Sarah Mac

It is official and I am thrilled.

There are things you find out about people just in the watching. Face to face conversations, knee to knee coffee meetings, laughter that is let loose instead of forced, eye contact, and high fives. Each of these things have been the data that I’ve gathered in my relationship with those who call themselves Integrit-ians (those who work for Integrity Music) and I have been happy to see that there is honesty and, errr, integrity like a cloud, hovering around them.

Can you imagine, a group of people who want to see the word of God go out to all the world through music? Have I found a unicorn? The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Nessy? Who knows but I am happy to now be part of this family that I am locking arms with and running alongside in an attempt to hand out hope to as many people as we encounter.

Thank you for all of your prayers for me, my family and this music filled life that I am fortunate enough to live in.

I am attaching below Integrity’s press release announcing my signing just so you can be “in the loop.” Notice the free song at the bottom of the release and feel free to pass this blog along, allowing more and more, access to the free song.

Yippee!

“Integrity Music Welcomes Indie Singer/Songwriter Sarah MacIntosh, Announces Global Release For Her New Album Current

Colorado Springs, Colo. – - Integrity Music announces the signing of independent singer/songwriter Sarah MacIntosh and the March 6th global release of her 11-track album Current.

Known for her work with progressive rock band Chasing Furies, Sarah also has three solo projects to her credit including the critically acclaimed The Waiters, TheWatchers, The Listeners, The Keepers & Me. And in addition to touring and collaborating with artists such David Crowder, Tim Hughes, Matt Redman, Vicky Beeching and Burlap to Cashmere, Sarah speaks and leads worship at churches around the country.

“Beyond Sarah’s unique voice and obvious talent as a songwriter, she has an intense desire to help others discover God through worship,” says Integrity A&R Director, Chico Gonzalez. “We’re excited to work with her and honored that she is entrusting her songs to Integrity.”

Of joining the Integrity roster, Sarah says: “Integrity has their eyes set forward in the same direction as mine. They realize that songs have the ability to minister, motivate, teach, comfort and strengthen the listener… I’m thrilled to be walking alongside them as we carry these songs to those who need them.”

Until recently, Sarah’s family made their home in San Diego, California, where Sarah led worship for her father-in-law’s church, Horizon Christian Fellowship. The Texas native is now waking up in cities around the country for speaking/singing engagements as her family relocates temporarily, working with churches to impact local communities. So rather than simply making a cameo in the lives of the people they’re ministering to, they are getting to know the Body of Christ on a more personal level. While their nomadic, life-out-of-a-suitcase existence isn’t for everyone, Sarah and her family love every minute of it.

It was in California at Horizon that Sarah began sharing the songs that would become Current. Produced by her husband, Jonny MacIntosh, and J.T. Daly of Nashville’s famed Indie rock outfit Paper Route, Current is filled with songs of unabashed praise such as “We Should Run,” “Joy Comes In” and “Take It All.” But like David so freely did in Psalms when life wasn’t quite as upbeat and hopeful, Sarah also wasn’t afraid to dig into life’s darker seasons of lament with songs like “Hope,” “The Damaged” and “Hiding Place.”

“These songs really go across the board—in one, you can tell it was written from the pit where you couldn’t possibly get any lower, while another is at the spiritual mountaintop,” Sarah explains. “Looking at my own life, I have seen those weeping moments we’re reminded about in Psalm 30:5, and then I’ve seen those joy moments. They are a promise, and that’s why these songs reflect both experiences.”

Current will be available beginning March 6. Within the U.S., it will be distributed to Christian retail stores through Provident Music Distribution and to mainstream retailers through Sony Music Distribution. It will also be available through all major digital service providers including Amazon and iTunes. Additional information on the project is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bk3jd141p8.

Grab a free song from Sarah here:

“Galaxy Former” FREE Download

About Sarah MacIntosh: Singer/songwriter/blogger Sarah MacIntosh is married to musician Jonny MacIntosh and is the mother of a three-year-old daughter. For more information, visit http://www.sarahmacintosh.com/. To follow Sarah on Twitter, https://twitter.com/sarahmacintosh.

About Integrity Music: Kingsway and Integrity Music are the music divisions of David C Cook, a nonprofit globalresource provider serving the Church with life-transforming materials. Headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Kingsway’s and Integrity’s resources are distributed in more than 160 countries and sold worldwide. Additional information can be found at www.integritymusic.com.”

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend about someone who had desperately hurt those they loved, and, although they never gave an apology or showed remorse for the grief they caused, they are now trying to resume their place among those family members and friends as if nothing happened. As a result, those close to the emotional ground zero are finding themselves questioning whether or not the offender has a right to come around. Some of the loved ones are warily opening their doors and arms, once again, while others are angry and upset, refusing to be near, in an attempt to punish or wound or just stay away from the one who had so greiviously hurt them.

