My Awesome Year- November

I know that I have been doing my awesome year posts in order but this one just happened and I cannot wait! It happened two days ago and I am still smiling about it. 

So I was struggling with what this month's awesome thing should be. It gets really hard to come up with these things after a while. So I went home to SC for Thanksgiving and the Sunday night after my mom, dad, and I were going to see The Story Tour in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Everyone singing at the end

If you don't know what The Story is or have not heard Music Inspired by the Story, well you are seriously missing out! The Story is a Bible study written by Max Lucado and Randy Frazee and it is the Bible written in easy to read, novel form and the idea is that churches can go through it one year. So if that's not cool enough they made a cd to accompany it! And if that is not cool enough all of the music is written by my favorite artist Nichole Nordeman and musical genius Bernie Herms.

Nichole Nordeman and Natalie Grant singing I'm with You

The cd is a two cd set divided into the Old Testament and New Testament and each song is written from the perspective of a famous Bible character and sung by a different Christian singer. It features tons of awesome people like Natalie Grant, Amy Grant, Steven Curtis Chapman, Mac Powell from Third Day, Mark Hall from Casting Crowns, Francesca Battistelli, Mandisa, Chris Tomlin and many more.  For a full list click here. Obviously it is kind of difficult to get all of those people scheduled on the same tour so it was only a sampling of them but still completely awesome!

Natalie Grant Singing Alive! 

So if going to see a bunch of Christian music all-stars perform wasn't cool enough, we saw it from the 3rd row. And even better, they had a full orchestra and band! It was beyond awesome, incredible, or even amazing! The music was incredible, the artists were incredible, Randy Frazee telling the story of the Bible between songs was incredible. It was all around incredible!!

As if all of that was not awesome enough (and did I mention incredible), it got better!! Nichole Nordeman is on the tour and she recently published her first book Love Story which I read in about 24 hours (this is a real feat considering I am a painfully slow reader). I could not put it down. Each sentence and phrase was so beautifully and artfully crafted I could have highlighted each one. And funny too! Nichole Nordeman certainly has the gift of storytelling and weaving humor, pain, and life into a tapestry of Biblical truths. 

The guys singing Empty

As if all of that was not awesome enough (and did I mention incredible), it got better!! Nichole Nordeman is on the tour and she recently published her first book Love Story which I read in about 24 hours (this is a real feat considering I am a painfully slow reader). I could not put it down. Each sentence and phrase was so beautifully and artfully crafted I could have highlighted each one. And funny too! Nichole Nordeman certainly has the gift of storytelling and weaving humor, pain, and life into a tapestry of Biblical truths. 

So I took my copy of Love Story just in case she had the opportunity for an autograph. The show ended and as my parents and I were filing out in front of the stage I spotted her back stage. My mom just happened to have a pen and I decided I would wait a few minutes to see if anything played out. I thought that maybe if I was lucky a stage hand or a security guard would take the book over and have her sign it and bring it back. I thought if I was REALLY lucky she would see me, book in hand, and come over and sign it. I had no idea that I would be really REALLY REALLY lucky. A tour crew guy came over to talk to someone he knew and saw me with my book and asked if I was "waiting on Nichole?" (he said it so casually like I might actually know her). I explained that I was just hoping she would sign my book. He then said, "How about you meet her?" It was one of those moments that I feel like never happens to me. I was somehow able to utter yes and the nice man pulled out a meet and greet pass so that I could not only meet Nichole Nordeman but all of the other artists on the tour! Unfortunately he only had one left and didn't have any for my parents, but the nice folks at the Gwinnette Arena let them come with me. They took us back to a back room with 50-60 people and waited a little bit for the artists to come one by one and talk to each family and sign autographs. 

All of the artists were so nice! I'm not much of talker so it took me a few minutes to warm up to talking to people I have looked up to for most of my life. Nichole Nordeman signed my book and was so gracious. After she moved out of ear shot I looked at my mom and said, "Wasn't she soooo nice!!!" and my mom graciously acted like I wasn't a 13 year old girl who just met Justin Bieber. 

By the time Natalie Grant came around I was quite giddy and talkative. I told her how much I admired her and the work that she had done with Abolition International and fighting human trafficking which is something I am also very passionate about (and you can learn more about that by clicking here). We talked for a few minutes about Abolition International and music, how awesome her husband Bernie Herms is, and twitter (she also gave me high five, so we're practically best friends now right? Just kidding). 

We also met Bernie Herms, Mark Hall, Jeremy Camp, Matthew West, Todd Smith and Amy Perry of Selah, Christian rapper Rawsrvnt, and Randy Frazee.

Unfortunately, the tour was headed to Tampa that night so they were a little short on time and asked us not to take pictures so the best I can do is post these: 

Like I said, it was an amazing night! I have woken up every morning since with a smile on my face, and will probably wake up tomorrow the same way. If the tour is coming near you, be sure to go see it! The music is almost as incredible as the message it presents.  

For more awesome things I've done click here.