Peter Pan

Howdy y'all. How are you doing this Friday? Excited for the weekend? I am so busy today and tomorrow I am almost dreading it even though all of the stuff I am going to is going to be so much fun.
Have any of you ever heard of Kelsea Ballerini? She is one of the new country artist that are all coming out at once and making it huge. Her debut single was 'Love Me Like You Mean It' and it went number 1. Something that has not happened to females in country music since Carrie Underwood with 'Jesus Take The Wheel'. Kelsea is in the country music genre, but she sounds more like pop. Because she plays on my radio though, I fell in love with her music. Her second single was 'Dibs' which went number 1 as well and in my opinion was better than her first. And now, if I have my facts right, her next single is going to be 'Peter Pan'. This song, I can't even begin to explain it. I love it so much that is brought tears to my eyes the first time I hear it. No, I did not cry but my eyes got wet. I have never been in a relationship before, but I love songs about them. Mostly songs about break-ups are my favorite. This is a break-up song. It has the mournful sound to it of loneliness which I love because it sounds beautiful, I have mixed emotions with songs like this. Please give it a listen.

And for anyone who cares, here is a link to the guitar chords for it, Ultimate Guitar . And there is also a tab for the awesome guitaring in the solo guitar parts of the song, Ultimate Guitar Tab
Anyways, God bless you guys and have a great weekend!
Rebekah

Fear Not, For I Am With You

Hey guys, I am on a blog writing roll right now. Better keep it up, hey?

So this is the second part the my last post Our Eyes Are On You even though I just realized, I threw away my notes from that sermon! Now I am going to have to use my brain and try to remember most of what he said.

And he said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God's.
2 Chronicles 20:15

What to do when we do not know what to do. The first part was pray. The second part is trust.
Trusting is hard to do sometimes. Trust is like what you do with a chair. When you go to sit on it, you trust it is going to hold all of your weight. God is the chair, we are to fully put our weight on Him and trust that He will take care of you and take care of the problem. We have a tendency to fear even though we put are trust in an Almighty God. "Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde" is what God says to do. Jehoshaphat and all of Jerusalem were all going to be killed anytime soon and they were commanded to not be afraid. I think God means to know He is in control and that there is nothing to worry about because He is going to protect you. You won't be able to stop yourself from being fearful, but just know God has control of it. Know that there is no reason to be afraid. A good friend emailed me this verse because I told her about a problem in my life right now that I am really scared of and it fits really well with this.

...fear not, for I am with you;
    be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10

God promises to give you strength and He promises to help you. As we have already learnt, He does NOT break His promise. He is OUR God, OUR strength, and OUR help, that is just about as good as it gets right there folks.
Last of all, "For the battle is not yours but God's.". We don't have to fight and fight and seem like we are not getting anywhere. God is saying, "I have it. You just listen for me to tell you what to do next." We can wear ourselves out and not go anywhere because we are doing it by ourselves. When God is right there ready to take the load and ready to show you what to do next so He can work. God works miracles everyday so like, let Him handle it.
I hope this makes sense and I didn't just ramble off.
God bless you all and have a great Saint Patrick's day!
Rebekah

Our Eyes Are On You

Hey everyone. How are you all doing? Probably awesome because I have two blog post, two days in a row for you guys! (Please note the sarcasm)
Last Sunday we had a guest speaker at our church and did God ever speak through him. I would like to share what I can with you guys.

After this the Moabites and Ammonites, and with them some of the Meunites, came against Jehoshaphat for battle. ² Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, “A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea; and, behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar”,that is, Engedi. ³ Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. ⁴ And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.

⁵ And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, ⁶ and said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. ⁷ Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? ⁸ And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, ⁹ ‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’ ¹⁰ And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy— ¹¹ behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. ¹² O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
¹³ Meanwhile all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.
2 Chronicles 20:1-13

Lots to read, sorry guys! So he started out this sermon by asking a question, or more like a statement, what to do when you don't know what to do. Times are tough, and if they aren't right now for you, they will get there soon. And in that time when there seems to be nothing that can be done we wonder, what can be done, what do I do? There were 3 things. Pray, trust, and worship. Today we are going to look at pray. The first thing to do is to remember God's past. Look at verses 5-7. Jehoshaphat just learnt that two and a half groups of people were coming to attack those in Jerusalem. He was afraid, he admitted it in verse 3. But, he remembered God had provided before. If God has saved us before He will do it again. Read Psalm 77:11-13,
¹¹ I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
    yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
¹² I will ponder all your work,
    and meditate on your mighty deeds.
¹³ Your way, O God, is holy.
    What god is great like our God?
God has parted the Red Sea for Moses and the Israelites, He held the mouths shut on the lions for Daniel, He guided the stone to hit Goliath's head for David and whatever else you guys can think of. He has helped us before and He will do it again. Don't ever think God can't do it because He can.
Next is to remember that it's the Lord's Church. Look at verses 8-11. We are His, He is ours. He makes promises, and He will always keep them. He won't just watch us suffer, He will help us because we are His. He loves His church, His children.
Last, is to remember to turn your eyes to Him. Look at verse 12, but look mostly at the last line. "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You." Don't search up something on the computer for help, don't only just go to people who are smart and know lots. You have to go to God for help. Fix your eyes on Jesus, not you. We need to learn how to follow Him because we can't lead God. Read His word, listen to His voice, He will show you. He knows what is going to happen next and He knows how to solve it. We don't know what is going to happen next and we don't know how to solve it. So, it is either Him or you. We aren't great and mighty and never will be, but God is and always will be.
I hope it made sense. The pastor said it so much better.
God bless you all!
Rebekah

 

Harry Connick Jr.

Hey guys, I am still living. I keep wanting to write, but I never know what to say. Then I remembered, I didn't start this blog just to write sermons all the time. We got to have some fun too.
If any of you know who Harry Connick Jr. is you will know he is not country. He is actually jazz. I personally love his music. It is so much fun and adds a skip in your step and for the most part it is pretty clean. The main part of this post is that, I AM GOING TO SEE HIM IN NASHVILLE IN JUNE AT THE RYMAN! My awesome grandma takes all of us grandkids on a trip anywhere we want to go in this world when we turn 16. I chose Nashville because of CMA Fest which involves lots of free concerts from awesome people, like Hunter, and plus, I love Nashville. We are also going to do a little road trip to New Orleans and Breaux Bridge which is where Hunter was born. While we are there Harry is doing a concert at the Ryman. Like, the classic Ryman, the original Grand Old Opry. Anyways, for people who know me, I love American Idol. And there is one judge that was favorite when they got him and that was Harry. Well I love Keith Urban too, but I have already known about him forever. I didn't realize right away that Harry was actually a singer and then my mom told me that he has been singing forever and that she used to always listen to his music. That threw me off because, I thought he was only like 30 years old... He is 48. Anyways, I searched up his music and totally got into it especially his new stuff which I am going to share with you guys.

This song, let me just tell you it is great. It makes you happy and you want to dance.

Where Prisoners Drown isn't a happy song, but I still want to dance to it.

This song starts out slow which made me almost not buy it. Then it got to the chorus, so make sure you give it a chance.
So, give these songs a listen. They are all from his album, That Would Be Me which is his newest one. I haven't bought the actual CD yet, but my birthday is coming up... *hint,hint family who reads this*... haha!
Go bless you all and have a great rest of this Tuesday,
Rebekah