fellowship, amazing bands, God speaking...means life is good

ahh, sunday evening.





sitting in bed with my toe socks on, a white mocha next to the bed, and blogger in front of me.  life is good :)





i have to say that this weekend has been nothing short of amazing.

friday i went into work, which wasn't half bad.  only a couple of us were in the office working on a project, and i stuffed myself with donuts while we all made fun of the horrible versions of Christmas songs on the radio.





after i went home, i was feeling kind of down, so i laid in bed and hoped i would fall asleep sooner rather than later (it was only 5pm).  but fortunately, my friend, nicolle, texted me, inviting me to hang out, which i happily agreed to.  we met 3 friends of hers at a mall nearby who all ended up being amazing christian women!  the entire evening, conversations of redemption and love filled the air.  we grabbed dinner at this little french cafe in the mall, then went out to one of the girl's car and took pictures and they showed me and nicolle all kinds of awesome Christian music.





i'll admit, i felt a bit out of place most of the evening, but only because they immediately accepted me into their circle of friends.  i don't think i've ever had that before, so i was unsure how to be.  more than anything though, they inspired me as i saw their love for Jesus pour out of them.  what a difference from so many Christians i've met throughout my lifetime.





anyways, we were out late and we all exchanged numbers before parting ways and agreed to meet up again soon.  it felt good.





yesterday (saturday), i worked again and then drove out to whittier to see sleep for sleepers LIVE FINALLY!  and it was amazing.  it was an acoustic show, but that was made it so wonderful.





the entire show was actually set up at this tiny little church and all the proceeds were going to help this girl, alex, go on a mission trip to india, which was awesome.  they packed only about a hundred people in the place. and every other person had someone there to talk to, so, second evening in a row i felt a bit out of place, but boy, was it worth it. :)





the first artist was this girl, brenda abel.  she kept messing up and saying she was nervous, but i don't know why because she was amazing!  she played a couple songs on both the piano and guitar and it was all fantastic.





after her was a folk type band called pithy sweet and they were fantastic, as well.  they had the most unique sound and i really enjoyed it.





third, the lead singer from the workday release played guitar by himself.  his set was perfect and the lyrics were amazing; all deep and God-inspired.  i ended up buying a bunch of their stuff on iTunes afterwards.





and last but MOST important was sleep for sleepers.  actually, it was mostly just jamey price (the lead singer) by himself with his guitar.  and it was a life-changing set for me.  i felt like the whole world could've stopped and i never would've known.  i don't think i moved one muscle the entire 45 minutes they played because i was absolutely captivated.  it was one of those musical experiences that feels so good it hurts.  have you ever had one of those?  the way jamey sang and the sound of the guitar and just every part of it made me want to capture every moment that passed.  it was absolutely amazing.  how they are acoustically doesn't even compare to how they normally are, in my opinion.  anyways, it was amazing.





my favorite two songs he did were actually covers and neither song i had heard before.  one was "california" by copeland and the other was "photographs" by lakes.





"All the years tracked by photographs in albums
Takes us back to the day we fell in love.
A photograph of a conversation.





We watched the sun as it came up this morning

And had a dream of growing old.
And we'll have love as our way.
And we could talk about the world
Oh, we could sing about the rain
And we could laugh until we cry.
Oh, we'll be in love.
And love would be our way.
Oh, and we'll see it everyday
And when we laugh and when we cry
Oh, love will always be our way.





-Lakes "Photographs"





the above song actually made me want to weep, but i had to refrain.  "california" was amazing, too.  but the disappointing part of it was, coming home to listen to the original versions and realize that they weren't even close to jamey's covers!  





ahh, regardless.  it was an absolutely wonderful evening, and if i could relive it, i would.





for some reason i woke up early today (try 8am), so i killed a couple hours by cruising through half of the last season of roseanne.  once i decided to be productive, i went to the gym and then to target to go shopping.  i bought some boots, a new straightener (which i'm only telling you about because i love it so much!) and some magical face wash and face cream that told me  those are the only things i'll need for my entire beauty regimen.  i'm anxious to find out whether or not they are lying to me.





once i came home, i showered and took a nap.  ate some chips and salsa, watched some brad stine, then went to freechapel for church.  another wonderful evening.  i sat with nicolle and her mom.  the worship was wonderful, and then some woman came and spoke (i forget her name, but she was associated with hillsong in australia!) about perspective.  and how big our God is and how He can do anything and if we can only change our perspective from temporal to eternal, anything can happen.  it just all weighs on our perspective, as with the 12 spies in the book of numbers.  10 of them did not enter the promised land because their perspective was temporal.  it was a great message and the woman could speak!





she also showed a short video about a human trafficking organization she started:  http://www.thea21campaign.org





i guess a lot of the offerings from freechapel go to support this organization.  it was cool to hear about how our eternal God stepped in with A21 also.  she told about it all started, when God put it on her heart to help with sex trafficking in eastern europe and a lot of "experts" told her that it couldn't be done because a lot of outside factors.  and so she quoted numbers 13:





²⁶ They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷ They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. ²⁸ But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. ²⁹ The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

 ³⁰ Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”





she smiled and ran around on stage as she was reading it and finished by saying that she'll let those experts tell God what He can and can't do and we'll see who wins :) it was AWESOME.  gives me chills just writing about it.  and i guess since then, they've set up shelters, saved hundreds of girls, and are doing more as we speak.  how cool is that?





it was such a cool night and always a blessing to be able to attend a church filled with believers chasing after God. 





all in all, it was a wonderful weekend, and every moment and experience was desperately needed.  i'm thankful that God knows me so well and is wonderful enough to take care of me, even if not always deserving.  it's cool to see how many things i've been able to see/do/experience while being in southern california.  i think i have been taking that for granted and i'd like to take this moment to say that i truly am thankful for the blessings that God has rained upon me and for all the little ways that He ministers to my searching human heart.  how very lucky i am.





p.s. sometimes my posts have a lot of spaces between paragraphs?  i don't know why and no matter what i try, i can't figure out how to fix it!  i would like my blogs to look more neat and tidy, but it doesn't always work that way, so i have to work with what it gives me.  anyways, it's driving me crazy, hence the explanation :)