Our one room.....our dining room to be exact....has carefully chosen wall hangings....each one with a meaning or pointing to an experience....an oil painting of my mother’s….another given us by a friend....an oil painting of Bermuda....painted by a wonderful Christian woman.....with whom we had a long talk in her studio.....a watercolor by a woman who we met on vacation and dined with at Rehoboth Beach.....both paintings purchased from these professionals....a photograph developed by a friend....and an ink sketch of a Vietnamese woman carrying two jars of water on a pole....this sketched while our son and his wife watched....while traveling on their own the country of Vietnam. I had asked for a very particular souvenir....from someone....in the South of the country....someone at least as old as I am.....and that is what they brought back!
So back to the reason for this post....IKEA had on one of their walls....a decoration idea....four 13x13 picture frames....with a glass front....in which they inserted four vinyl 33 rpm records....the center blackened out. It caught my eye. We are all familliar with how musicians frame their gold records....and hang them on their own wall....well my idea was to pick one vinyl 33 rpm that had the most meaning....frame it....and hang it on the wall in our dining room.....and I did so....but what album to choose?
It could have been an Elvis Presley album....for I had a collection of all his records up until around 1963. A Billy Graham coffee table book we have highlighted....and a Ronald Reagan coffee table book....and a coffee table book of the Puritans.....but Elvis? Nah. Carol King's Tapestry would have had significance....but there was no doubt in which album I would choose for this room...an album that was pure gold to me!
It led the charts in it's genre for the entire year of 1983....85 weeks in all....and went platinum in 1985. America was in the latter half of a 'born again' revival. Folks....I worked in an industrial setting....and there were men all over....wearing steel-toed boots and a hardhat.....and some kind of Christian symbol....on that hardhat. As for me....Christian music was played on our turntable or on the radio all the time. Oh how the words soothed my soul...words of praise....to someone who had mercy on a wretch like me.
El Shaddai, El Shaddai
El-Elyon na Adonia
Age to age You're still the same
By the power of the name
El Shaddai. El Shaddai
Erkamka na Adonai
We will praise and lift You high
El Shaddai
The album of course was Amy Grant's Age To Age...and it is hanging on a wall in our dining room right now....and I can't wait to explain to visitors what it means to us!
