Ellie Holcomb private chat

Our friend Ellie Holcomb (who will be again hosting our year-end countdown, more on that later!) has partnered with an organization that shares their name with the beautiful Christmas children's book she released, "Sounding Joy." They're in southwest Florida and they provide hearing aids to children who need them. Won't you check out their donation page and give them anything your heart is moved to give? Or, get her book and $1 from each sale automatically goes to them!

https://givebutter.com/Qv38qh

Maybe these words feel painful this Christmas. Maybe you are in the middle of unimaginable pain and loss. Maybe you, like me, have wondered where on earth God is in the middle of the story you’re living. I pray these words remind you that there’s hope. Love is with you and will never leave you, and one day? Every sad thing will come untrue, for nothing is impossible with God.

This feels like such a beautiful hope to hold onto at the beginning of advent, when we remember how Christ has come, but also that we are waiting for Christ to come again, to finally and completely heal and restore all things.

Lord, we are waiting. We are waiting for you, in the midst of war and loss and sickness, in the midst of chaos and division, in the midst of feeling lost in the dark sometimes, we lift our eyes to the hills, we bow our heads at the mystery that “nothing is impossible for God “.

Merry Christmas , y’all! I hope you and yours are well. I couldn’t sleep last night thinking of so many children who are caught in the throws of war right now, of many who ache and are hungry and long for a better day, of others who are lonely and down and out . Oh Prince of Peace , thank you for bending low and becoming one of us , so we could know whatever we face here on this broken and beautiful planet, we don’t ever face it alone. Glad tidings of great joy, for ALL the people. Light of the world, shine your love into every dark corner and desperate situation of the earth. Bring peace and healing and hope . Grateful to get to walk the journey with you . You sure are a gift to me !

🤎 NEW MUSIC 🤎

A few years ago, I started singing a different scripture every Monday on Instagram. I wanted to create a space, even if it was for 30 seconds in someone’s feed, where they could be still and take a deep breath. I’m increasingly aware of the pace and noise that we keep up with on social media, and I got curious about what it would be like to sing a simple melody that carried a simple promise of God. I’ve done it, mainly for myself, to bury some truth and light in my heart each week, but I’ve LOVED seeing other people tune in, listen, and even sing along. And for years (over 100 melodies shared!), SO many of you have been asking me to make a record of some of these scripture songs. Over and over and over again, people have made comments, sent direct messages or emails, asking me to PLEASE RECORD A PSALMS ALBUM. I’ve been asked more times than I can count, and what I get to tell you today is SO. MUCH. FUN.

Today, I get to say, I HEAR YOU. I’ve been listening to you all these years, and..... I made a Psalms record for you! It’s called All of My Days, inspired by Psalm 23, and it is coming April 12th. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

I’ve extended 7 of these short Psalms songs to include more of the passage and with the help of my wonderful friend, co-writer, and keys player, , and my incredible dad, , who helped me record them all for you. Today, the first single is out! Psalm 139 - “Where Can I Go?” is available now.

LISTEN + PRE-ORDER: https://ellieholcomb.os.fan

It has been a HEAVY season for us and our people. We have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death in ways I never hoped we would be. It never feels right when the life of a child is taken early. Cancer is a thief, and for all of our days, we’ll be missing our precious cousin Bailey, who took her last breath at just nine years old. Our desperate prayers for healing didn’t get answered the way I would have hoped. I’ve got questions. We’ll all walk around with a Bailey sized hole in our hearts, and the world is darker without her light shining here on the earth.

This month is heavy for Nashville as well, as we just crossed over the 4th anniversary of the tornado that devastated so many March 3rd of 2020. There have been other storms that have wreaked havoc since as well. And then, as March 27th approaches, we remember the senseless loss of the lives of our precious kids and teachers at the Covenant School. I want to weep just writing it all out. Being human just absolutely breaks your heart wide open a lot of days. Nothing will bring back those precious people, and nothing will ever be the same for those families and communities that lost so much. Death stings. I know that we sing songs that chant triumphantly, “Oh death! Where is your sting?” But I am here to report that the sting of death is alive and well in my own bones, in my soul, and in the hearts of any human who has lost someone they love. I’m raw and it hurts still. I just want to be clear about that.

I can’t shake the sting of death, but there is something else present that I also cannot shake, and it is the presence of a God who weeps with us. In the lung rattling sobs I’ve let out over the past few months, grieving our loss of Bailey, yes, but grieving a thousand other losses as well, I have encountered, once again, the mystery of a current of Love. It is a Love that doesn’t demand that I have faith or pull myself together. It’s a Love that holds me as I come apart. It’s a Love that wraps me in its arms and lets me weep, and whispers, “I know it hurts. Tell me where it hurts.” It is a Love that I’ve encountered in the Psalms over and over again, because the Psalms are spacious….. they are full of doubt, desperation, wrestling, waiting, messes, fear, darkness, and they are full of remembering, faith and love and hope and light.

Psalm 23 has met me this year in the depths. It’s comforted me in the literal shadow of the valley of death, and it has whispered to me, over and over again, that I am not alone. Because death stings, yes, but God sings just like the spring does, “Death isn’t the end, love.”