front pew sittin' holy roller

     I don't try and make it any secret that I'm a Christian, I love Jesus, and he loves me. I definitely fall short time and time again, but he never fails to forgive me, and I always know I can turn to God for any of life's turns. I'm not trying to get to in depth about the religion itself but, if anyone reading this is ever struggling with something, feeling overwhelmed, or even just someone to talk to, please pray. I know if you're not used to it, it may seem silly at first, kind of like you're talking to yourself, but when you really get into it, it literally feels as if there is a weight being lifting off your shoulders, it's like a breath of fresh air... so anyways, into my actual blog :) 

     Music in my religion is so important to me. I'm from a southern baptist church, so the hymns are usually what I hear in service, and they're pretty good, you know, the classics, but those just don't fuel my spirit all the way. When I listen to a good song about my God who saves me, I was to have chills and tears in my eyes, ya know... some of my personal favorites are Oceans (I know everyone plays it, but come on, it's so good), Reckless Love (chills. literal chills.), Rebel Hear (saw Lauren Daigle in concert. AMAZING.), and Beautiful Messes (honestly I relate to that song SO much). All these songs give me THAT feeling. THAT feeling that everything is how it's supposed to be. THAT feeling that no matter what I'm facing, I can handle it, because the Bible says I can. THAT feeling that no matter how much I mess up, I'm still a child of God and Jesus forgives me. THAT feeling that I am redeemed.

    When I was in high school, I was apart of a group called J-crew, I know what you're thinking, "what a dweeb", but seriously hear me out! We would perform songs and movements for our church, and once a year during the summer, we'd go on a 5 day mission trip to Tennessee and perform for Children's programs, nursing homes, homeless shelters, prisons, and a lot of other places that definitely needed some Jesus. It was seriously so much fun, aside from sharing the word of God and getting to interact with people who really needed the Holy Spirit, all of the youth in our group would do cookouts every night, play pranks on each other, watch movies, go bowling, laser tag, and just so many more fun things. J-crew will forever be some of my BEST memories. :) 

some of these pics are a HUGE cringe but I tried to get a picture from every year I did it. I think pictures make blog much more personable :) with that said...

    Finally, I really don't know if I should put this in here or not, but I'm going to anyways because only like 4 people will see this but, my memaw likes to make me sing in church a lot. I don't really like to because I get super nervous in front of an audience and always end up tearing up/ crying after LOL, but it makes her happy so I do it. I also partially do it because I'm named after her best friend who died from cancer, sadly :( and she says I sing a lot like her. A little background on them, they use to travel around to gospel conventions together and preform for crowds there. So, they were pretty great. But I like to sing so I can kind of honor Grace Ann's legacy. idk, it sounds kind of weird but I just like to make my memaw happy. Anyways here's a little snippet of me singing in church. 

I know some of those notes are a little rough but, I was super nervous and it had been a long day LOL

    thank y'all for reading !!! have a great rest of your blogging experience and I'll see ya in class! :)

Peace !

-Gracie