The Basement

Where I Am Today: in the basement.
Metaphorically speaking (since I don't have a basement), this is where I feel like I've been camped out for a few months now. At first I really enjoyed the quiet, aloneness of the dark basement. When I was in high school we moved to a new house. I got first pick of the rooms because my sisters had first picks at the previous two houses. Right smack dab in the middle of the house was a wonderful room with it's own little bathroom. Instantly I chose it, not because of the bathroom, but because of it's location. Literally it was in the middle of the house and had no windows! It was my cave and I loved it. I painted it dark blue and covered the walls with random stuff and could have spent every minute of every day in my cave. I got so used to the darkness that I had to put a towel over the clock and rolled up under the doors, because any hint of light drove me crazy. I'm weird, I know. So a few months ago when I started settling into the quiet, darkness of my new metaphorical basement, I was really happy! But somehow over time, the basement started getting musty and a little too dark and I started feeling like I needed to move that towel and let a little light in. The only problem was, there was no light to be found. At least on my own. The last few weeks I've been very unsettled and uncomfortable in my basement so I've thrown a few pity parties to try and liven up my living conditions. They didn't work. This past Sunday at church during the worship time I was once again desperately trying to find some kind of light to breakthrough the dark place I've been feeling like I've been in. Instead I got a little tap on the shoulder and there was a man waiting to give Alan and I a word. Over the span of my life I've probably received 100's of "words" from 100's of people. Some have been encouraging, some troubling, some down right crazy, and some divinely from God. As usual, I leaned in to listen and graciously receive whatever he had to say. Here's what came out of Royce's mouth.

"I see you guys in this basement. It's getting very dark and smoggy, and musty like basements that have been shut up for a while do. You've been wondering how much longer you're going to have to stay here. If you don't get a fresh breath you feel like you're gonna scream. All of a sudden I see this plate glass window on the ceiling of the basement and this rock just comes flying through the air and busts through the glass and floods the basement with light and fresh air. Then I see that basement moving and all of a sudden it's now the top floor of the building."

When he was done sharing with us, he quietly walked away and the worship team was singing this verse: "Because You're with me, because You're with me, because You're with me, I will not fear."

God is with me even in the basement. Even when I can't see Him or feel Him, He's there. In the musty, smelly, foggy basement, He's never left. And He has amazing ways to remind me of that. He'll use a man I hardly know or a song to speak straight to my fears and questions. I'm glad that I'm in the basement right now. Still waiting on that glass shattering rock, but you know, it's ok if it doesn't come right away. I know that God is right here with me, right where I'm at. And interestingly enough, I've written two songs this week! They aren't the generic sing-songy things I'd been writing in an effort to churn out some manufactured sounding "good" songs. These are really coming from deep in my heart. I'm able to just pour out what I've been thinking and feeling in a prayer like way to God. My prayer today is not for a quick release or a desperately needed breath of fresh air, but rather for contentment and a deeper trust in my God who is right here with me on this journey. It's my prayer for you today too.

On a great note: we finished a song!! It's actually Alan who has poured in all the time and work into it. And it's his song 100%! He wrote it, produced it and is singing it which was really hard to convince him to do, but it sounds amazing! I can't wait to share it with you all. Hopefully soon. Pray that we will find more time in the midst of Alan's job, our family, and everything else that consumes our life, to record. We have 4 or 5 songs waiting in the wings, ready to be recorded and a few others somewhere in the recording process. It feels really good to know I'm doing what God asked me to do even if I don't know the plan of how it's all supposed to work!

Songwriting Success!!

Can I just say how great it feels to have a song written, recorded, and almost completed?? I say almost because if you know my husband he will be doing more tweaking and adding and subtracting and whatever else he does until it's perfect or until he's sick of messing with it that he'll finally release it and call it done. This song is called "Time to Fall." Alan had this great musical idea that he and our drummer friend, Landon laid down and he told me to write some words to it. He gave me the first line and the rest just came out. I love it when songs come out like that, because it's know it's God. His songs are sometimes labored over for days, weeks, sometimes even years, but mostly in my experience, they just flow out pretty easily.

We were at a bit of a stand still with recording for a while. Our house got hit by lightning about a month ago and our studio computer was fried!! We lost pretty much everything we had been working on. Truly it was a blessing because now Alan has the computer he really wanted for the studio.

Someone asked me the other day, "so, what are you doing with these songs?" That's a really great question!!! Our first goal is to record a 3-4 song demo and give them away!! We feel like we need to sow some seed into whatever this thing is that God is asking us to do, so that's what we're gonna do. We're sowing songs with the expectation that God will give us more and we're sowing resource with the expectation that God will bless us with every resource we need!!

So, be on the look out for more music to come from the Riches!

So there's the update! Songs are coming!