Raymond Robinson - Christianflute at ShoutLife.com

This page is not about us or promoting an album. This is about the Lord and being obedient to what He told us to do which is to give this album freely.

HI FROM IRELAND

My name is Raymond Robinson and I am a worship instrumentalist from Ireland. I currently play a range of instruments (flutes - [concert & alto], irish whistles, chinese dizi flutes, quenas, recorders, native american flutes) and have a passion to play ethnic (traditional instruments) in worship.

A GIFT OF BLESSING TO YOU

The Lord told us to make the "Be Still" album available freely as a gift. So to download go to www.christianflute.com and the "Be Still Free Download" page. You can read the story of how it came together on this page below. If you can, listen to "Be Still" in one go as that is how it was received. If you wish please sign the GUESTBOOK on the site as we do not keep records of who downloads the album.

We hope you can take the time to read the story on this page about "Be Still". I promise you will be encouraged by it, so please take the time. It is an amazing story of God's blessing. God told us to give this album away freely and that is what we are doing. We are not promoting an album, simply being obedient to what He wants and this website assists greatly in this.

THE STORY OF "BE STILL"

One Saturday afternoon when Steve Allen and I were not expecting it, the album "Be Still" arrived.

The purpose of this story is not to promote a ministry, ourselves or to look for endorsement of any kind. It simply explains God's blessing to us and the purpose of the "Be Still" album.

Two verses sum up this album for us. Luke 1:37 "nothing is impossible with God" and the words of Jesus in John 15:5 when Jesus talks about the vine (Him) and the branches (us) and in it He says, "apart from me you can do nothing".

In August 2005 I was part of a team leading worship at a Bible week in England. During the week I got to know my now good friend, Steve Allen. It was the second time we had met and the second time we had played together. Steve lives in England and at the end of the week, myself and Andi Oakes, who was with me, had a day over before we went home. Steve invited us to his home to have lunch with his lovely wife Donna and wonderful children. Over lunch as we chatted Steve suggested going into the little studio he had in the house which he uses for his work to "experiment". We thought this sounded like fun and we were intending to get Andi to sing and get some vocal recordings. Well as lunch progressed Andi felt the Lord saying to him that He wanted Steve and I to play in the studio and record what we played. Now you have to remember that Steve and I had really only started to get to know one another. Both of us had not even thought of, or was interested in recording music. So without any plans or preparation we went into the small studio.

Before we started Andi prayed for Steve and I and really felt the Holy Spirit direct him to pray over us that what would be produced would be a fragrant oil (the Holy Spirit reminded him of Esther being bathed in oil and perfumes for a year before she was presented to King Xerxes). In Andi's own words this is what happened:

" It was an amazing experience" he recalls, "The presence of God was wonderful, like He was filling the room. I think the most amazing thing about this recording, is that...when you listen to it...you will find it hard to believe that it wasn't planned or that the two guys didn't even have eye contact with each other while they were playing! Steve had his back to Raymond the whole time and Raymond was in a sound booth. I remember the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up as I listened to what they were playing."

As we started to play together (as Andi says, we actually could not see each other as we were in separate sound booths) the Holy Spirit orchestrated everything. What you hear from the first not of "Be Still" to the last note is what we played. It was all in one take, one track after the other. Totally live and unexpected. The only conversation we had in between takes was simply "What key do you want to start in?" before each track and then we simply played. In human terms, to produce music like this is simply impossible without some form of boundaries and rehearsal, so we are amazed at what God sent. From the first note to the end the whole process including getting ourselves ready took about 50 minutes.

When we finished we prayed and thanked God for His amazing gift.

The other amazing bit of the story is the drawing at the bottome of the page in the Photos section. It is a drawing I received from a 12-year-old girl called Bethan. She is the daughter of one of the leaders at a Baptist church in Neyland, South Wales. Bethan gave me the drawing in October 2004 after a church service I had been serving at. She said that God had told her to draw it and give it to me. I did not know then what it was for but when "Be Still" arrived I knew that this drawing was to go with it. It says what "Be Still" is all about really, more than my words could explain. It is the purpose of this worship album.

As I have said before Steve and I have never had a desire to produce an album. We felt after we finished that God wanted us to give it away. So, we started making small copies at home, a few CDs at a time giving them away as we felt directed and using my website for downloads. In early 2007, during a conversation I was not expecting a gentleman called Lester Manley asked about the CD as he had a copy. He said that God had blessed him through it and he wanted to talk to me. So one evening in March myself and my close friend Mark Mahaffy went to see Lester and his wonderful wife Viv. During the conversation Lester and Viv told myself and Mark that they had been praying about the CD and that God basically had told them to help design and produce copies of the album. We were blown away and a few months later Lester had designed the CD cover and paid for the production of many thousands of CDs to fulfill the vision from God "to give it away". God even told Lester to name it "Be Still" as we had first called it Simply Worship. The funny part about this is that before Lester told me he felt God tell him it was to be called "Be Still" he did not know how to tell me. But again, God prepared the way. Two days before we were to meet and Lester was going to tell me, God spoke to me all day saying "Be Still". I did not know why, until 2 days later when I met Lester. So when he told me in the meeting about naming the CD "Be Still", I simply laughed and said how wonderful God is, as He had already told me.

