"The Journey May Be Long . . ."

This past week has been one of the craziest weeks of my life! But, it was a blast! Every day this past week I sang anywhere between 3-6 hours (I'm paying for it now, but I feel like it was totally worth it)! The reason I was singing so much was, primarily, because I had a concert on Friday. It was one of, if not THE, greatest concert I've ever participated in (this is excluding oratorios and Requiem's). It started off with the Viking Camarata singing; we sang "God Be In My Head" by Rutter, "Sleep" by Whitacre, and "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners" by Parry. The most challenging was the Parry, but we pulled through and did it! I couldn't believe it, but we did. After we sang, most of the women had to change into our Collegiate attire, and so we ran off of the stage, pulled off our button-up shirts and threw on our "shawl" things. Fortunately, there wasn't anybody around because they would have seen our shoulders! Scandalous!!! ;) I was the first one changed and I ran over to the other side of the stage with my friend Cassandra right on my heels. As we ran, she said "We did it Sarah!!!" I couldn't help but smile.
Then, it was time for the Collegiate Singers to sing!! I was so excited! We started with "Bound for the Promised Land" and "Distant Lands" ("Distant Lands" was definitely one of my favorites in this entire concert). We then moved to our Night and Day set that had: "Nächtens" and "Cantique"in it. Then we moved to the Animal set, this one was the biggest hit (I feel) in the concert. We started with an a cappella jazz piece called Bumblebee and we then moved to "I Bought Me a Cat". The greatest thing about that piece was the choreography. I really wish I had a video to show you of us singing that . . . but I don't think there is one. I haven't found it if there is one. The audience got a kick out of it! We then moved to the final set; this set had to do with the heart. We started off by singing some satirical love songs called "Love Lost" and then sang "I Carry Your Heart". We closed our concert with "O, What Songs of the Heart". I absolutely loved this concert and for the opportunity I had to share the talents that God has blessed me with with others. The Collegiate Singers have been such a blessing in my life; one of the messages that I got from this concert is that, despite things that happen in our life we can make it to the promised land. "The journey may be long, no end in sight. There may be hills to climb, or giants to fight. But, if you take my hand we'll walk together toward the land of freedom." To tweek the lyrics a little bit, "but if you take God's hand, you'll walk together toward the land of freedom." If you walk with God, you can do anything.