Chilling at the Beach

Once I got a ride back to North Carolina with Mason Elledge, I went to my brother place and got some dinner. It was great to be able to talk with him over some great food for a little while since I had not been home all semester. After chilling for a little while beating up on my little pup, Mandie, I went to go unload my stuff at my house. Since my parents are currently out of the country we are renting our house to some regional ministers who are in transition stages of life and needed a house for a few months. It was really weird to be tip-toeing through my own house because I didn't want to disturb our tenants. Then I actually ended up staying in my room for the night and leaving around 7:30am to go and pick up Chelsea for our trip down to the Beach.

My brothers girl friends family has a beach house down in Pawleys Island and my brother invited Chelsea and I to come on down for a few days before we leave for the summer. Therefore we are currently chilling on the South Carolina beaches resting and recuperating before the next leg of our life journey. As you may or may not know I will be spending seven weeks in Bosnia over the summer with Campus Crusade for Christ. My brother will be doing Bike and Build which is a program where you bike across the nation building housing with Habitat for Humanity.

David will be leaving on the 13th and ill be leaving on the 14th so we are taking a few days down at the beach to rest and be together before jetting off for our respective summer projects. It has been great to be able to wind down on the beach just talking to the Lord about all of the things going on in my life. Being able to just raise up all of the things that are our of my control to his Almighty plan has been amazing.

Today was spent doing a lot of driving from Chapel Hill all the way to here to the beach. Once we got her we basically went straight to the water and then napped on the beach, getting mildly sun-burnt. After having a lazy few hours we went and got some great seafood at a local place about 10 minutes from the house. The rest of the night has been great filled with a long walk and some amazing strawberry short cake. I am pleased to be away from the school life at Tech but Ill miss it as the summer months continue.

All is Great in the Lord Almighty

Paul Shackelford

Rise Again - Needtobreathe

I have been reading a book about the arts and Christians role in creating culture. Steve Turner, the author, asserts a major critique that modern Christian art does not speak about real life. The art created does not sound genuine or have any ties to real life that people outside the faith can connect with. While reading the book I listened through this album and I think that this song does a great job of breaking the mold. The members of Needtobreathe are all outspoken followers of Jesus but very little of the art that they produce mentions Jesus or Christianity at all. Instead they craft creative music, written from places of pain and joy. "Rise Again" steps through pain that occurs in life as we see relationships stretched and torn. The bitterness of broken hearts and friendships is then contrasted with the truth that we will get up from this pain and rise again. "I can see us moving on, I can feel that coming on strong", the joy that comes after the

Twenty-Four - Jess Ray

Lately I have been listening to lots of music and podcasts while working and biking to work. I was feeling a need for some new music so I turned to NoiseTrade to check out some new artists. My favorite thus far is Jess Ray because of the honest lyrics, tastefully simple musicality and overall enjoyable listening environment. While on my flight back to Atlanta I was struck by this song at first because of the drums that propel this song behind the walking guitar. If I were to add drums to a track like this it would have been done in a very similar manner. Once I got past the drums I was awe struck by the simple power of these lyrics, take a read below and follow the link to her blog to listen. To me it was not written for an outward expression of hope or encouragement but rather as a inward proclamation to the soul. As the psalmist often choose to sing, this song speaks inward in a call to stand up and be reminded of truth all to often forgotten. As I gear up for the star

Alleluia - Jesus Culture with Martin Smith

Once again worship last night was Glorious! Had a great day just chilling with my SDP folks from last summer, went up the river and just talked about the past season of life and where the Lord is leading us into. Exciting and scary stuff but it was great to be back with some awesome people who speak some potent truth. Last night during worship was one of many firsts... For the first time in a long time I actually stood while I sang, for the first time in a long time I was singing from a place of Joy, for the first time in a long time I did not care how I worshiped my Lord I just worshiped. Well its not like these things have not happened ever in my life, but I just felt so much peace during worship. So I decided to throw the song that we just repeated for a long while up here, mainly cause I did not know the name so I was looking it up and now I am pumped, gotta buy this album! All the angels cry out, Holy is the Lord God All the earth replies, Holy are You Thi

Letters from Lilongwe

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