Vicky Beeching and I Invade the Hood To Coast

In about six hours, I’m going to be hitting the road for my first leg of the Hood to Coast, the largest relay in the world. When all is said and done, my team of twelve will have run 197 miles in less than 30 hours of non-stop running. Of those, I am responsible for nearly 18.

So at approximately 9.30pm, I will step out of the van, warm up, stretch, and queue up Eternity Invades by Vicky Beeching on my player. You see, throughout my training for the relay, Eternity Invades has been my jogging soundtrack. When I head out the door, I queue it up on Rhapsody and let it play.

My introduction to this album fell fairly quickly upon my return from the All About Worship Retreat (www.worshipretreat.org). At first, I just wanted an excuse to listen to the album and evaluate it without too many distractions. But it wasn’t too long before it was my album-of-choice for personal worship. I was ripe for an album of worship music that had a depth of lyrical content and authenticity – this one fit the bill.

Eternity Invades offers at least three anchor songs: Deliverer, Breath of God, and Glory to God Forever. I found that I gravitated towards these tracks and looked forward to their location in the queue. Deliver was especially motivating as I climbed that awful one-mile hill.

In the midst of my listening, Break Our Hearts became my theme song. It’s a challenge to Christians to step beyond platitudes and to move into action. For me, it is a constant reminder to live the life I have dedicated to Christ and that faith is not a bumper sticker.

Vicky is great at pulling scriptural references into songs without making them unnecessarily heavy. In other words, you don’t feel bludgeoned with clumsy, inelegant lyrics. As such, one can easily visualize many of these tracks making their way into your worship set.

Now before I sound too “rah rah!” about the album, it’s not perfect. Sonically, it can be sometimes difficult to differentiate one song from another - I’d like to hear stronger hooks. I’d like the production to step outside the standard fare. I think Vicky’s songs deserve production as unique as she is. Maybe she can talk to the guys who produced Joel Augé’s recent offering, Invisible Things, another album I’ll be queuing up for my 6:30am 7-miler tomorrow morning.

If you don’t own Eternity Invades, do yourself a favor and pick it up. You could do much worse, and I expect that you’ll come away inspired. In the meantime, if you’re awake tonight at 10.15pm, as I’m entering the fifth mile of my leg, consider saying a quick prayer for me. I’ll be worshiping with Vicky on a dark road with 12,000 runners, hands raised in the air.