The first movie opens with the largest animal on earth, the Blue Whales. They weigh hundreds of tons and are incredible beautiful. The footage is superb and when you realize that there is more life in the sea than on land, it’s staggering. Did you know that the largest animal migration happens every night? Sea animals from the deep come up in the dark to feed.

Our God has made so many beautiful plants and animals and many are revealed to us in these movies. I found myself continually amazed and grateful for what He has made! What an AMAZING and Loving God we have!

One of my prayer partners asked me to share the link to the videos and I thought I would share them with you too.

Violin Lessons

We carry a book for playing worship music on the violin, but don’t have a step by step system for learning to play this instrument. Like the guitar, there are several styles of playing the violin. I just found a website tonight that teaches students of all ages how to play the violin.

Click here to find out about violin lessons.

The teacher, Ed Lewis, plays many styles of music and this looks like a very good option for learning to play the violin on the internet. Even if you already have a violin teacher, I think you can always learn from being exposed to different music teachers.

Once you learn the foundations of playing the violin, then you can find the book we carry useful. It’s called ‘Beginner Praise for Violin‘ and contains a dozen beautiful worship songs to play on the violin. Songs like ‘As The Deer’ and ‘El Shaddai’.

This isn’t surprising. When King David was young he spent hours playing music as a shepherd boy. Later, it was his playing the calmed the spirit of King Saul. Have you experienced that too? That playing music can bring you such peace.

At the VA Hospital in the article, they used money donated to improve the hospital’s aesthetics to hire first a harpist, then later a classical guitar player. They discovered that they didn’t see this same benefit with recorded music. I wonder what that recorded music was and if it may have been different than the live.

It’s nice to see that guitar music was beneficial to these patients. At one of our Worship Parties, a dear friend told me later that God had healed her heart through the worship. Keep playing your guitars and worshiping our Amazing God!

A neuroscientist, Mr. Levitin, said that music can actually adjust and alter your brain chemistry. The whole article is here – Live Music At Fresno’s VA hospital makes a big difference.

My New Year was quiet this year. A few days before I had gum surgery and opted to stay home on New Years. Dental work can be very expensive and someone recently told me about a company that can make dental discounts available. What I liked it that there is not waiting period, so if you do need major dental work, you don’t have to wait 6 months or a year to qualify.

I personally saved over 50% on my bill and know of a friend who also saved close to 50% for her crown using the same plan. If you don’t have dental insurance and need dental work done, you might want to check them out. It is not Dental Insurance, but rather a Dental Plan that some Dentists have agreed to honor.

You can check it out here – DentalPlans. Not every Dentist accepts the plan, so it’s always best to find the Dentist first and confirm with them too. It has certainly saved us a lot of money already. It’s just a bit over $100 a year. It knocked over $600 off my bill which was for the surgery 2 weeks after I signed up. It’s certainly worth looking into.

They are also in the UK – DentalPlansUK.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Another year has passed in what seems like the blink on an eye. A New Year started today and it is going to be filled with Gifts and surprises. Yes, there are certainly going to be trials ahead as well, but we are told to rejoice greatly when we encounter them.

We are each here because God loves us and has special plans and purposes for each of our lives. Jesus always talked about coming to serve others. All of our gifts are intended to be used as a blessing to others. Yes, we are to examine our lives, 1 Corinthians 11:28 and 2 Corinthians 13:5, but the two most important commandments in Scripture are to love God and love others.

Wishing you a WONDERFUL NEW YEAR!!