Our Hope Endures
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©2010 Natalie Grant
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my grandmother just passed away recently due to numerous illnesses that she has been fighting for many years. once i heard this song it has really helped me through this time. thank you for your inspirational songs.
Dear Natalie,
“Calamity only strikes once” and it seems as though the sun was hidden for years and is finally starting to shine again. I found this song (“Our Hope Endures”) after going through some of the most challenging years of my life. Before finding this song, I would listen to your song “Held,” and the tears would flow so easily.
Over the past three years, I have felt as though I have faced some of the worst conditions a person may face in their lifetime.
I was diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes on March 3, 2006, about two months before my 41st birthday. My life was turned upside down. I struggled to move forward with my life and tried to be normal once again adapting my life to being dependent on four to seven insulin shots a day. With God’s help, I was making progress, and he was allowing people to minister to me as I was going through this trial.
Six months before I was diagnosed on Jan 2, 2008, at the age of 42, with Triple Negative Breast Cancer, I was just starting to feel somewhat normal again.
When I was diagnosed with Diabetes and Breast Cancer, I always knew that I was not alone and would not be permitted to walk alone.
Because I am God’s child, he promises his children that he will always walk with them no matter what challenges they may face in life.
My hope remained unchanged as I battled my way through treatments and the physical changes that happen with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Some days I wanted to give up but I knew that my God would give me the strength I needed and put special people in my life to carry me through yet another trial. I do not know what is ahead of me, but I do know that God has allowed me to be a survivor to add yet another chapter to this wonderful life that he has given me.
So let the earth quake as our hope is unchanged!
I am blessed with a special husband and two wonderful boys (ages 24 and almost 21)
God has used you and your music to inspire myself and others. I pray that God will bless you in a very special way.
Barb
This song touched me. My mother has been battling ovarian cancer since 2001, she’s been through it all – surgeries and tons of chemotherapy. She’s lost her hair and grown it back about 4 times. She’s been through radiation, too. She endures all of this and keeps praising God, everyday. That’s the only hope she has. Also, my son (3) was diagnosed last year with Leukemia and will go through chemotherapy for another two years. He’s been through so much in such a few short years and we’ve shed so many tears for our son but we are grateful every day he’s still here and he’s moving forward. Our prayers have been answered daily, just spending more time with our loved ones going through this horrible disease. Without God, there is no HOPE!
I am only 18 and the past 2 1/2 years of my life have been complete chaos. Starting in September of my Junior year my whole world seemed to be torn from under my feet. I was raped. For some reason i still do not really know, I did not tell any of my family members. From there i started drinking and smoking. I tried to get as far away from God as I could. What seemed to help me cope with my life day to day just caused more and more problems. I started causing problems in my family and with my closest friend. I moved from my moms in Huntsville, AL to my dads in Birmingham, AL, but all of my problems seemed to follow me.
A friend at the time knew about the rape and told my mom. In her desperation to help me, she tried telling me about Mercy Ministries. But 6 months? That sounded WAY too long for me. There was no way i was going to go there. So i moved to my aunt and uncles house in Dallas, TX. I agreed to go to a therapist. 2 months after being there i found an escape again. I met a guy and started hanging out with him constantly. I quit going to the therapist and 2 months later moved in with him. Ends up he wasn’t the nice guy i thought he was. He completely controlled me and physically and emotionally abused me. Again, I did not tell any family members. But, i sent a letter to my Friend, Melissa and she told my mom.
I finally realized, God was the only other place i could turn. I am currently in Franklin, TN with my grandparents. I am on the waiting list for Mercy Ministries and I am SO excited to see what God has planned for me and how he is going to use me. In the 3 months I have been waiting God has provided SO much for me. He has mended so many relationships with me and different family members. I never realized how much God loves me. I am definately still working on having complete faith in him and trying not to control my life and just giving everything to Him. I give Him all the credit for bringing me this far!!
I love all of your songs, but my absolute favorite is “will not be moved”. I need to listen to this every morning when i wake up. I realize now God is the reason I am here. He is the one who held my hand through all my pain, mistakes, and struggle. I know he will continue to do so. Thank you Natalie for all the hope, encouragement, and hunger for the Lord in your songs. I pray He continues to use you in such amazing ways!!