We believe that we have been given this as a gift and are responsible for giving it to God's people so that is why "Be Still" is given away freely. We know God moves through what He has given as we have been blessed and encouraged as God has allowed us to hear hundreds of stories of how He has touched people in so many different ways as they listen.

At this point we must stress that "Be Still" is not about Steve and I, we were simply the recipients of something God gave through is. God could have sent this gift to any flautist and pianist so it humbles us that He sent it through us. May we always stay that way.

We would suggest that you try and listen to the CD all in one go as that is how we received it.

Please send the link on to others. We were told by the Lord to give this music away and we are being obedient to that but we also need people to help us. This is not about promotion, BUT ALL ABOUT THE LORD. If you have folks who do not know the Lord (yet), please send it on to them. We find that because it is instrumental worship people who normally would not listen to Christian songs, are happy to listen to it and the Lord does what He wants to do.

The fourth track on the player is a new one I recorded at home (on 5th Sept 07). It is a new short melody that has been with me everytime I pick up one of my new instruments that I have had for a few months, a Native American Flute. When I initially listened to it and looking through the Psalms the verse that stood out for me was Psalm 46 v 10 "Be Still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

I would love if you could listen to it and wait for what God says to you through it (its track 4 on the player). I think there is a message in it. I would love to hear your thoughts, God's prompting to you.

The last track on the play list above is Amazing Grace which was recorded in my house into a sony minidisc recorder in my kitchen using a Moeck Alto wood recorder. I just love the words of Amazing Grace and the music.

I live in Ireland and I am married to my beautiful wife Julie and have two wonderful daughters Hannah and Rebekah (their picture is under "Raymond" in photos).

God's richest blessings
Raymond
www.christianflute.com

Raymond:

I am a writer in Arizona and it already well into the 110's here. I am also disabled with MS, which reacts very poorly in the heat. Not to mention the fact that I have a huge and wonderful oppotunity tomorrow to share my remarkable gift of grace and healing with another non-profit ministry staff tomorrow, and if they learn from and enjoy my gift of words (speaking is my forte moreso than writing, though I was an English teacher for 16 years before I got MS) about my recovery from a horrible one-year addiction to cocaine a the end of my PhD program back east, they may use my book, The Other Woman at the Well and me as a speaker to help every young woman who comes to them homeless, pregnant, seeking help and hope. Most of them are addicts who have been using during all or most of the pregnancy, and though they must be 18 to enter this program, the average age is only 23. Many have had other children previously and have either given them away or had the state remove them. This time the agency is trying to show them a better way. To have them turn their lives over to the Lord and look to him to guide their steps rather than an abusive dealer or boyfriend or worse (if it gets any worse than a drug dealer, I'm not sure having read only Dante's levels of depravation and that long ago in college).

In my ministry, I am committed to helping addicts and their families, particularly their children (though I must admit, I've never had an audience of unborn children before) in any way I am led. I never charge to speak to a civic club or church, to a school or district staff to enlighten them about the realities of addiction in our world, in our children, often in our homes. Christians particularly think that such a thing cannot happen in their home, but Raymond and any who see this, I was the eldest daughter of a protestant minister. How do you think I learned to speak without fear? I was a professor of speech communication, but truly only said words until I came through the healing fire of recovering from a nearly fatal addiction. It took me 12 years to gather the courage to tell my story, and when I did, it flowed from me in only 2 1/2 weeks. It was published a month later and available online just days after that. As you might imagine... this just doesn't happen in America anyway. I know God had been nudging me forward, patiently, lovingly. Jer. 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord... "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future." I have often wondered why someone as sheltered and loved as I could fall into complete and utter dependence on an expensive little bag of white powder that I used first through my nose, then as a suppository inside my vitamin capsule when my face hurt so much I would wake to screams and find they were my own... on those rare occasions I slept. My dealer took me to a Dr. friend of his who told me I had to take it the way Sigmund Freud had, in the vein. I was terrified, but he was a Dr. He said he could save me if it went badly.

How could he possibly have saved me when he took the next injection and landed beside me passed out on the filthy bathroom floor of his brownstone? For about 8 seconds, it was truly euphoric -- inexplicably fabulous. Nothing could compare. But then, it was terrifying. Cocaine and meth addicts die when they lose the involuntary ability to breathe. So passing out is a very bad idea. Patrick taught me to count to 3, and force air in, and then to 6 and force air out. I was unable to stand, to speak, to call for help so many times. And sometimes my cats would jump on my chest and literally scream into my nose and mouth on the count of 3. Once it was a dog I was caring for; more like he was caring for me. I came to with his huge head on mine, his body wrapped around mine like a warm fur coat. He was crying in my ear as loud as he could and I threw my arms around him and thanked him for not letting me die.

