Roger and Barb Lindeman
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Roger and Barb Lindeman |
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Hello! I was raised in a Christian family. My parents always made sure that I was at church every time that the doors were open. We were always the last ones to leave. This, many times, meant that I would be getting home very late in the evening, but my parents loved the church. I was first saved when I was 12 years old. This was a big event in my life. At that time I asked Jesus to be my savior and to forgive me for every sin that I had ever committed. I can remember crying like my heart would break. That day I accepted Jesus as my personal savior and I was 'saved'. I tried my best to be the best Christian that I good. But so many times I fell short of what I thought a Christian should be and what I was taught that I should be, so I headed back to the altar again and asked Jesus to saved me again. This became almost a weekly event. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't be the person I felt that I should be. Each time I would beg Jesus to forgive me and would promise Him that I would never fail Him again. I was taught that if I had completely surrendered myself to Jesus that I would no longer sin, but this just wasn't the case with me. I just couldn't be the perfect person I thought I was suppose to be. This went on for years until I was about 19 years old. At that time, I just got tired of trying. Ever so often, I would make another trip to the altar and I would try again, but each time I found out that I just couldn't measure up. I got very critical of other people in church whose life didn't measure up either, in my viewpoint, so I felt that it just wasn't possible for anyone to reach that level of perfection. I got very cynical and just didn't try anymore. I continued to attend church when it didn't interfere with my schedule, but it wasn't as important to me anymore. I was totally defeated. I made excuses not to sing. I just didn't have my heart in it. The words were just words on a page and meant nothing to me. I had studied voice at Bethany Nazarene College in Bethany, Oklahoma. Even though I had sang all my life up until I left home, I no longer could sing. My voice was gone. I didn't care anymore.
All of my life I have had a desire to sing. I first studied music at Bethany Nazarene College (now Southern Nazarene) in Bethany, OK. I had grown up singing in church. I always sang in the choir and with many mixed groups doing the harmony. I sang in the acapella choir, and the treble choir, in college. I would always be a part of our camp meeting choir, led by the late great and famous John T. Benson, until after I married. My first solo was "In The Garden" when I was eight. After that, I was "hooked". But as many of us do, I lost sight of this and traveled in a different direction. I married a non-Christian and raised 5 children. After moving to Nevada, I started taking my kids to a small Baptist church down the road whenever I didn't have to work. This caused a fight every Sunday with my husband who wanted me to stay home with him. But I was just a spectator, although I was aware of the emptiness inside. I didn't do much singing for the Lord until after my oldest daughter was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. It was during this time that my life fell apart and I could no longer keep my "boat afloat" without Jesus. I had been trying to manage everything myself, but things always seemed to get only worse. My whole life had fell into little pieces around my feet. For years I had tried to manage a "half-way" relationship with Jesus, but that never gave me any peace. It wasn't until I totally surrendered my life, such as it was, to Jesus, that I finally found the peace that I had been looking for. I told the Lord, "Lord, if you can do anything with this pile of rubble that I call my life, you can have it." The Sunday fights with my husband only got worse, but I still continued to attend worship. I needed the fellowship and support so very much. Shortly after this, my pastor's wife asked me to sing in church. She had been sitting in front of me at church and heard me singing. I was scared to death. I had not sang in church in many years. After much coaxing, I gave in. My knees was shaking so bad that I could hardly stand. I was afraid that I was going to pass out. I had never sang with a mike before. I sang "No One Ever Cared For Me Like Jesus." I didn't look at anyone in the audience because I was so scared, I just stared at the ceiling. When I got through, I noticed that many of the audience were wiping tears away. (I wasn't sure if that was bad or good) After this, I was asked to sing almost every Sunday and the more that I did, the more comfortable I became singing in front of people again. I felt so alive when I was singing. No matter how bad things got at home, if I could just sing, I could put those problems behind me. That was over 20 years ago. Since that time, my daughter died from the Hodgkins, and three years later,my husband of 34 years died. These