Tag: worship

Christmas with the Chosen: The Messengers – Movie Review

A Movie Review: Christmas with the Chosen, the Messengers.

Christmas With the Chosen: The Messengers – Movie Review

January 17, 2022

(Note: This was written December 7, 2021 when whomever decided my computer’s operating system can’t access wordpress anymore)

First thing you have to know – I love Christmas! 

Second thing… I’m usually the one who talks everyone else out of going to the movies.  I’d rather sit at home and wait until it’s free. 

I have gone to the local theater for movies like “WarRoom” and “Overcomer.”  We decided to go to the theater for the “Christmas with the Chosen: The Messengers” movie last Saturday evening. 

Wow!

I have only seen part of one episode of the Chosen.  I do not like watching screens alone and when I’m home, we tend to be doing something outside, playing board games, or Louis is watching a sports game.  After this, I really want to watch them all.  Hopefully, it won’t be like the Bones series.  Grandma Joanne introduced Christina and Becky seven years ago.  We watched them after the littles went to bed and I was dispatching late at night (cab company era) usually one or two episodes each week or two.  I got to season three, we had to start borrowing from the library and the girls got impatient!  They would breeze through them!  Christina and Becky saw them all, then rewatch it and Kimberly saw them all, now Jaquline is even farther in the series than I am! 

At least with The Chosen, we can watch them with everyone. 

At the theater, my Mom and one of Christina’s friends joined us.  “Tart, party of twelve!” – our nine, one sister-cousin, one friend, and one Grandma… we took up half of a row!  

In retrospect, I have to laugh at all the wiggling feet and trying to be considerate but busting with worship sing-along voices!  Becky said if Christina’s parents’ guide website had been better informed, they would have mentioned it was best to observe this film from the back rows if your party has the proclivity to get roused into song and dance by concert-style worship songs – Becky called it “Passion camp on film.”  My only dancer who got to her feet was Thea, but she is little so everyone behind us could still see over her.  I wanted to dance!  I would have blocked too many peoples’ views though… I literally had to stop myself a few times.

I still think The Nativity Story is the most realistic culturally accurate story highlighting Mary and Joseph’s journey.  However, this film was incredible!  It had a short portion that showed, in what I’m gathering is the style of the series The Chosen, the journey of Mary and Joseph with a bit of a twist (no spoiler, I promise). 

If you enjoy music or historical reenactments, this is a must-see movie event.  

Thank you for reading,

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Choosing to Rest

Ever feel overwhelemed by the busyness of life… especially around Christmas?

December 14, 2019

Choosing to Rest

The busyness of life can overwhelm us if we allow it.

Especially when your heart is troubled.

Anybody relate? 

This is the first Christmas season where all the kids have been shopping and I haven’t gone with any of them.  My Daddy passed away one year ago the tenth.  My little tradition of carefully penning the newest addition’s name in glitter glue on a silly felt stocking and adding it to our collection to hang was done by one the of girls this year.  I almost found myself feeling unimportant and stressing out because I wanted to be there…

I’m standing on the floor beam and use my standard line when my gym girls are racing.  On beam that means they end up wobbling and the exercise doesn’t look pretty when you are bouncing and wobbling. “…don’t race.  If you feel wobbly…” I demonstrate so they will laugh and pay attention, doing one passé step and wobbling as I come down “…pause…” I stop with both feet firmly planted “…take a breath to steady you…” I take a deep breath “…and now go on.” I start doing the steps again without the wobble.

This works great for my excited littles at gym.  Sometimes they race because they want to do more and more and more, but really they just need to focus on the task at hand.  They need to control the landing of their foot on the beam so the direction is perfect and they land with confidence.

—BAM—

Life.

It’s the same as walking the beam. 

Don’t race.  That one hit me; don’t we all race when we feel wobbly (overwhelmed)?

Pause.  REST IN JESUS! 

