This morning I openend my e-mail and go this. It is from a songwriter from Chicago Ill. who did one of my workshops a year ago. The conversation was on postitive verses negative songs.His wife had just died of cancer and he was raising four kids on his own. I guess he said it better than I ever could. This is the reason I am like I am.


Marc,

The first night you & I met. You talked about offering a rope of hope in songs for the listener. As the Good Lord would have it, your conversation & words of encouragement were what I needed to hear at an incredible tough time in my life. The honest truth is that each day is tough, but words of encouragement from friends, strangers, and the message in a song can be what gets us through our darkest of days.

I have often thought, why was it that a professional song writer would choose to leave Nashville and all his success there to come and meet with a group of song writers with dreams in Chicago. Maybe just maybe it was the Good Lord sending you to say those words of encouragement that our group needed to hear and maybe the words I truly needed to hear! Words of hope!

While I have a long way to go to write at a professional level, I write lyrically from the well of my soul!

Marc I am attaching the set of lyrics foe the song that you inspired me to write, it is called "Thread of Hope!" Sometimes a thread is all that we have to hold onto, but it is that thread that offers us hope!

I know it may need some work and may even need an overhaul. Let me know your thoughts. I wrote a bridge that I felt worked but then I had a second idea. A friend suggested the second bridge idea as the ending to the song.

The kids are great and make me proud every day! I know their mom looks down from heaven with a smile. The road is going to be bumpy for a while as the Circuit City Store I manage is liquidating with the announcement of the company's bankruptcy. I have been with Circuit City for over 15 years and it is going to be hard to say goodbye to the people I have come to love as family. I will miss them all. Ironically the store I manage opened on the very day my Wonderful & Amazing Wife Debbie was diagnosed with cancer. The store also began the liquidation during the 3rd year anniversary of Debbie's passing. Life can be plain hard!

The waters will be rough but I know in my heart that the Good Lord has a plan and the sun will shine again! A new chapter begins for the kids & I!

Sincerely,
Todd Shultz
Chicago, Ill.


That is what I am about. Touching lives. That is what I do.

MAB