Meeting Uncle Aaron

This week included an exciting event for our family. My brother, Aaron, who lives with his wife and baby girl in southern California, met our son, Carter, for the first time. As some of you may know, he plays in a band and happened to be passing through Nashville while heading to a show. He stayed over an extra day so that he and Mom could meet us in Cookeville for lunch. It was great to visit with him for a few hours. It makes me wish we lived closer to each other so we could hang out more often. I'm sure Carter will think that his Uncle Aaron is so cool as he grows older (because he really is a pretty cool guy). We are thrilled they finally had an opportunity to meet. Now we need to work on getting together with Aunt Mandi and his baby cousin, Arleigh (11 months old). Getting the two cousins together will be hilarious. Hopefully we'll get the opportunity in the not so distant future.

What's so funny?

The other night JJ was making all kinds of crazy noises to get Carter's attention. Boy did it work! One particular noise really tickled Carter's funny bone. Check it out....

The History Behind a Beloved Song

Every evening before I place Carter in his bed for the night, there are several songs that I sing to him as part of our bedtime routine. They are all songs that were sung to me as a child and have very special meaning. One of my favorite childhood songs is "Jesus Loves Me." I don't ever recall a time when I didn't know the words and tune because my parents sang it to me since birth. It is such a well known song, that I'm sure most Christians in the English speaking world know the tune by heart. When I hear "Jesus Loves Me" I instantly flash back to the days of children's church and memory verses; a time of innocence and zeal for learning new Bible stories. It used to be my very favorite song, until one day I grew up and thought it was meant only for young children to sing.

Now that I have a child of my own, I sing "Jesus Loves Me" every night. One evening as I was singing, I became curious of the song's origin. So, I typed the title under a Wikipedia search and I discovered that the simple chorus that we know is only a very small part of the song. The entire song, originally a poem, is quite beautiful and tells the redemption story. I was touched to learn that the tune was created to sing the poem to comfort a child who was dying. Check out the link to read the rest of the story. It may inspire you, as it did me, to a new love of an old song.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Loves_Me