Ruth the Moabite and Bev the Songwriter

One of my favorite books in the Bible is Ruth.

Ruth was a courageous, hard working woman with no sense of entitlement. I was reading in Ruth where the widow Ruth has returned to Bethlehem from her own country of Moab to live the rest of her life with her widowed mother-in-law. She immediately goes to work in the fields to provide for them and in the verse below the other workers describe Ruth's work ethic to their boss Boaz, who also happened to be an eligible bachelor! Be sure to read the whole book of Ruth to find out if the bachelor finds himself a good woman!

"She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter" Ruth 2:7

Today I had a creative meeting with Bev, a songwriter I am working with, and we went over a song that she had done a major rewrite on, her second major rewrite of the song.

She had made tremendous progress on the song and I asked her how much time in the last week she had worked on the song. She said about 12-15 hours! And that was just this past week, not considering the time it took for her to write the first and second drafts of the song.

She said she would spend a couple hours on two or three lines, she listened to a lot of songs to analyze what made them work and applied these findings to her song and when her kids were watching TV she would go in the next room and keep working on the song.

It is exciting to see Bev's passion for the PROCESS of songwriting and her commitment to investing in the WORK of songwriting.

Next week I am participating in the Christian Musicians Summit Songwriter Bootcamp at the Chapel in Buffalo, New York and will be giving a workshop on the Art and Work of Songwriting. I look forward to sharing this example of a songwriter who is going out into the field and WORKING steadily from morning til night! Great songwriting doesn't just happen - it takes a tremendous amount of tenacity and WORK - did I happen to mention what a delight it is to be a songwriter's champion!!!!!

Keep at it, keep working the field and keep trusting God to bring about fruit that lasts!