I was reading my journal from a year ago, and really enjoyed what I wrote about the Nickel Creek concert I went to last September. If you haven't heard of them... LISTEN. www.nickelcreek.com They are worth every penny for the cd.

"I just got back awhile ago from a Nickel Creek concert, and am still filled with awe and wonder at the glorious music I heard tonight. It is awesome to know that I know the Creator of the beauty I had ringing in my ears. The music is testimony to His great love and gentleness. I think HE must love the sound of music, and for that very reason instilled in us a great love and desire to make music. There is something in the grandeur and complexity, and often serene simplicity that awakens a desire, some unspeakable desire for... who knows what? Even greater beauty? Eternal beauty.

Perhaps the passionate longing that awakens in my heart, perhaps that quickening of my pulse and the impossibility to breathe normally is a desire for the great thing before us, the faultless piece of art that will go on forever and ever, unbound by the limits of space, imagination, or time.

And oh how I look forward to that wondrous day when the singing shall never cease. How I wished Nickel Creek would have played on through the night.

Apart from being amazing instrumentalists, I had also heard that they were Christians, even though they don't fall under the "Christian music" genre. Yet Sara sang a beautiful gospel song, and their ending encore was a moving "Be Thou My Vision" in which they asked the audience to take part.

And so, quietly, with no microphones, amidst scores of unbelievers, voices of the Beloved children sang out, soft and clear. Hearts were lifted unto Him as the very same hearts were surrounded by those who don't know Him. It was amazing, and the bond I felt I shared with those on the stage and in the audience surpassed even friendship -- we were siblings, children of the same Father. I knew at that moment what it is like to take pride in knowing Christ and boast only in the cross.