were the most painful years of my life but God was always faithful, and no matter how bad things got, He was always near. Five years after the death of my husband, I met a Christian man, and we were married, even though I had thought that I would never risk getting married again. We were only married for three and a half years. During this time, we traveled all over the country singing for the Lord. While in Texas getting ready for a concert, John died very suddenly. I felt so all alone. It was like someone had just cut me in half and left me standing there. I continued doing my solo ministry and wondered how long I would be able to continue. I prayed, "Lord, are you ever going to be able to use me again to touch people?" After a while, I felt that God was leading me toward forming a group. That is when a friend told me about Beverly, and she introduced me to Dave. We got together for a rehearsal and "There's Hope" was born. We sang together for over 100 engagements while we were together. It seemed as if God brought the three of us together. Each one of us needed someone, and we each seemed to be the ones that we all needed. We were a family and had a close-knit group. In fall of 2003, I married Roger, I moved away from Tennessee, and now we are working on our own music ministry in our local area. We hope to reach out to people that quite often are forgotten. We have mostly been singing for churches or retirement homes. I hope that I will be able to meet you someday in person and be able to present our message of the gospel in song to you. May God Richly Bless You, July 06, 2010 Hi! It's me again. I haven't written anything on this page for quite a while, as you can most likely see. Funny, how time slips away. (sounds like a good name for a song) I'm trying to get up to speed with the younger generation, so I guess you can call this my BLOG. I always thought a blog was something that you didn't want to step in. But since everyone that is anyone, has a blog, I have decided to start one, and I think this would be a good place to do it. The other day I was sitting in the hospital waiting room while Roger was having an angiogram. He had been having some episode of some "arrythmias" that concerned us and they wanted to find out the cause. They talked about maybe putting in a defibrillator or a pacemaker. Or maybe even that his valves were failing or arteries blicked. All sorts of things were running through my mind, about how I would handle it if anything happened to Roger and I lost him. This was very freigtning to me. I have lost two husbands to death before, and it is a very scary thought to think that it could happen again. When Roger and I married, I knew that one day we would probably be separated by death. I would either leave him, or he would leave me. I don't know which option concerned me the most. I don't want Roger to leave me, and I don't want to leave Roger. This is the third time around for each of us. But then I started remembering scripture, and the reassurrance that God was in control and that he has even the hairs on our head numbered. He has a plan for each of us, and that plan will be fulfilled. The little knot of anxiety that had been sitting in my chest, now went away. I remembered that nothing is going to happen that God is not aware of, and that no matter what happens tomorrow or the next second, He will still be there, either to comfort me or to comfort Roger. Roger and I are now in our sunset years, and the last seven years has been wonderful. We have enjoyed the time we have had together. God has blessed us abundantly. After the procedure was over and I got to see Roger, his cardiologist came in and told us that Roger's heart was in great shape. They just took a "look-see" around and decided that God had been doing a good job taking care of him, and decided that no intervention was needed or desired. I remember back when I was living in Nevada, our pastor preached a sermon about things like this. He said that if you are doing what God wants you to do, that until God is ready to "take you home", nothing was going to change God's plans, i.e. If you are afraid of flying, that nothing can happen to that plane unless God allows it. He said that God knows the number of your days and God knows exactly when you will be leaving this earth, nothing will happen unexpectedly to Him. It may be when you are young, or it may be when you are 100 or more. God is still in control of your life. I remember when my daughter died, someone said that they wished they could be able to see the future so they would know if something terrible was going to happen to one of their children. I don't feel that way. If I had known when my daughter was born that I was going to lose her to cancer when she was 25, my days and nights would have been filled with fear and trembling. As it was, I was able to enjoy her growing up and planning for her future. It is best that we don't know the future. God is the only one that can handle the future. Let Him take care of the future! So that's about all for this time. see ya' next time around!
May God Richly Bless You, |