It has begun to make me wonder.

Redemption-The process of making up for; making amends for; offsetting some fault, shortcoming, etc. The act of recovery.

Do we really want this, redemption, for everyone? I can think of people who have done tiny wrongs, a lie here or there, usually in an attempt to avoid hurting someones feelings; temporary abandonments, parents spending hours at work away from their families and then coming home and locking themselves in their office till everyone has given up on getting any time with them and have gone to bed; short outbursts of passive aggressive behavior with the intention of manipulating people close to them. These “smaller” wrongs are easy to imagine someone receiving redemption for. But what if, one day, these wrongs are no longer tiny and are found changing, growing to the point that a lie becomes so huge, so devastating that it’s ripple effect spreads out over states and family lines or at when a day to day abandonment becomes a packed-the-bags-and-left kind of withdrawal or when passive aggressive behavior becomes fists and bruises. Do we really still want redemption for these? For the ones we are still in splints and stitches and perhaps even medicated from?

Where do we fall in the allowance for redemption? If we or someone we hold dearest is on the receiving end of the abandonment or bruises or lies, at what point do we begin to rethink our desire for the tormentors redemption?

Torment- To afflict with great bodily or mental suffering: pain.

Do we truly want amends made for someone who has afflicted such great suffering or pain?

I find myself wondering why we have a line. Because there is one. One that is not necessarily spoken about or acknowledged but there nonetheless. A line that someone can cross without even knowing it. But lets look for it. When is a lie too great? When does it change from redeemable to unredeemable? When does aggressive move from tedious or disruptive to tormenting? When does abandonment shift from a dull sense of loneliness to a soul aching loss? At what point do we want to withold redemption, no longer believing the one in need of it, deserves it?

I know, because of the truth that clings to the pages of my bible, that a man came and erased that/those lines. This same man found tormentors in us all, even while we made excuses for our behavior, claiming that we were still on the safe, acceptable, side of the line. This same man pulled up those lines so we would find ourselves all standing, together, desperately/equally in need of redeeming. And then His redemption began, it always being there, but waiting till we would turn and allow ourselves to be redeemed. Till we would allow ourselves to admit we need a Savior/Redeemer. Till we would ignore what others have done to us and those we love and instead see our own personal need for recovery/mending, allowing our redemption to become our salvation.

Salvation- Deliverance from the power and penalty of sin; redemption.

Sin- Any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse, etc.; great fault or offense. A willful or deliberate violation of a moral principle.

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.” John 3:16-17 (AMP)

Luckily, for each and every one of us, it doesn’t matter if we want redemption for all,

because He does.

I have been patient. I have waited, bitten my tongue and hummed under my breath all the while knowing something great was coming and I could tell everyone I know about it. Well, it’s time. I can tell you now, knowing you can buy it soon. On January 17th, the new EP from All Sons And Daughters called “Reason To Sing,” is out and you need to wake up, first thing next Tuesday, and immediately buy it. I was able to get an advanced copy of this EP a while back and have yet to remove it from my car. I have spent hours driving alone to and from airports singing at the top of my lungs to these worship filled songs till I was hoarse. As I think about this, it is hard for me to even imagine myself doing this. First of all, it is an EP, meaning not a full length CD and although there are fewer songs, I had no problem listening to the CD top to bottom repeatedly and if I am correct, neither will you. It is hard to say which songs are my favorite. Normally there are 12 songs on a CD and 2 or 3 rise to the top as favorites but since this is an EP it feels like they have cut to the chase and we are just getting the best of them, as writers, worship leaders, singers…people. This CD is just that, this is the best of David Leonard and Leslie Jordan, the duo that makes up All Sons And Daughters, and I am thrilled that they would share themselves and their worship so freely with us so that we can join in and worship right alongside them.

If I had to choose 3 songs as my favorites off of this CD I would do it like this, I would ask myself which songs have I found in my head long after the CD is turned off? Which songs have I shouted along with? Wept with? Whispered out like a prayer?

Which songs have I worshiped most freely with?

They would be:

Oh Our Lord
All Praise To You
Wake Up

And like I said before, I have sung these songs at the top of my voice till I was hoarse and then I’ve kept singing them, croaking like a worshipping frog. I hope you find yourself doing the same.

