Signs & Wonders Blog

While many Americans today have their minds on the Super Bowl, pop music historians remember this being the anniversary of “The Day the Music Died.” Originating from Don McLean’s classic hit “American Pie”, that phrase summarized a horrific event that happened sixty years ago.  On February 3rd, 1959, a chartered airplane crashed in a frozen field near Mason City, Iowa killing rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. This tragedy has been of particular interest to me since their next concert would have been in Moorhead, Minnesota, the city where I grew up. The concert site was only five blocks from the house I would spend most of my childhood. One of the performers who filled in for the deceased musicians was Robert Velline, who went on to a successful career as Bobby Vee. My late father went to high school with Bobby and shared an art class with him. Vee himself died a couple of years ago due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease.  Technicall...

This past Friday marked the 40th anniversary of a tragedy . On October 20th, 1977, an airplane carrying the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd plus their crew ran out of fuel and crashed in a swampy area near McComb, Mississippi. Most of the passengers were seriously injured. Six people died including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and his sister Cassie Gaines who was a backup vocalist. Three days before, the band released their album “Street Survivors.” The cover eerily depicted the musicians engulfed in flames. There’s some things we can learn from  this incident . First, our words affect our destiny. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” Ronnie Van Zant prophesied his own death. Former bandmate Artimus Pyle recalled a moment when Lynyrd Skynyrd toured Japan and Ronnie told him that he would never live to see thirty. Van Zant's father, Lacy, heard his son say many times, “Daddy, I'll never be 30 years old…that's ...