Wednesday Worship: Angels We Have Heard On High

Not yet in the Christmas spirit? Listen to this version of Angels We Have Heard On High by Pentatonix. This should certainly push you over the Christmas edge.

I'm late to the Pentatonix party, but I just love the a capella renditions from this group.

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: I Love The Lord

Grammy-award winning artist Natalie Grant singing an all-time favorite, I Love the Lord, at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the March on Washington.

I can't hear this one enough!

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Breathe Into Me

Peace & Blessings, Patricia

Wednesday Worship: It's Already Done

It's done
What I shall be, I already am
It's done.
God has worked it out on my behalf
My eyes may not see it.
By faith, I receive it.
It will manifest,
It's already done.

Thanking Hubby for pointing me to this one.  We're big believers in resting in the Word of God and encouraging ourselves.  For the world will do everything it can to discourage us, to tear us down, to knock us off our divinely determined paths, to contaminate our faith with doubt and disbelief...  You know what I'm saying.  We often use music that affirms the Word in our spirits.

This is a great pick-me-up, affirmation song.

How do you affirm what you know God has already said, already done even when you don't see or haven't received the fruits yet?

Wednesday Worship: I AM

I AM the ultimate,
Sacrified for sin,
I AM your redeemer,
The beginning and the end.

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Forgiveness

My heart remains heavy in light of the Travyon Martin verdict.  Honestly, I'm both saddened and angry.  Very angry.

I want this verdict to be a beginning, not an end.  A beginning of increased voter participation, increased eye on state legislation, increased civic duty by way of sitting on juries, etc.

I want the nation to go through the pain and agony that it will take to come to terms with its albatross of race relations.

I want to know my boys are safe.

But...

I know what God is calling each and everyone of us who wants five minutes with George Zimmerman to do.  It's called forgiveness.

Forgiveness is hard.

It requires us to let go off our anger.

It requires us to accept the same imperfect humanity in ourselves in others.

It requires love.

I'm not there.  Gotta be honest.  That's the truth.

But this song from Matthew West, Forgiveness, reminds me what I'm called to do:

Don't know how long it will take.  Please be patient with me.

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Testimony

Can't nobody tell it like me,
Can't nobody say it like me,
You don't know the story like me,
It's my, it's my testimony

Can't praise Him like me, say,
Can't nobody praise Him for me,
He's given me the victory
And now I got a, I got a testimony.

Love, love the words of this song from Anthony Brown & group therAPy (their spelling), not to mention the bouncy groove.

Bouncing and testimony all wrapped up together?  Love it.  Because your testimony should lift you up, like a buoy atop the sea, and thereby lift others.

When I think of the goodness of Jesus and all that He's done for me...

Do you have a testimony?  Are you bouncing with it?

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Jesus Will

Who opens doors that I cannot see?
Who will make all my decisions for me?

He'll fight my battles,
If I keep still.

I know that He will,
Jesus will.

More from gospel singer Anita Wilson, a jazzy remake of a James Cleveland classic.

Isn't there some peace in knowing?

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia

Wednesday Worship: All About You

Through Christ I can do all things.
It really doesn't matter if the enemy 
Tries to harm me, no weapon formed shall be able to prosper.
I will let my light so shine so everyone can see, not me,
But He started a good work in me.
He shall complete it.

It's all about you, it's all about you
It's all about you,
About you, about you

Riding in the car with Hubby and this came on via his phone.  Had to look it up.  Already an Anita Wilson fan.  Now more so.

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Used

Take me, all that I am
Use me for your glory
Take me, I'm yours

A new voice on the gospel music scene, Marica Chisolm.  Reminds me a bit of Judy McAllister, renowned worship leader from West Angeles Church of God In Christ.

Wednesday Worship: Take Me To The King

Working through some challenges recently, this song echoed through my head for days.  Sometimes we have to surrender and literally lay our burdens--and ourselves--before The King.

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Let The Church Say Amen

I can't believe I didn't post this one before now.  As much as I love contemporary gospel and Christian music, Let The Church Say Amen, with that Hammond organ and piano accompaniment, takes me back to the "sound of church" from the days of my youth.  Oh, how I love that sound!

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Greater

I'm looking for greater...

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Worshiper In Me

We don't have great gospel radio in Tampa, but we've recently stumbled upon the Moody Urban Praise station online.  That station took us on an 18-hr roadtrip--36 hrs both ways--with very few repeats and just the type of gospel we'd been craving.  So I've got lots to share...

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Can't Even Imagine

I can't even imagine my life without You, Lord!

Wednesday Worship: An All-Star Tribute to James Cleveland

I haven't posted much because I'm working on a single website that will incorporate both this blog and my books blog.  Bringing the many sides of me together in one place.

But I had to post this.  You didn't go to church in the 1970s and 80s and not here at least one James Cleveland song each Sunday morning, whether it was the choir marching into the church on "We've Come This Far By Faith", singing "Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus" while marching around to put your offering in the basket, or the altar call selection of "Peace Be Still".

Enjoy this all-star tribute to the songwriting talents of James Cleveland that was performed at this year's Celebration of Gospel:

Note the other videos from the show are beneath this one, and I think the program automatically walks you through them.  So if you like, hang out and enjoy the praise party.

Praise Him!

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia

Wednesday Worship: Speak Lord

There are times when you need the Lord to speak directly into your Spirit--to give direction, to encourage, to remind, even to chastise.

If you find yourself in one of these moments, still yourself and hear His voice.

Speak, Lord!

Worship: I Will Make The Darkness LIght and When Jesus Comes

In 1977, I was 14 years old when a certain album was released.   I wore the grooves off that LP!

I loved the sound, the quality of the singer's voice.  Her range amazed me.  But the words of her songs ministered to my pubescent heart, on the cusp of young womanhood and desperately longing for a real relationship with Jesus.

One of her songs, I Will Make The Darkness Light, popped into my head yesterday as I walked home from my bus.  I could hear every note, every riff, every run, but I couldn't remember her name.

I Googled the song on my phone but kept finding a newer rendition entitled The High Place by LaShun Pace.  Nuh-uh.  I enjoy Ms. Pace, but that's not what my soul longed to hear.

Called my old friend and running buddy, now my sister-in-law.  She remembered the song, but not the rendition I sought.

When I got home, Hubby started Googling.  This thing was going to bother me until I found it.  No luck, but then, minutes before I ran off to an exercise class, I sat down and, using the Google Advanced Search, I found what I sought.

The incomparable Sara Jordan Powell singing I Will Make The Darkness Light:

Here's a second song that I also adored, When Jesus Comes:

These songs encourage me.  They remind me of who Jesus is, what He's capable of, and what He's promised to do.

Enjoy!

Peace & Blessings,

Patricia