Ribbit

Follow this link to the EP, download and wrap yourself up in these songs. Enjoy. All Sons And Daughters: Reason To Sing Ep No. 2

Sometimes people ask what some of my most popular blogs are and I find myself skimming through these nifty little graphs that WordPress provides to keep track of things like that. Well as I scanned my blogs in search of this last year’s top 10 most popular blogs I found myself a little bit in awe…I have written and posted 164 blogs. Some are well over a thousand words while others are bits averaging 500 words but in total there are probably about 80,000 to 100,000 words floating around, bumping against each other on this blog and I am shocked that they’ve all come out of this head of mine. Well, I am going to post the top 10 most read and commented on blogs from this last year and you can give them a read, again if you’ve already read them or for the first time if you are new to my blog. Please leave your comments and ideas, it is so helpful for me to hear your thoughts back on them. Also if you don’t already subscribe to my blog you can do so at the top right of this page and then you will receive my blogs right into your email inbox.

Without further ado…the top 10 most popular blogs of 2011:

1. Top 5 Favorite Worship Songs I’m Singing…

2. Uh…Christian Radio=No Females…

3. Thousands Of Footsteps…

4. I Talk + Current + Video = “Current” EPK

5. Desire…

6. Revelations & Future of Forestry…

7. Thoughts after getting a speeding ticket…

8. What Came Before…

9. Who Am I?

10. The No-Longer-Lonely’s…

I always was a water drinker. I remember thinking that I wish I drank soda so that I had something I could give up, to cut calories, but, I couldn’t break away from being just a water drinker. That is, until 3 years ago when I had my daughter. She was born with a problem that made her occasionally unable to breathe. Randomly day or night, while awake or sleeping, her eyes would fling wide in panic as she struggled to get air into her lungs. This meant that my husband and I didn’t sleep because we were always on the lookout for the legs kicking and arms flailing that meant she was not getting oxygen. The problem eventually resolved itself about five months after she was born, but, by that time I had been relying so heavily on a steady flow of soda, coffee, and energy drinks that now a tall glass of water looked more like a vase for a flower than something I should be drinking. For the past two years I have struggled to shrug off caffeine’s grip on me and return back to the fresh, cool life of a water drinker but it has been hard. I am finally down to about a couple of sodas per week and am feeling relief when water is what I am craving.

This got me to thinking, I was one person, a water drinker, and then through a set of unfortunate events I became another person, a soda drinker. If I can change so easily over something as silly as soda then how do I keep myself from swinging back and forth like a pendulum spiritually and emotionally? There were a few moments in the early afternoon where I thought I wouldn’t survive without a Dr. Pepper and it’s energy boost and if you had told me that I couldn’t have anymore sodas I probably would’ve wrestled you in a mad dash to the 7-Eleven down the street. I know that there have also been moments where I am so attached to my bitterness, nursing it as if it were good for me or needed, and if you had told me to step away from it, I might have wrestled you out the front door of my house rather than let it go.

In looking at the ridiculousness of the soda gluttony, I can see the ridiculousness of the bitterness or anger, or self pity, or narcissism gluttony and luckily, throughout my life, I have seen it quickly enough to purge it before it had time to take over and ruin me. Because that is really what it does. Think of someone you know who is so consumed with themselves and narcissistic that they have neglected those closest to them and ruined any chance in their lives of real relationships. Or think of the person who is so consumed with anger that it taints every word and action they perform, even the ones that are supposed to be love filled. Or think of the person who’s insides you imagine to be black and tar filled because of the poison of un-forgiveness or bitterness that they have been drinking, at first in small doses but now like a lifeline. Maybe you didn’t think of a person but instead you know this “person” is you.

I look at my daughter and know that she doesn’t yet harbor un-forgiveness or stockpile self-pity or bitterness. She is not yet an adult walking around with a face creased by years of anxiety and fear. Right now she is innocent and most like the way we were created to be, as a person can be, yet, because of the sin nature that I know she, like all of us, was born with, one day those things will try to wedge their way into her previously uncluttered life. Fear of an older bully picking on her may turn to anger and meanness. The lure of acceptance may lead to dishonesty or concietedness. Emotional wounds inflicted by dumb boyfriends or bosses or supposed friends will twist and turn inside her heart and she will have to make the choices to let go of those wounds or cling to them and become someone different than who she was created to be.

As I end this year I am not looking back on 365 days and deciding what I want to do different next year but instead I find myself looking back over years. Who was I created to be? Who was the child that my parents laughed over, stood in awe of, cuddled with and encouraged? Where, along the way, did I pick up traits that I now think are just part of who I am and how can I go back to the original Sarah? Is it even possible?

I look at Psalm 139 and find relief and hope, perhaps you can as well:

13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.

23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.

Body and soul we are marvelously made but along the way we take sometimes tiny and sometimes huge steps away from who we were created to be. We gather up the trash of anger, deceit, manipulation, bitterness, self pity, gluttony, gossip, pride, among many others and we cling to them. Re-dressing ourselves in them and claiming that “this is the new me.” But it doesn’t have to be. At the end of this year and the beginning of the next I am wrapping myself with the last verse of this chapter

See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.

Oh Lord guide me and show me who I really am…