winter

The new album Before You Were Born just released, streaming now on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon Music, and all music services worldwide. You can also click below to listen to the title track as you read the story behind this new collection.

Before You Were Born has been in my heart since last summer, when I read a book about the life of Jeremiah and was reminded how God knows us and sets us a part before we are born (Jeremiah 1:5). The idea evolved into my 16th album with the new composition Before You Were Born (Prelude) becoming the opening track, followed by a carefully ordered collection of twelve tracks. The subtitle Symphonic Meditations for Life’s Seasons describes the prelude followed by four sets of three songs to represent spring, summer, fall, and winter.

My long time friend Dr. Ken Boa has been one of the most significant influences in my life, faith, and music journey since I began attending one of his Bible studies over twenty-five years ago. He is an amazing Bible teacher and scholar, has authored over thirty books, and he is very gifted painter, which is one of his many hobbies. Four of his paintings formed the album artwork and symbolize the seasons, inviting you to listen, reflect, and let this album inspire you with God’s peace, hope, and beauty in the season of life you are currently walking through. Please visit Ken Boa – Reflections Ministries and also his website for the Museum of Created Beauty which was recently published to draw us all closer to Christ through the beauty of God’s Creation.

As an additional resource, use the links below to read or re-read the blog posts I wrote for each of the symphonic tracks representing life’s seasons. All of these songs and verses fill my heart with God’s peace and hope as I embrace His grace, truth, mystery, and wonder.

SPRING (Tracks 2, 3, and 4): Come and Talk with Me , Sky Whisper , and Harmonies of Light

SUMMER (Tracks 5, 6, and 7): Prayers for a Lifetime , Seeing Everything Beautiful , and All You Have in Mind

FALL (Tracks 8, 9, and 10): Quiet Revelation , My Spirit Refreshed , and Waiting, Walking, Running

WINTER (Tracks 11, 12, and 13): Wiping Away Every Tear , Circle of Quiet , and I Lie Down and Sleep

I hope this special music project inspires you, and encourages you in your life and faith journey.

Wishing you God’s grace and peace, Stanton

The Call of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-5, NIV)

The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

Why am I writing about a sled in the middle of July? Is it because cold weather thoughts can help cool us off on a hot summer day? Maybe. But I really wanted to share this childhood story because it always stirs up good thoughts and questions in my heart…

Cypress Road was packed with fresh fallen snow in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I could see it through the big living room window of my childhood home. The temperature was just below freezing. School was closed. I had just finished a vitamin fortified Kaboom cereal breakfast. All my “Mt. Everest” gear was in place. It was another dream winter morning for a nine-year old. Cypress Road. One hundred yards long with a perfect twenty degree slope. Another downhill sledding adventure was about to begin.

This unforgettable scene happened many times during my elementary school years. It was a treasured experience. So much so that a full body length sled was at the top of my wish list for Christmas 1974. The gift appeared and was all I had hoped for. A Gladding Champion Fastback. Sixty inches long, three strips of polished hardwood, painted for speed (including speedometer) and shiny red runners.

Every day after Christmas I waited. . . January. . . February. . . March. . . April. . . no snow. I couldn’t believe it! My sled dream had been realized, but the snow never came that winter. The following summer my dad took a new job in Pensacola, Florida. As my eleventh birthday approached, I wondered “Is this really happening?!” My new sled and I were moving to the Florida panhandle! That was thirty-seven years ago. The Gladding Champion Fastback is now stored in the basement, still gliding through life with me. The glamorous adventure he was born for has ended up being a humdrum existence. An historic two inch snow at our house in Milton, Florida only resulted in “drags” across the flat front yard. A few times “Champ” has coasted down some small slopes around Atlanta and north Georgia where I have lived most of my life. My heart has never raced with the joy that I know he can deliver. Not yet.

Where was your “Cypress Road?” What was your “sled?” Have you ever received a special gift that is now in “storage” or that has never fully realized its potential? Does the sled symbolize any life gifts you need to restore? Physically, relationally, spiritually?