I realize that as I have written these past couple blogs that they aren’t as insightful as others have been, but I’m trying to be an encouragement even in my tough times. So I’m hoping to encourage you as I attempt to encourage myself. That’s quite hard to do if you haven’t tried it before. Which is sort of what this whole thing is about. This week has been a struggle. I’ve done some rather unsuccessful job searching. All four family members have been sick. Our bed frame (the new one) is not working the way it should. And today, I got a call from our bank that said someone has used our debit card number at a restaurant in Colorado. All that to say that it’s been pretty difficult for me to look to the cross where my strength lies.

But I’ve been called to much more. I know that my God has something special for me. I know that my God loves me with an unfailing love. The unfailing part is really key right now. With everything that is going wrong, it’s easy to feel like I’ve failed or I’ve been failed by God. But I have to remember God’s love is unchanging, which means that it CAN’T fail. So when jobs aren’t coming in like I expect them to and the mortgage is going up like I don’t want it to, and this baby boy will be here whether we want him to or not, I have to keep in the forefront that God’s love is unfailing.

You may not be struggling today, but I would be foolish to assume that no one around is struggling right now. Therefore I write this. I don’t know what your specific struggles are today, but I know the specific answer because he never changes. My prayer for you (and me) today is that we hold fast to the who has created and is sustaining our lives. I love you, all my friends and readers of this blog. I hope to get to a point where I can start writing about music that I’m writing and recording. God will bring be back to that place soon. I know he will. I’m still learning how to make worship180 my whole life and not just part of it.

I’m in this place. I’ve been here before. I don’t really know if I figured anything out the last time I was here. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be getting from this situation.

I had a really good weekend. I got to see my 3 ministry groups, Closer, Faithful and Shelter perform their last concerts of the year. They all did really well. At the end of the day, my family was blessed with a gift that we could have never seen coming. All signs pointed towards something really beneficial and something that would propel me forward through this week. Instead, I’ve been stagnant and stale and can’t seem to get going. Pray for me as I try to move forward. I don’t know how, but I’m hoping that I can gain some direction. Soon… This is killing me!

Even in all this, I’m thankful that I serve a loving and faithful God. I don’t know what He has planned for me, but it must be something pretty good. It seems like we’ve been running in circles for a really long time. I know for sure it’s hard to worship Him even in the storm, but I also know that’s what I need to do. Is there a storm that you are in the midst of? Are you in need of someone to come alongside you a walk with you? I’ll be praying for you.

Thursday I went to the SongDiscovery Writers in the Round Conference in Franklin, TN. This was one of the first times I’ve been able to go to something of this magnitude before. I was super excited because I had received a free ticket through answering a question online. So I didn’t have to pay the $99 fee. Because we are struggling financially, we knew we could only stay one night, so we decided to stay on Thursday night after the conference. So that meant that we woke up at 2 in the morning the day OF and drove from St. Louis to Nashville. I got there just in time for it to start. This led to a really tired Harry. However, there were many things to keep me refreshed.

First off, Jason Ingram opened the morning by leading us in worship. If you don’t know who he is, that’s your fault. Find you another tab, open it up, and listen to his music. He did a good job of leading a bunch of sleepy worship leaders. That was quite fun. We got to hear from Glenn Packiam in the morning session. He took us on an amazing journey through the Psalms that I still can’t get over. As a songwriter, Psalms should be a life journey that we travel and take people through with our words. I was deeply moved. It has challenged me to read the Psalms with more discernment and look for the deeper meaning. And not just for song words when I’m stuck. Thanks Glenn. We even got to talk a little NFL draft after the concert that night. And he signed my copy of Secondhand Jesus that I purchased that night.

I was able to go to a powerful breakout session with Jennie Lee Riddle, the writer of “Revelation Song”. I’m convinced that moms have the best analogies. She continuously used pinpoint analogies to help us envision her points. I felt empowered to write after listening to her. She told us that we needed to write to the bride of Christ. “Feed the bride” she said over and over again. It was an honor to meet her and shake her hand.

