness as a soldier of Light in this present darkness, and ultimately shakes the foundations of my belief in God.  Hit in the right place, it can crumble everything to Ground Zero.

Faith is not just a feeling.  It’s a very real knowledge, one to put into practice - and fight for, if necessary - every day.  It’s not superfluous.  It’s an extremely important piece of armor we use to fight this battle we’re born into once we accept Christ as our Lord.  It also doesn’t come easy, but it’s worth fighting for.

And so we fight the good fight for the true Faith.

How many times do we choose not to do something because we’re afraid to fail?  In my case, sadly, countless.

It’s not just failure I fear, though.  It’s the part where everyone sees me fail.  That’s oftentimes what keeps me from stepping out.  (Ah, hello, Pride!)  God forbid I appear a fool to everyone.  

But really, how bad is that?  So we fail at something.  Or appear to, anyway - God knows the end of our story, not us.  So there’s a big chance that pride will be hurt, or that we will lose faith in ourselves.  Ok, so what?  Having pride and faith in ourselves is a big misdirection, anyway.  The fact that we are going to fail sometimes is a given - if we never failed, than we would pretty much be God, wouldn’t we?  But we’re not.  He is.

So, say we finally get up the guts to step out and do something, and it doesn’t work.  Now what?  Are we going to decide never to step out again so we don’t have to go through that humiliation or heartbreak again?  And - here’s a thought - is part of the issue that we think we’re entitled to succeed from the beginning?  Maybe that’s why we had to learn to walk when we were babies.  Babies don’t know enough to get embarrassed.  They don’t say to themselves, “I have fallen down enough, I deserve to walk now or I just won’t try anymore.”  Nope, they just have this little drive inside that makes them want to learn to walk, so they do.

And if something doesn’t work out how we wanted, how do we know it was a failure, anyway?  We’re not privy to the whole story.  We don’t see all the intricate workings, where all the little streams go after we pass them.  What looks like failure to us may be producing something beautiful a ways downstream.  Maybe from above it’s another tiny (and deliberate) brush stroke in what will be an amazing work of art.  We just need to remember to have patience, AND the faith that God really does have our best interest at heart.

I think just as parents are sitting and rooting for their little one to keep trying, take that step, don’t stay down just because they fall, God must be rooting for us, too.  If He put something in our hearts to do, it’s up to us to put aside the fear (and laziness, maybe...?), and do it.  Just because we fall down doesn’t mean He means for us to stay there.  It’s a learning process.  So we fall.  So we just get back up, maybe even having learned a little something new.

There’s freedom in that, isn’t there?