HebrewFest 2023
Updated: Jun 9, 2023
It has been a couple of years since I set foot on a stage. In the Summer of 2020, when YAH took the scales off my eyes about Churchianity, one of the last idols I had to let go of was music. I mean...at that point I was already married, had a career, was raising kids, and was happy to just play rhythm guitar while singing BGVs (background vocals) at church. But in my early twenties I was definitely pursuing a Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) career.
I shared the stage with so many popular Christian bands...Jeremy Camp, Phil Wickham, I even opened up for Francesca Battistelli in Oregon before she blew up and apparently won a Grammy or Dove Award?? I've sung at the Anaheim Angels Stadium for Christian Crusades in Anaheim, California. I've been on different recording albums as a vocalist.
I had songs on iTunes and Spotify when Spotify was brand new (and I didn't even know my songs were picked up on there had it not been for my little sister telling me). I had a band and we were booked twice every weekend to go play at various churches and youth groups from Oregon, throughout California, to Arizona.
I led worship at many churches. And then I realized that my shot for being a Christian artist was probably not going to happen. I got married, I spent 3.5yrs living in 2 different countries, and was content just leading worship- from a military chapel in Kuwait to a small church in Central America.
So anyway, that was my life when I wasn't working or being home with family. Music.
Right before coming to Torah, I was at a church where honestly....I didn't get much out of the messages. In fact, this "church" didn't even call themselves a church- they avoided all religious phrases. It wasn't Services they held, but an "Experience." As someone who studied Theology as an undergrad, quite frankly there was no substance. It was Motivational messages taking 1 verse out of context, not actually teaching the Bible, and just telling you how "it's ok to not be ok" and how to leave that building no longer feeling sad, but filled with hope. So why did I stay? Music. I got plugged in with the Worship Team. Even the campus pastor had agreed with me about not getting 'fed' and he said it was ok to get fed somewhere else (from another ministry or church) and to keep serving that church. It was a church for the unchurched. And because I loved being part of a worship team, I stayed. One Sunday morning, the Pastor said, "Yeah I know that Christmas is pagan, but don't you think it's great we can put a bow on it for Jesus?!" My husband was pissed- and this was before we both came to Torah. I was......stupid...I let that go.
Then YAH changed my life in 2020 during the lockdowns. The best year of my life, when He completely broke and humbled me!!! You can watch my testimony here, but basically when it came to learning about the sin of observing Christmas, I knew deep inside I had to step down. When I understood that Hebrew had significant and prophetic meanings, that's when I really understood the significance of the name of our messiah: YAHUSHA.
For a few months after I came to Torah, I kept waking up early Sunday mornings to play guitar and sing. My husband, who also came to YAH's truth, would only remark sometimes. But I knew I had to let go. And then when I got to church for sound check, it was so uncomfortable for me to sing a song with JC's name.... I couldn't do it....I had repented of that false name, how could I?! And then knowing this church celebrates Christmas....and the Worship Director had no clue what the Sabbath was...eventually I let that last idol go.
Now I soak up His words! I study the scriptures. It's like digging for gold.
With all that being said, I am going to be on stage for Hebrew Fest 2023 and I'm not gonna lie....I'm a little bit nervous. I wasn't even comfortable sending in a photo of myself or even making a Bio! Those days were behind me! I'm not seeking fame, I'm not seeking to get my name out there either.... so this time I'm not stepping on a stage with my name being announced, I'm just going by my YouTube Handle that I created when I was an Undergrad Music Major. I'll share a few songs and hope that people can sing along. Shoot, this website is brand new too! Maybe I'll try to link up SoundCloud or ReverbNation here. Some of my old songs where I had bad Christian doctrine and sung the JC name, I took down.
I am most excited about this Festival because of the objective: To worship YAH in the unity of brotherly love, knowing that we all pronounce names differently, we hold different calendars, and we may even be culturally different from one another- but it is a sneak peek into Revelation 20!
May Abba YAH remind us that:
you were dead in trespasses and sins,
2in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience,
3among whom also we all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, as also the rest.
4But Elohim, who is rich in compassion, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Messiah – by favour you have been saved –
6and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Messiah יהושע,
7in order to show in the coming ages the exceeding riches of His favour in kindness toward us in Messiah יהושע.
8For by favour you have been saved, through belief, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of Elohim,
9it is not by works, so that no one should boast.
10For we are His workmanship, created in Messiah יהושע unto good works, which Elohim prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
11Therefore remember that you, once nations in the flesh, who are called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called ‘the circumcision’ made in the flesh by hands,
12that at that time you were without Messiah, excluded from the citizenship of Yisra’ĕl and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no expectation and without Elohim in the world.
13But now in Messiah יהושע you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah.
14For He is our peace, who has made both one, and having broken down the partition of the barrier,
15having abolished in His flesh the enmity – the torah of the commands in dogma – so as to create in Himself one renewed man from the two, thus making peace,
16and to completely restore to favour both of them unto Elohim in one body through the stake, having destroyed the enmity by it.
17And having come, He brought as Good News peace to you who were far off, and peace to those near.
18Because through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of the set-apart ones and members of the household of Elohim,
20having been built upon the foundation of the emissaries and prophets, יהושע Messiah Himself being chief corner-stone,
21in whom all the building, being joined together, grows into a set-apart Dwelling Place in יהוה,
22in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of Elohim in the Spirit.
- Ephesians 2
Commentaires