THE VINE BAND: FROM ASHES TO BEAUTY
April 25 Thursday 2008

And so here it is, The Vine Band’s latest live worship album, From Ashes To Beauty.

Rather than try to describe it in my own words, here is a wonderful review I found on amazon.com, by one ‘Nosher J Gloven’:

... What more can you ask for?

Take 10 original songs written by 7 different artists from Hong Kong; Add a Tim Hughes song; Recruit a team of over 20 outstanding singers and musicians, including a string trio from the Hong Kong Chamber Orchestra; Six different lead vocalists, seven if you count Tim 'Here I am to Worship' Hughes; Get it produced and engineered by Pete Wallis at Hillsong studio in Sydney; Partner with Care for Children to raise awareness of the plight of the 2 million + orphans in China.

You would think you have everything.

You would be wrong and would be forgetting the powerful anointing of God on the worship songs. It is a wonderful tribute to a great God, His heart for truth and justice and a testimony to the lives He changes from ashes to beauty...

We recorded the album at the end of last year, and released it 2 weeks ago. You can order the album at amazon, or buy the songs online at iTunes and CD Baby.

On a relative side note, the album launch party was great, although it couldn’t have fallen on a more poignant date for me - April 5th being my mother’s birthday.

As I’ve blogged before, it’s often the “happiest” days that prove to be the hardest to enjoy, as these are the occasions one naturally longs to share with loved ones. The title of the album itself, cuts deep into my heart, as it's those very words that have kept me going ever since my mother passed away, and which I first wrote about here back in 2002.

And so it's with real thanks-giving that I look back over the years, and acknowledge a God who has taken my broken life, and restored it to something beautiful (and to quote Isaiah 61): "... bestow on them (me) a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair..."