Loverly Pets :)

I entered a photo-editing contest on Facebook this evening.
The theme was “Pets” -and these are my entries.

 

 

In Honor…

“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” 
~Cynthia Ozick

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. 
It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” 
~G.K. Chesterton

 

“When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen.”
~George Washington

 

Thank you to all of the people who have served and who have died
to protect our country and our freedom.

God is GREAT!

This is my first post on my new blog, as I’m sure you can see. I’m going to start off with a bang and talk about a very exciting thing that has happened to me .

 

Last night, November 6th, Casting Crowns was in Virginia Beach, VA.

As soon as I found out they were coming (that was last summer) I’d been wanting to go, desperately! Days turned into weeks turned into months, and next thing I knew the concert was less than two weeks away and I hadn’t gotten tickets yet. I prayed that God would work some way out that I and my parents would be able to go. A few days later I was able to get paid and had enough to get tickets –and I found enough people who wanted to go, as well, that we could get the group discount. I was SO excited and so thankful that God worked all that out.

But He didn’t stop there.

 

I assume most people reading this are familiar with Twitter. I follow Mark Hall (and all the other band members) on Twitter, and he does a thing

Tweeting while in line at the concert

he calls “Tweet&Greet” -he tweets, you tweet back, and you win two tickets and two meet & greets for the show. I was thinking it would be pretty cool if I could win it for our area, so I watched closely the whole week before the concert. Sure enough, the day before the concert (Thursday) he did his tweet&greet – and I won it! I could hardly believe it! As you can imagine, I was even more excited at that point.

Mom and Me

Friday night came, and when I got the tickets and passes I discovered that the two tickets I had won were gold circle –not regular. Another blessing! We had to wait a while for them to open the doors, and since ours (my mom and me) were gold circle, we had to stand in a different line.

Once they opened the doors we grabbed some seats – 8th row! Then we went to the gathering point for the meet&greet. There were a lot of people there for it, I was surprised to find. We went upstairs and all stood in a long line, and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, the band came out, minus Mark Hall, who was on strict vocal rest until the actual concert (he’s been sick). They went down the line and I got to shake hands and meet them all, but only got four signatures. I’m a chicken, and I only got those because Mom asked for me. They were all very nice and it was a cool experience, albeit awkward at more than one point. And I’m not just talking about the pressure of meeting someone “famous” -I’m also talking about the dude next to me who kept backing into me. See the guy behind me in the blue sweatshirt here?

Meet and Greet

I’m not sure why, if maybe the girl talking to him had bad breath, or what, but as we were waiting he kept getting closer and closer to me, until at one point I was standing completely sideways to avoid touching him. That didn’t last long before he started hitting me with his elbow while texting. More than once. I felt a little invisible at the point – did he not feel that he was hitting something?? Finally someone took his picture and made him move away, toward his friends, so I had a chance to move again. But as soon as the picture was over, he was right up next to me again. What craziness!

We got downstairs a few minutes before the concert started and found where Dad and the others were sitting before going to our own seats. Matt Redman came out first.

I don’t have any of his CDs, but I’ve liked every song of his I’ve heard. He did an awesome job leading in worship- I can’t even begin to express how great it was. After him, of course, came Casting Crowns. Even though Mark has had issues with his voice, he was able to sing very well and sang a lot of songs. I was glad .

Lifesong

Who Am I?

Voice of Truth

I think my favorite song of theirs is “Set Me Free” -here’s a picture from when they sang that song. (The words on the screen are a little strange, but look up the lyrics if you don’t know them. It’s an awe-some song.)

Set Me Free

They also had Matt Redman come back out once or twice to sing along again.

 

You Never Let Go

They sang several new songs, and one of them, Precious Redeemer, has been deemed my favorite song on their new album. Melodee sang it, and she has such a beautiful voice. The old hymn was redone with a new tune and it sounded gorgeous.

I just can’t get over how awesome God was to provide for me to be able to go–and not just go, but to be able to do the meet and greet and get awesome seats like that for free.

He’s truly great