Hi Natalie,
I just want to tell you that this song really impacted me today. I bought your album originally for the “I will not be moved” song right after I lost my son only one hour after his birth in November 2008. That song was what I proclaimed for many months as I tried to run off all the pain. There were very few songs I could listen to in the last six months. Today I decided that I should listen to your whole album and I heard this song for the first time.
I actually cried pretty much through the whole album while each song ministered to me in a different way but when I reached this song “Our Hope Endures” I felt like I needed to know where the song came from. So I decided to search on the internet and found your site. I had had a feeling that this was a song written about some one with cancer… and found out that I was right… but I wanted to let you know that it can bring hope to people in all sorts of situations.
You see, before my son was born and was taken to Jesus so quickly my husband and I had been trying to have a child for 14 years. Most of the miscarriages we had were very early so we believed that baby Nels was a total miracle! Tragically he had a rare condition called Posterior Urethral Valves which ultimately cost him his life shortly after birth. Before little Nels we stopped counting losses at 9.
The first verse of your song really spoke to me today. Especially the line “And you assume that this one has suffered her share”. That is exactly how I felt after losing my little boy. I felt like I had suffered enough and that there would be no way that this would ever happen again. I decided to press on and try again… even though the doctors told me time was running out. In February on the same day that I had lost my son in November, I once again miscarried.
I was trusting more in the doctors then in God to make my little miracle happen. The cycle after that was very odd. To make a long story short I ended up having a biopsy on my uterus and was put on medication to start a new cycle… all while God was working in the back ground.
You see the day I had the biopsy I conceived, against all odds and for the first 10 days of that babies life I was on medication that was supposed to make me bleed. But I didn’t. I found out 21 days later that I had been given a miracle by the Lord once again. I held on to hope so hard! They did blood tests and ultrasounds and amazingly everything was going well. So I let my guard down a little. I went to visit my husband’s grandma in Florida. The day after we arrived I ended up in the ER with heavy bleeding and was told I once again lost another miracle. But God was still working.
I had seen the ultrasound in the hospital and some how the gestational sac was still there after all the bleeding… but I could see nothing in it. The doctors at the ER told me to call my doctors at home and those doctors wanted me to keep the ultrasound appointment which I had scheduled for just 4 days later. I was so lost the last few days in Florida, I couldn’t understand why God would do this again. On the plane ride home, God spoke to me and said that He did not want my baby today and that is was a plot of the enemy. I was so thankful for what the Lord spoke to me as it brought a tiny bit of the hope back in.
On the morning of my ultrasound they told me that they needed me to use the restroom first before the procedure they were going to do. So I did and I bleed heavily again with 3 chunks the size of the palm of my hand. I figured that this was the rest of it so I told the ultrasound tech before she started the procedure. I asked the ultrasound tech if she could see that the sac was now gone. She said “No… I see a heart beat.” My eyes welled up with tears as I asked her if I could see it. There it was… my little miracle’s heart beating away on the screen. It was a direct answer to a prayer that I had prayed earlier that morning. I prayed that if God still had a little miracle for me, that I would see a heart beat… and I did.
That was nearly 3 weeks ago now and I find my hope faltering at times as I get discouraged or read about things that have happened to others. I have been on bed rest to get rid of the Subchorionic Hemorrhage that was causing the bleeding so I have little to do but pray and research. My husband told me I needed to listen to some praise music today. So I went to listen to my power mix which has your “I will not be moved song in it” But then decided to listen to your whole album. Like I said each song ministered to me in a different way. I listened to it for 2.5 hours as I wrote a blog. I love how you added the Hebrew names of God in there. That ministered to me as well… just thinking about what El Shaddai really means blessed me greatly.
I still have two more days to wait on the Lord until my next appointment. I think I will switch power songs for now and play this song “Our Hope Endures” as my new power song for awhile to help me bring peace to my spirit as I wait on the Lord for His healing and for His little miracle!
Thank you so much for letting me share this. By the way… I met you in passing while we were in college… you were friends with my best friend Stacey’s room mate Rachel, I think, because you were in there room one day that I came to visit. I have to say that God has really done a work in your life! It is such a blessing to see what God has done. May God continue to bless you and pour his Spirit through you as you do his work.
