It was amazing, to say the least. I don't know how many people follow me on here, but if you do, and you went, you know what I'm talking about.
Sleeping Giant and The Glorious Unseen rocked my world, and Chad's prayer and encouragement gave me perspective into a faith in God that I may have not realized before that weekend.
We started out in Dallas. Drove through the night and didn't get enough sleep and didn't do much of anything healthy, actually, but I had a lot of sunflower seeds and Mountain Dew and Coffee and pretzels, and I'm still alive, so I suppose that's a testament to the miraculous nature of God who allows me to survive on crap the majority of the time.
The bills were packed. Maybe a little too packed. Alright, yeah, they were too packed. But it was a good opportunity for the artists to be able to play with the bands they love, and regardless of the stress involved with those of us who put it on, it was a blessing for most, to be sure.
I just about knocked myself out during my set. I hit myself in the forehead with a big metal trash can lid and Brandi said my face turned pale and my ears wouldn't stop ringing and I think that I died for a minute and somehow kept talking. It was fun though.
I don't know. I don't know what kind of a point I'm trying to make or how I'm possibly going to be able to explain how much the Spirit moved in The Max that night, but he did, and it was great. The Glorious Unseen played a passionate worship set, and Sleeping Giant, although a different kind of worship, carried the flow on as though there weren't a break at all. To see the way the people moved and the crowd exploded into worship through hardcore music and dancing and ... freakin', I don't know. I don't know.
Tommy from Sleeping Giant explained a lot of the songs, took time to pray in between, told one of the craziest, most heartbreaking/redemptive testimonies I've ever heard. He read a note from Jesus to the kids that basically begged them to love him. He started out by saying that he knew this was gong to sound crazy, but the Lord had given him a message to read to the kids at the show, and it was that Jesus loved them, and said, "please, please, please, please, please, please love me."
Oklahoma was so hectic! Shawn and I went to Wal Mart for the first three hours of the show and asked people to come because the promoter:
a) dropped the ball
b) put on another, bigger show with Plain White T's twenty minutes away
Who does that?
But it was so much fun, and the Lord really worked in the lives of some people there, too. A girl was healed there, and one of the guys that we invited to come from Wal Mart came and was really touched. He just got out of prison, and I told us afterwards that he really appreciated being invited. One of my buddies, Aaron, has been in touch with him and he said he'd was really touched that night.
I'd have to say that the ABQ show touched me the most, personally. We put a lot of prayer and work into that weekend, and the Veil Arms vision is put over Albuquerque. Shawn and Ashley and Brandi have always had such a heart for the ABQ music scene, and the Lord has been developing one in me, as well. One of my good friends accepted Jesus, and another one re-dedicated his life to the Lord, and it was just awesome. (I know, I know - all the Christianese, sorry.)
My dad came. He hasn't seen me play in so long. He has horrible back problems, and has been out of work for years. I felt that the Lord put it on my heart that he was going to be healed.
This didn't happen. But it's okay. I was sad, because I so hoped for it, and felt like it would be okay, and all his pain would finally be gone, but like I said, The Wake helped me develop a trust that I don't know if I ever had in the Lord, and I no longer doubt God's power, even though he didn't choose to use it where I thought he would.
I mean. I'm not all-trusting-Levi-with-no-doubts, but I'm not as skeptical as I was before.
And it blessed my dad, too. Tommy freakin' stopped in the middle of their Sleeping Giant set and took like ten minutes to pray for my dad. It was just incredible. A bunch of kids from the audience came over and prayed for him, and then Ben from Glorious, and SG, and Chad all prayed for my dad for about an hour after the show was over, too. It was touched, man. It was great.
Performance-wise, I freakin forgot my set. It was great. I was so distracted by everything going on that I started to do that Oh Captain My Captain poem and I just forgot it in the middle and started laughing about it. And then some dude screamed "what the f###?" in the middle of When I Go To Meet God, and I was scared that my friends were going to beat him up, because they had him all cornered and were threatening him and stuff. Haha. My friends. They mean well. The dude was nice. I probably would have had the same reaction if I'd have walked in to some kid in an orange hat screaming a bunch of crap with no music.
I don't know. It was great.
Some cool opportunities came up, too. I think Sleeping Giant might put some of my poetry stuff up on their podcast, which is beyond a blessing and an encouragement, that they liked it that much. And I talked to Carlos of this band, Before Their Was Rosalyn, and might go out on the road with them sometime next year.
I don't want to make anything about me, though. It's weird talking about cool things happening for myself. I feel like I shouldn't or something. It's God. It's not me, it's all God. The fact that my fingers are even moving to type this right now is a gift, and I always want to remember that.
Highlights:
Micah Dean
Listening to Micah Dean talk about Poema.
Poema.
Driving in a van with my best friends
Eating Denny's (or was it IHOP) at two in the morning and watching Shawn laugh at everything because he's so freakin tired
Sleeping Giant
Glorious Unseen
Chad Johnson
Hanging out with Fallstar. Those guys are some of the kindest dudes ever, and their performance is phenomenal
Watching We Became The Sun - a band that came down from Ohio to do the Dallas and Tulsa dates
Hardcore dancing for the first time in my life during "worship" to Sleeping Giant in ABQ
Seeing the look on my mom's face when she finally understands that you can worship to heavy music
Praying for my dad with a bunch of random people he doesn't know
Eating absolutely nothing healthy whatsoever throughout the course of everything
Meeting people
Smiling
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