Concert Review/Can You Believe He's Coming Back?

And when I say "He's coming back" I am not referring to Andrew Peterson. Just keep reading.

The concert was great! It was just Andrew, his guitars, and a piano. He used a power point presentation to include some pictures, the verses that inspired the songs, and a few videos through out the evening. It was very intimate, and very much a night of story telling with lots of laughter and God's truth.

He sang through his new CD, giving the story behind each song and of course added just a couple songs from previous CD's. And he did the "Bears" song from his children's CD! If you have kids check it out! It's Slugs and Bugs and Lullabies. He and Randall Goodgame worked together and came up with several fun and silly songs and then ended the CD with several beautiful lullabies. I even listen to it when I don't have the kids in the car!

After the concert we just had wait around to talk to him! I am so inspired by his music. He is poetic and real and totally committed to using the gifts God has given him to share Christ with anyone who's listening. So, being the eloquent speaker that I am (in my head) when it was our turn to chat with him I proceeded to put on a stellar circus show complete with the acrobatics of (figuratively) stumbling and tripping over each and every well thought out word I attempted to utter.

Okay, that may be a little over-dramatic. Maybe. But later, it occurred to me that I don't know what I said! I know what I was trying to say, but I don't have a clue how it came out! Let's just say that if what I wanted to convey was a steak, what I handed poor Andrew Peterson, was ground beef. And not even the real lean ground beef. The kind where you brown it and half of it melts away because it was just fat.

Part of the problem may have been that I was so excited that this little scenario I'm about to share is all that ran through my mind as I pondered what I would say.

First I grab him firmly by the shoulders and proceed shake him as I exclaim in my outside voice, "God is so amazing and thank you for letting Him speak through you and draw people closer to Him!!!" And then calmly let go and mention that I love his new CD. At this point several men nearby, my husband included, recognize that there is no official security on the premises and step up to fill the position. While being dragged from the building I become immediately remorseful. And Andrew Peterson, having just become a victim of SAS (shaken artist syndrome) is forced to cancel his next several shows while he recuperates.

This would have been a shame. A real shame. So I'm glad that all I did was trip over my words.

To help myself feel better, this is what I had wanted to share with my favorite artist...and maybe I did just not in a very pretty way. (But at least I didn't shake him!)

I have been listening to his new CD for a week now and I really can't choose a favorite song. I love them all! Hosea might be my favorite, or Don't Give Up on Me. Or maybe I've Got News, or Love is a Good Thing...oh, I can't pick just one! But really, I think my favorite thing on the CD is what he wrote inside the cover. (and he even read this last night) It really spoke to me. It reminded me of what God had impressed upon me when reading about the Israelites being taken into captivity. Their 70 years of exile were recorded in just one verse with the next few verses recording the blessing of God restoring the land and bringing them home. (I'm not going to go into that, you can read it my post, The Length of a Verse!)

Here's what he wrote.

"He came back.

After that brutal Friday, and that long, quiet Saturday, he came back.

And that one intake of breath in the tomb changes everything. It changes the very reason I drew breath today and the way I move about in this world because I believe he's coming back again. The world has gone on for more that two millennia since Jesus' feet tread the earth he made. What would they have said back then if someone had told them that some two thousand years later we'd still be waiting? They would've thought back to that long Saturday and said, "Two thousand years will seem like a breath to you when you finally lay your crown at his feet. We don't even remember what we were doing on that Saturday, but let me tell you about Sunday morning. Now that was something."

These many years of waiting will only be a sentence in the story. This long day will come to an end, and I believe it will end in glory, when we will shine like suns and stride the green hills with those we love and the One who loves. We will look with our new eyes and speak with new tongues and turn to each other and say, "Do you remember the waiting? The long years, the bitter pain, the gnawing doubt, the relentless ache?" And like Mary at the tomb, we will say: "I remember only the light, and the voice calling my name, and the overwhelming joy that the waiting was finally over."

The stone will be rolled away for each of us.

May we wait with faithful hearts."

-AP

He's coming back!

Just like He said He would.