I've never done this before...

Tonight I'm embarking on a first-time thing.

But first, we take a brief look back.

Take a peek of the
album list here

On my birthday blog, I listed the cool things that happened that day. #5 on that list was pretty much me living out a LifeGoal, when I had the chance to sing one of my favorite songs, "Arise and Be Comforted" by Watermark.

Some backstory: I first heard the song in college when I burned the album onto my laptop, which then found its way to my mp3 player. P.S. This album is on my top 5 all-time FAVORITE albums...it's that stinkin' good. Listen to it. You won't be disappointed.

Fast-forward to about a year ago: this song basically combines my two favorite groups in one song. Shane and Shane offer vocals in this song (their album Pages is phenomenal!) and Watermark is just...brilliant. If God allowed me to trade places with someone, I'd be all over it if He let me trade with Christy Nockels. She's a wife, mother, fantastic singer, worship leader (she's been featured on the Passion albums)--she's living the dream. I aspire to be like her musically; I consider her the Adele of praise and worship.

Anywho, I set a goal to one day sing this song, live. And almost every afternoon, I would pull the song up on my player and belt it out in the middle of the house. Part of it was because I simply LOVED the song, but in a musical sense, the song is in the high part of my range--I knew it would take some work to get it at least halfway-decent. But somehow, by God's awesomeness, He provided someone that had the talent to play this song (so again, 1000 thank you's to my accompanist, Michael)!

Jesus also planned it to where I was going to sing on my birthday, so the date came together and I was beyond thrilled. After some practice and continued prayer, my birthday came quicker than I knew it & sporting my amazing dress and a TON of anxiety, God allowed me to sing this song at church in front of my awesome church family and gave me the chance to offer the talent He gave me as a means to praise and worship Him.

It's something I usually do, but I take it a step further now, by taking the video recording and sharing it with all of y'all (many, many thanks to Chris for getting the video together)! A few years ago, my aunt wanted to hear me sing & I told her on Facebook that one day I would post something. And when I told my bud Britt about getting this song together, I told her that I was going to post it on YouTube...so Brittany and Tia Mary, this is for you.

I hope you get a blessing out of this song. The lyrics are SPECTACULAR and uplifting. But as much as I'm beyond ecstatic to share this video, I hope at the end of the day that God got the glory.

So here it is...the world premiere of my performance :)