When I heard “Our Hope Endures” I was listening to some new tracks at the christian bookstore to sing at church and I ended up in the bookstore in tears, my heart completely touched by the story that unfolds in this song. I did not buy the track yet, I went back several weeks later and purchased Natalie’s CD, and when I read the words to my friend over the phone, she said the first few lines of the song was ME. I knew that GOD was calling me to use this song to minister to some of the broken women at our church. I am planning to minister this song with a projector so that the people can see the words……the words are so very important and it is my call and goal to minister and heal GOD’s people. “Our Hope Endures” is a song of ministry, and healing for the nations.
My older daughter’s 18 year old high school boyfriend attempted to inappropriately touch my younger daughter when she was only seven. Thankfully, my husband and I have always talked openly to our children about right and wrong. The entire situation has really shaken our family. However, we are a strong family and through faith and prayer we have endured. My younger daughter still struggles with her fears about all the other little girls who are afraid to say “no” to unwelcome advances or afraid to come forward and tell someone. Or the possibility that they have no one to turn to. She can’t stop worrying about what they must be going through. This year, at the age of 12, she put her fears to words through poetry that I would like to share with you. From Kailee, her poem is for everyone out there who needs the encouragement to come forward. Trust in Jesus Christ to give you strength like he gives to me each and every day.
Something Not His
I was about to turn eight the day that it happened;
He was more than eighteen when he secretly planned it.
I always looked up to him, much like a brother;
My older sister’s boyfriend, who she loved like no other.
A state champion wrestler at weight 145;
Coaches and teachers, they all took such pride.
Young boys wanted to be him, talent so strongly admired;
Still hard to believe, he could be such a liar.
It all started with a note, asking me if I liked him;
Of course I wrote, “NO”, which seemed to excite him.
He talked to me, laughed with me, pretended to care;
All the while he was planning, parts wanting to bare.
Alarms screamed inside me, what he asked was so wrong;
I was scared and I panicked, praying he would move on.
I ran to the bathroom, grabbing a cordless phone;
Through my tears and my shaking, called my mom to come home.
He picked the wrong girl, thinking I’d never tell;
I knew in a moment, I must scream out and yell !
The school wanted to hide it, afraid of the athlete they’d lose;
If the police filed charges, and the story made news.
My heart feels so sick, that this person I trusted;
Attempted to steal from me, something so sacred.
His picture still hangs, in his school’s Hall of Fame;
If they only considered, the depth of his shame.
Although he never touched me, it still replays in my head;
His unwelcome advances, all the things that he said.
He is still out there lurking, now in ultimate fights;
No charges filed against him, a wrong never made right.
My parents fell to their knees, sending thanks up above;
So grateful they’d taught me, what’s right and what’s wrong.
I worry about all the other girls, so afraid to say “NO”;
Their pain and their fear, and the hurt they won’t show.
If my poem helps just one girl, come forward and tell;
Then the tragedy I’ve known, will help my heart heal.
I will never forget, but I’ve learned to forgive;
The day that he tried to take,
SOMETHING NOT HIS !
By Kailee Swift
The Lyrics represent God’s hope and promise. I am currently applying to Mercy Ministries, and need desperately to know who God really is. El Shaddai, God really is all sufficient.
My name is renee, i am 17 years old and i have been struggling with trying to see through the rain and realize that God is always with me. I know he loves me, but sometimes it is hard to see. A few years ago i was reaped by my cousin multiple times, but did not know what to do, i was scared to tell my family because my dad hit me. I started to go to a local church and Found God. Since then i have been going to therapy and have gotten all those problems worked out, i still attend the youth group at that church and have gone to revole tour twice. I just really was touched by natalie the first time i saw her, there was something different about her music and about how she lives.
I have had many changes in my life lately. Whenn I was 15, I had lost a boyfriend to cancer. I also lost my mom due to a car accident in February. I used to think that God hated me. He just wanted me to have a horrible life, but I figured out that he loves me. He wants me to believe in him, to be close to him. Some things that I did and said in the time I was depressed were not what he would have wanted me to do. I used lots of drugs and other things. I just wanted to end my life. This song gave me the opening to say that through all that goes on in my life, God will be there with hope that will endure forever. I hope that others can learn from my mistakes and know that God loves them and he wants what is best for them, even if it isn’t what we want.