I was able to take one of my own songs to be critiqued and listened to by industry professionals. They had lots of good things to say about the song and it was really fun to have someone listen to something I had written. I’m excited about moving forward. They even told me that I should send it to them (Christ for the Nations) to be considered for their next project in the fall.

The highlight of the whole day for me happened in the afternoon. I was talking to a guy who runs a company that represents independent artists when he asked me about my goals as a musician and writer. I told him that one of the people I really admired for his commitment to his church was Paul Baloche. I told him that I had wanted to ask him how he continues to pull that off and stay sane. As we were talking about that, guess who walked into the hallway? Sarah Palin (sorry, couldn’t help it). Well anyway, this guy was friends with Paul and stopped him. He then introduced me to him and we got a chance to talk for a few minutes and I got his person perspective on how he makes it all work. Turns out I was right, you just have to be picky and sometimes you end up running like crazy. But it was cool hearing it from the man himself.

The concert that night was stinkin’ cool! The 4 songwriters who had their songs chosen as part of the evening were a part of a writers in the round type deal with Carl Cartee, Jennie Lee Riddle, Matt Papa and some others. After that, Paul Baloche came out with a made up band because he didn’t bring his group with him. It didn’t matter though. It was amazing! They opened with him and Glenn Packiam singing ‘Your Name’ (which by the way, they wrote together and I knew that which is how I got my free ticket). Great show from start to finish. Worshiping with other leaders is really fun. And it leads to an awesome sounding congregation.

I came away from this day realizing what I need to do as a songwriter to get my songs from my head to paper to the rest of the world. I have some inspiration. I’m excited. Now I just have to find a job that will help out with all of this…

I just wanted to take a couple minutes to let everyone know that today is a family prep day getting ready for our trip to Nashville to the SongDiscovery one day Songwriting Conference. I’m super excited. I won a free ticket and am getting super pumped about being there and learning some stuff and meeting some other songwriters. I had to take one of my songs to be critiqued by an industry professional and I’ve been working on it trying to get it ready for that time. I think I’ve come up with something that I’m okay with.

Prep Day for a trip with my family is an all day thing. So I don’t have MUCH time to write. But I wanted to share this bit of news with you. I will be updating twitter and facebook all day tomorrow from the conference. I will give a detailed report of how things went when I come back home. So stay posted cause I’ll keep you informed. Here’s a link to the song so you can hear it. I would upload it to here, but I have the smallest file size limit EVER on here!

I’m taking the opportunity to pray for my friends stuck in Berlin. They went over on a church trip last Sunday and were supposed to come back last night. However, the volcano eruption in Iceland has grounded them at LEAST til Thursday. It may be later. I was thinking that this was a bad thing because they are all away from their families and away from their jobs and just stuck in another country. But then I read something this morning that I thought was really cool and really insightful. Author Jon Acuff wrote this quote in a tweet this morning. “The closer you get to doing great things, the greater the distractions become. Don’t feel surprised, feel confirmed.” Now that statement has great validity in my life right now (more to come on that later this week), but for my friends in Berlin it really fits what’s going on with them. They are visiting Berlin and meeting with some church leaders there trying to get some ideas about how to reach a post Christian world effectively. I suspect that they have learned some really awesome things and are ready to come back and hit the ground running. I also suspect that being trapped in a foreign country and being ready to come home and 2 of these guys have pregnant wives can be a bit distracting. If any of you guys read this, I’m praying for you guys over there.

This has given me an idea for the week. I have a few things that I’m dealing with in my own life and the many distractions that come along with it. I’m going to get all those things out so I can share them with you my friends. Stay posted!

