Drawn Into God’s Presence More Through the Journey of Hope Beyond Hope while Following His Leading

It’s been interesting to me how the freelance writing and music opportunities seem to counter one another. When I get slammed with the freelance writing, the music opportunities slow down. When the music opportunities flood in, the freelance writing slows down. I have reason to believe that the Lord has a hand in that because it happens too consistently for me to think otherwise. That being said, I was pretty well slammed with freelance writing work toward the beginning of the year. And when I get slammed there, it’s certainly a good thing because work coming in means money becomes available for new adventures.

I also spent some time trying to push the song “Hope Beyond Hope” out during the early part of the year. I did have a handful of positive results here and there with a few independent stations that decided to use it in conjunction with the National Day of Prayer.

I also became busy with preparing for my third Christian CD, which will be called Draw Me Into Your Presence. That kept me pretty busy during the spring – right about the time that my freelance writing work began to slow. I’ll actually head out to Oklahoma in early August to record it.

Draw Me Into Your Presence is going to have some fun, catchy praise tunes on it, as well as some ballads that are heavily rooted in God’s Word. I’m even doing a bit of experimenting with two or three songs to give them a modern country feel and see how they will be received by some of the independent southern Gospel stations. I’m looking forward to that little adventure in particular.

But before I get busy with recording, I have a few other music opportunities, and interestingly, acting opportunities planned for the summer. One has already happened. The week of June 17 through the 22 was something of a whirlwind week for me. I received an unexpected opportunity to be in a Christian movie called Sinking Sand. I had been given a bit part in a courtroom scene as a “featured gallery member and jury member”.  Hopefully, that credit will eventually show up in the IMDb in connection to the movie. Bit parts don’t always get noted.

Since I had never done this type of film performance before, it was a rather interesting experience from multiple angles. Since the filming was happening in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, I got to do some traveling. Road trip time! I love that. And once I got there, not only was the Sinking Sand movie an opportunity to learn, but I also got to do some networking and plant a few seeds that I hope will lead to some future film opportunities.

This particular experience with the movie Sinking Sand reminded me a great deal of tech week in the theater. Even so, the cast was just a joy to be around and even a refreshing difference from the norm in the entertainment industry in that they would pray before beginning each day’s shoot and also at mealtime. People encouraged one another, were supportive of one another, gracious, and even prayed with one another when the situation called for it. I really hope I get invited to do more with this particular Christian film group.

I also have an audition coming up in Branson, Missouri for a Christian theatrical production, and am super excited about this. Don’t want to say too much about that as of yet since I don’t have a part at this time. And I’m waiting to hear about a second opportunity in that area, about which I am equally excited.

When I recorded Hope Beyond Hope back in 2012, I did a stopover on the way to Oklahoma and really fell in love with Branson when I was there. There is an entire district of live entertainment that is either positive-values and family friendly, or flat out Christian in nature. But besides that, I just really felt that uncanny peace of God that passes understanding everywhere I went. It was like the place had a dome of His peace that covered it or something. So as I return this summer, I am looking forward to being Drawn Into God’s Presence more through the journey of Hope Beyond Hope while Following His Leading.