God had a purpose and plan for me that had nothing to do with merely surviving the fall. I lost almost everything before I decided to stop. I prayed one night for God to just give me a reason to live, I didn't care what it was.

By then I'd been shipped home to my family in AZ. My parents met the plane with a wheelchair to transport my 84 pound frame straight to the hospital where I remained for 13 weeks, endured 31 surgeries and skin grafts... my skin had died from the acid in the drug and had fallen out in black clumps. You could see bone in each limb. I truly did not care if I lived or died. But something in me fought. It would have been so much easier to close my eyes and just go home. I believe I was saved, I prayed all the time. I knew I was dreadful in my own sight and others' I'm sure (when anyone saw me), but still precious in His. How I yearned to go there.

But my purpose was here first. I had to live. I had to nearly die so many times. I had to tell this story, because God heard that prayer. He opened a door I'd never thought possible. When I finally got to treatment there was a young, handsome man there who thought I was beautiful. Of course, it's not entirely his fault. He is blind in one eye and has no peripheral vision. He saw the center of me. He and I prayed together -- we asked for a sign that angels walk among us as he did not believe and I knew they did for a fact. We opened our eyes and both saw, across that desert landscape a Mesquitte tree in front of the full moon, and in the highest branch sat a little girl angel, radiant and full faced.

Brian believed. When I finally graduated their 30 day program in 87 days (not bad for an A student with an embarrassingly high IQ), something in me longed to rejoin the world. I got a job teaching the next day and started the day after that. I made friends when almost all of mine had disappeared, terrified they would watch me die.

That was in August. In Sept. I knew that Brian had to rebuild his life on his own as did I. I asked him to move out of my apt. I'd long before that lost my lovely home and all my savings, my fabulous job, my looks, about 65 inches of skin... I hadn't had a menstrual cycle in well over two years by then. In Oct. I learned I was pregnant.

I might have hurt me again. I was an addict. But never would I have hurt that precious child who I knew was sent in answer to my prayer.

All day today I've yelled at, nagged, coerced and begged that 12-year-old angel child to clean her room, make her bed, clean up after her dog and all day she has ignored me. I kept hearing in my head, "Jude, be still. Don't worry. I'm with you tomorrow and I'm with you now. She'll do it -- she knows. It helps nothing when you yell. Be still."

I finally answered my blogsite's comments and found you at the top, your gorgeous Godspeak music soothing my tired head, easing my tensed shoulders, feeding her as she wasted her entire day. We seem only able to communicate at high decibals. I've said I will take away her dog if she does not run the Aust. Sheperd 2 - 3x a day, feed and water her, clean up her poop each week or day (that's what I would do -- immediately, but never were two people wired more crossways than my daughter and me). So, if she fails in these, I have to do as I've said I will do. I don't WANT to give away the dog. I love the dog. But she's still young, she needs out. I know it's hot. But my mother would no more have let me lie around all day doing nothing, taking my meals in my bedroom than she'd have let me run naked down the traintracks. It would not have been an issue: we were out with our dog, running and biking and playing. She had to beg us to come in.

I am getting all worked up again. I shall pray that I might be still, be a worthy servant tomorrow so that I may over the months and years ahead write more books, speak to more groups, motivate more kids never, ever to risk losing even the skin of their bodies and everything else... might these women hear and see the truth in me, might they come to believe that my purpose was to live and share my story so that I might come to meet them and their babies. That God has given them a fresh start -- it takes 2 full years for the dopamine to refill in the addict's brain... that for me was 1 month getting ready and set (job, declaring bankruptcy for the hundreds of thousands of medical bills, then having money saved to actually buy us a tidy 3 bedroom home one mile away from my parents. Nine months to carry Olivia, and 14-15 to nurse her and that would be two years. The experts said I'd never feel happy in those 2 years, and I did use to say why did God Save me? So I could scoop the cat poop and rotate the tires for the rest of my life? Or now, so I could pester my child to scoop the dog AND cat poop, I'll handle the tires. But also, so I could grow into His plan,His purpose. So my scars might help others heal.

Olivia Grace: God's gift I did not deserve, but He gave her to me anyway. In spite of my tendency to race through the unpleasant so I can enjoy the aftermath. Please join me in praying that I don't have to give away her puppy to get through to her: me stubborn, adolescent angel.

Thank you for writing to me. Thank you for the lovely music. Now I need Olivia to show me how to put it in my iTunes library. I haven't a clue. Maybe that's the trade-off.

Please pray for my ministry (www.addictionovercome.com) as I will for yours. I am lucky that I am disabled and have the time to prepare her meals, to take her each place she needs to be. To be able to write and speak and travel and use the internet highway to travel to all corners of the earth, sharing my little piece of the puzzle. We must love one another; we must first love Him who teaches us to love ourselves as we love our children; as He firs loved us.

Be still,

Judith Ann Hillard