What a great week this has been! God is doing some cool things in the life of the Walls family. Every time I think that things are going downhill, God comes in and does his God thing and shows me what’s up. One of the biggest things to happen this week was finding out that our new baby that is due September 3rd is going to be a boy! Honestly, I would have been super happy either way. Eva and I had come up with a simply gorgeous girl name, but obviously didn’t get to use it. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t super excited to have a boy in the house now.

I’ve also still been reeling from last weekend’s activities. I’ve spent the week talking to people who came to the concert and people who were a part of it and we have been in awe for a really long time. God truly blessed Saturday night. I would ask that you pray for Missouri Baptist University and SpiritWing as some big changes are coming. Pray for God’s direction for this group and the school.

Pray for the Walls family as we continue to seek God for what’s next for us. There are a few different avenues before us and we want to make sure that we figure out where God wants us. Fun times…fun times…

In other news, I’m in the process of working on two songs that are close to being completed. I’m going to revamp this website, as well as my facebook fan page and I might even create another myspace music page. Who knows? But I’ll be sure to let you know.

In a good and bad way, the SpiritWing 25th Anniversary Reunion Concert is over. I don’t know if I’ve ever worked so hard to pull something off in my life. That was just non-stop communication and planning and work for months!!! I woke up yesterday and immediately thought I had something to do or someone to call. That has been my life for the past few months. On the other end, I can’t even begin to express just how amazing that night was. If you were there and you’re reading this you know what we experienced Saturday night to some degree. What was supposed to be a concert ended up being a worship service. One big massive worship service. Simply amazing. We were able to watch God bring together 25 years of past members and watch something amazing happen. We worked that room! It was some of the most fun I’ve ever had on a stage. There were a couple times that I simply couldn’t believe that I was a part of what was going on. Even as I continue to try and write about this, the words aren’t doing anything. I’m hoping to have pictures and video to share with you soon. I’ll keep you posted.

In other news, we find out the gender of our baby today!!! Will I let you know? Well of course!

Lately it has felt like I have nothing to say. I woke up early this morning to think about it. I wondered if I had anything else to say. The minute I sat down I realized that there is SOOOO much going on in my life right now. Which quickly brought me back to why I haven’t written lately. I’ve been running non-stop for a couple weeks. I guess that means that I need to start getting up earlier so I can really let my brain breathe and think about this life so I can continue to write about it.

So I would be remiss if I didn’t at least give an update. These days have seemed to just flow together lately. This family has been so busy that we haven’t been able to think straight. In the midst of all of that, my wife celebrated her 30th birthday on Monday. I’m so proud of that woman. She is simply amazing. We are in the midst of a 2 week break from the current church trying to decide what God is going to do next with us and that church body. It’s a tough situation to be in, but we’re doing our best to seek God patiently.

With all that being said, this week is pretty much dedicated the SpiritWing 25th Anniversary Reunion Concert. This is pretty much crazy! Everyone is really excited and it’s starting to come together. Some people have already come to town and there’s a lot of energy being put forth to bring this thing together. I will do my best to keep you posted throughout the rest of this week and hopefully will put some pictures up next week. If you are in town and want to hear some great music and stories, find yourself at Missouri Baptist University Saturday night at 7 for this reunion concert.

One of the most bits of news that we received came from my buddy Jim. I could tell you, but you need to watch this video. It’s probably one of the best things EVER. With that being said, I’m gonna get going with all the craziness that is today. Be blessed friends. I guess the well hasn’t run dry yet…

I don’t know if I’ve had a bug like this in a really long time. It has caught a hold of me and is not letting go. I’m praying that I’m at least 50% by tomorrow. I think I can make it through at 50%. We shall see…

When I think about how bad I feel, however, I still realize that it’s nothing compared to dying on the cross for someone else. My wife asked me to put some shampoo in the girls’ heads and I didn’t even want to get up to do that. Jesus went ahead and died for all my sins. These 2 don’t seem to add up. So my simple reflection of the day is just that. Yeah, I’m sick, but it doesn’t nearly compare to being killed. Thank goodness He rose again. Thanks Jesus for not calling in sick.