Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to the This Has to be God! blog! We're pretty amazed at what God is doing in our lives, starting with pulling together a lyricist from Texas and a musician from Romania to write songs for His glory. If you want to read the whole story of how we "met" and got started, you can click the "in the beginning" label down to the right. Or just click here.
Of course, we love feedback! You can leave a comment on any post on the blog, or you can e-mail us at thishastobeGod@psalm686.com.
Enjoy the blog, and may God richly bless you!

Friday, April 10, 2009

New Clips, New Song!

Hey, y'all! :) Haley here...
OK, I finally got clips of the *new* versions of the Dancing in the Rain and Love Did demos in the little player over to the right. So, if you want to hear them, click on that.
Also--there's a clip of a brand new (well, new last week anyway!) song called Choose to Worship. The demo for this one was mixed by Raluca, she did the instrumentation of course, and the vocals are done by a friend of hers, Valentin Muresan. Check it out, they did a great job! :)

A couple things to note about the playlist:
One, the songs are in the order in which they were written--Desert Places, Dancing in the Rain, Love Did, and then Choose to Worship. Also, I have it set to *not* autoplay, so if you want to listen to the songs you need to click the play button (the triangle at the bottom of the player). And, once you've set it to play, it will keep playing, repeating the clips, until you tell it to stop.

May the Lord bless each of you richly, and may you have a great weekend as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and King!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Happy Easter!

Hello this is Raluca! I haven't been able to post lately, but Haley encouraged me to share this with y'all :)

I'm going to play this song (and others as well) in a concert Saturday night and I did a quick recording of Via Dolorosa.

Here's the link
http://www.trilulilu.ro/sigsoundfan/0338eac3a790db

Happy Easter!

P.S. In my language (Romanian) we don't say "Happy Easter", we say: "Christ Is Risen!" and the reply is not "Happy Easter to you yoo", it's "Indeed He Is Risen!" :)

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Ephesians 3:20-21

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

I think if we had a theme verse, this would have to be it. Not only is God able to do so much more than I could ever imagine (and I have a great imagination! :) ), but He is doing more than I ever dreamed. I just wanted to write songs; He wanted to have me write songs--with someone on another continent! When we give our God-sized dreams to God, He makes them even bigger. And then He makes them come true! How great is our God!!! To Him, and Him alone, be all the glory and honor for anything good that comes from our lives, and specifically from our songs!

Father, You have been so good to us! And Your goodness just keeps on pouring...I am so amazed and humbled by Your work in our lives! Thank You, thank You, thank You, and may You receive all the glory!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Recording fun :)

Hey, all, this is Haley...Saturday, my family and I went out to some friends' house to play, fellowship, meet their newest baby...and record new demos! :) Mr. Astle graciously allowed us to come out and use his "studio" to make some good demos of Love Did and Dancing in the Rain. Well, he actually did all the "making"; we just sang! :) I had a great time! And, I figured I'd share some of the pictures with y'all.

*note: just in case anyone cares...none of these were actually taken while we were singing because the mic would have picked up the clicking sound on the camera. :)*

Momma sang the back-up tracks


Me :)


Our enthralled audience...my dad!


And, last but certainly NOT least, Mr. Astle, our host and "producer" :)

Many, many thanks to Mr. Astle for doing the demos for us, to Mrs. Astle for feeding us (she is a really good cook! :) ), and to the Astle kids for playing with the boys while we were recording. Y'all are the best, we love you guys!
We'll get clips of the new demos put in the playlist on here soon!