Amanda Barber

Stories, songs, and thoughts on life.

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music

Thanksgiving and a Song

26 November 2019

It felt like a pure gift from God to be pain free, happily absorbed in musical composition, astonished that something so beautiful was coming out of my head. I kept thanking Him over and over again for it, hoping against hope that this gift might go on for a month or two or more...

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Oh, Rest in the Lord

17 April 2015

My mind was tired. There are questions I have no answers for. There is fatigue that comes on after my mind has been working away to come up with solutions to problems and not solving any of them. Resting in the Lord. It’s such a phrase of beauty, such an attractive prospect. Saturday night, I was wondering why it was so hard to actually do it.

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Yonder

05 March 2015

Yonder is written for solo piano, cello and string orchestra, named after some lines of poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Mr. Witt graciously gave me some of his time last week so I could ask him a few questions about his work as a composer.

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Thanking Thee

27 November 2014

Christians are all children to God. And it’s remarkable how like children we can act when things don’t quite go the way we want them to. We adults have more sophisticated ways of wailing and fussing and stamping our feet, but the underlying attitude is the same.

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Nearer, My Savior

16 October 2014

I stumbled across an entry from January 26, 2010. I’m going to share it here, because I did find it encouraging.

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The Happy Island

25 September 2014

Some pieces of music are like food to my soul. I can play them over and over again and never get tired of them. They evoke a response from me that usually involves silence and awe. I’m listening to one of them right now. L’isle Joyeuse (The Happy Island), is a composition for piano written by Claude Debussy.

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