Both feet firmly planted. In the Word – while I’m pausing, I’m resetting by “planting my feet firmly” in the Word.

Take a deep breath.  Worship and pray.

Then you can go on without the wobble. (Worry, feeling of drowning, feeling of uselessness, etc)

Now we take our life and everything whirling around us one step at a time, focusing on each day as it exists, allowing God to control our steps, and we will walk with confidence!

Oversimplified?  Maybe, but that mental picture that God gave me as I was coaching certainly is helping me rest and enjoy this season instead of feel “wobbly” with worry and feeling useless! 

Thank you, Jesus for planting cool visions in my head from sometimes the simplest of things… God uses the simple to confound the wise!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Microscopic Giants

The mind of a fiction writer: microscopic giants marching off to war…

August 26, 2018

Microscopic Giants

“What kind of giants does God mean to fall by your hand?”

That question in church this morning instantly made a crazy mental picture.  I saw the mold spores that constantly attack my body and affect my breathing marching like microscopic Goliaths toward my lungs.

The words of the last praise song caught my mind, “This is how we battle… I may look surrounded but I am surrounded by You (God)…”

So in my mental picture, thousands of bright lights like electric flashes start shooting the microscopic Goliaths and keep them from my lungs.  I imagine my lungs are Elisha and God’s armies are fighting for me.  This is how we battle… with faith, prayer, hope, love; our worship.

Weird?  Silly?  A little of both.  But though it seems trite, it’s what I saw.  Sometimes overactive imaginations and cartoonish images are what God uses to remind us that He is bigger than anything.  It’s easy for me to trust in the big things, but how about realizing that God isn’t too big to take the time to destroy the things we think are microscopic in the grand scheme of things?  I am someone who is quick to think, “Lots of people deal with medical conditions that are far worse than this,” and I discount that my issue is not important enough for God.  Sometimes just because I can use medicines to manage my symptoms makes me think I should just deal with it.  So at times, I will relegate my issues to being microscopic in the scheme of the world.

What is important to us (and yes, breathing unaided is a very important thing to me!) is always important to God.  He says he knows the numbers of the hairs on our head… that in itself is awesome to me.

Thank you, God, for reminding me that You do care for all parts of us.  Thank you for this amazing life, for removing the shackles keeping us from dancing, for giving us hope, joy, and peace, and for giving us a wonderful community to be a part of!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

Power of Music

This is what music does…

October 15, 2017

Power of Music

Sometimes music is just the perfect thing to lift you up.  Today, I needed an energetic soundtrack for work.

I love how God seems to know exactly what to play and in what order.  It never matters what station: it’s always the right playlist!

So, my radio started with “That’s How You Change The World” by Newsboys.  (Absolutely perfect!   Skyrocket volume up, windows down!  I’m sure anyone outside on my road wondered if I was deaf.  My Daddy taught me to enjoy music by feeling it like a bass drum is your heartbeat.  Oh, I love that song too! Beckah Shae does it… But it wasn’t in the mix today.)

Just as that one is finished, I crawled to a halt at a red light and “The River” by Jordan Feliz started.   (Now in the middle of traffic, my hands stay on the wheel but my head is bobbing like a doggy on a dashboard so I’m pretty sure people think I’m crazy – but that’s perfectly fine for them to see me as I really am.)

This wonderful selection was finished with Britt Nicole’s “Amazing Life” (This one caused the volume to increase another notch) and “I Feel So Alive” by Capital Kings.  (Halfway through I had to turn this down to a manageable super-sensitive-ears-person-enjoying-music volume so I wouldn’t blow away my passenger.)

The power of music is to energize and refresh.  I love worship songs – I love songs I can make motions and signs to because that feels like dancing.  I imagine the music entering my body, refilling me with some kind of electron fuel, and exiting as a broad grin and my attempt at singing along. (At least, that’s what happens in a car… when my feet are free to dance?  “Shackles” by Mandisa; let the song do the talking!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

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