My newest song was a joy to develop and create. I know in today’s world it is difficult to make God the #1 priority of our lives. Whether it be giving Him time in prayer or surrendering our will to His will, it is not easy and not very common. This song is a prayer for myself and other to redirect our focus to truly put God first in our lives.
I was so happy to have my kids and my niece be part of the song for the final chorus! I think it turned out beautiful and it gives me joy to hear their voices in the track!
The tuning of the guitar for this track is very different than the standard way of tuning it. I hope you enjoy the sound and message of the song!
The background vocals come from my kids, Blaise and Ksenia, as well as my niece and god daughter Joanie. My son Fabian finishes the song off with the simple and bold statement: “Jesus is my #1”.
Toward the end of July, Calena had a medical emergency. She woke up one morning feeling extremely nauseous with pain in her stomach. By the middle of the day, it was clear she was getting worse so we took her to urgent care.
It ended up being her appendix. Before they fully diagnosed it, she was taken by helicopter from Iron River to Wausau! She only had to stay for one night. One of our friends from Iron River drove all the way down to Wausau and stayed with her for the night! It was such a blessing to have someone there while I took care of our children and our homestead.
Since the surgery, Calena has been doing very well and we are grateful she is back to full strength. We are grateful for our friends, especially a local family from our parish, who drove out to our home multiple times to help us out with meals, cleaning the house, and spending time with our kids.
I was blessed to be able to do a concert for a ton of campers at Camp Tekakwitha. My favorite song that I played at the concert was my newest song: #1.
From 2009-2012, I was a counselor at Camp Tekakwitha. Each counselor picks a camp name for the kids to call you. My camp name was Gandalf. It was great to see that a good chunk of the counselors there today were campers back when I was working there.
It was a great joy to be back and to share my testimony and my music with the Camp. My daughter Ksenia was my road warrior and had a wonderful time.
We had a few more visitors this past month as we’ve continued to enjoy the summer at our homestead up north in the woods.
We’ve spent a lot of time outdoors. The bugs have greatly gone down and we are grateful for our time together.
Running with my brother-in-law Alan who is the Head Cross Country and Track & Field Coach at Ave Maria University in Florida.
Hanging out with my brother Eric and my sister-in-law Sarah with their boy Michael. It was a smokey sky but a good time.
My parents rented out a cabin on the lake. When I was a kid, we went to the same place many years, usually during the 4th of July week. It was fun showing Calena and the kids the place I grew up experiencing the outdoors in the summer.
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“…We cannot choose a cross. We cannot decide what suffering is best for the training of our invisible souls. We must grow strong in a way known only to God, for few of us know ourselves or our weaknesses well enough to choose the suffering best suited to change us. We prefer happiness to pain, health to sickness, plenty to poverty, and success to failure. There are few of us who treasure suffering, and if we had to choose our own cross we would choose the least painful. Such is the wisdom of man in contrast to the wisdom of God. The Father chose suffering for his Son from his birth to his death, and Jesus reminded us that the servant is not above the master. If he, as God-Man, had to suffer in order to enter into his glory (Lk 24:26), then we too must suffer in order to prepare ourselves for our glory.”
-Mother Angelica (from EWTN)
Here are just some extra good memories. I have a fun adventure upcoming that I hope to talk about in my next blog. God bless you all!
Jacob, Glad to hear that you and yours are doing well and making good memories. I had emergency appentectomy in December. Easy recovery. Had knee replacement surgery in June and first four weeks after the therapy was really rough. Had to do Mass online for 6 weeks! We had most of our kids/grandkids/ and two great grandaughters here for Paul’s birthday celebration first weekend this month. It was so hot!! We rented a large “cube” fan that cools the air by a rotating blower as the “fan” uses water in a radiator type concept to cool the air. The pool was a nice relief.
Keep on working for the Lord as he has an annointing on you!
God bless,
Paul and Marilyn deMahy