I’ve suffered from depression since I was a little girl. Some days are better than others. Tonight I was driving around and wondering if my life really was worth going on. I have two beautiful babies and a husband who loves me dearly, yet I still haven’t been able to dig myself out of the pit that I feel I’m living in. I saw you Natalie on April 2nd at a concert you did in AR. I had just recently heard this song, but that night got to hear the story behind it. Tonight as I was driving around thinking, this song was playing and I wasn’t really paying attention to it honestly….I kept thinking that I didn’t want to go home. I just wanted to drive and see how far I could get. Then all of the sudden the words came through and I heard them clearly…”We never walk alone, this is our hope. Our hope endures”. It struck me at that time, that I don’t walk alone. Even though sometimes I feel like I’m so alone and no one cares….God cares. He is right there. Without him there is no hope. Without his love, there is nothing. The only hope in this life is Jesus Christ and having a relationship with Him, and no matter how long I have to fight this battle, I know that I am not fighting it alone and that He is right there with me. He understands what I’m going through, even when I don’t understand it completely. These past few years have been rough. My 19 year old cousin was killed in a horrible car accident almost 3 years ago and the next year my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has since had a double masectomy and gone through chemotherapy and now going through radiation. We got word the other day that there is no more cancer! Praise the Lord! Our HOPE endures. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of my favorite scriptures….”For I know the thoughts I have for you, saith the Lord. Thoughts of good, not of evil, to give you a future and a HOPE.” Natalie, thank you for this beautiful song. Thank you for your awesome testimony and your life that you are leading before us. You are a true example of Christ. I love you!
Obviously, your music is touching many lives. I heard this song for the first time today, while I was searching for the lyrics to “Held”. I had heard that song many times, but it reached me in a different way today, as I was crying out to God, asking Him why He bothered to create me, knowing what kind of life I was going to have. I’ve come close to having that discussion with Him often, but finally broke down and let out all my anger after today’s sermon in my church (all about anger).
Everything about “Held” struck me, and I just wanted to let you know that God used you to further the healing process that has been in the works since my childhood. As He continues to work on me, I know that “Our Hope Endures” will have special meaning to me. I have heard other people comment that I have “suffered my share”, and looking back on my childhood and the struggle that has followed, it certainly seems that “The sun stays hidden for years”. Thank you for this song, which so clearly states that we have hope in spite of circumstances. It is so easy for us as believers to gloss over the sorrow and pain, just to try to appear that we are joyful. I’ve never written to an artist before, although God has used many songs through the years. I just wanted to let you know that what you do truly does impact your brothers and sisters in Christ. Thank you.
This song is wonderful, I keep listening to the lyrics, and can’t help but praise God. Even through the hardest of times, He becomes greater and we become less. Just two years ago I lost my dad suddenly to a heart attack, as my mom had just a year earlier had six bypass open heart surgery. My husband and I have been married about four and a half years, and about 2 years ago we started trying to have kids. I soon found out I had PCOS (polycistic ovarian syndrome) which makes getting pregnant difficult without the help of fertility. Long story short, I got pregnant with sextuplets last october, there was a 1% chance of that happening!! My pregnancy was wonderful until right before I was 21 weeks, March 7, 2009. I went into the hospital and was checked out to find out I was five centimeters dilated, and was in preterm labor. Over a weeks time, I delivered all six babies too early!! And then because of so many placentas I had to go back a week later to have a D&C to help clean out my uterus…all this to say it was a little bit of a nightmare, but God continued to give peace, and assure us there is a plan. That is piece of my story, you can read more on our blog, http://www.thetippingfamily.com.
Courtney
I had the privilege to sing this song by accompaniment track during a Sunday service at my church recently. It is a blessing to bulid God’s people up with a lyrically rich song such as this. I was able to hit all the notes and impart the essence of the song to the congregation. I was grateful that I was an instrument to help someone else in this way. About a week later I had a startling revelation. I pondered about who indeed needed to hear this song ministered. The Holy Spirit opened my eyes to realize that it was me who needed His reassurance from the song. A few days after I sung the song my husband had been diagnosed with a bone mass. My autistic son also had an atttempted assault on him at school.
One singular truth I realized was that throughout these and every fiery trial my hope endures. He will never give up on me and He strengthens me to never give up period.
Miriam Dobson
This song has been one that I return to often since coming across it recently. Within the past two years, it seems so much has gone wrong from battling eating disorders and depression to dealing with the divorce of my parents to the tragic death of a beloved friend.
God gives hope in circumstances that seem completely hopeless, and sometimes that’s all we have to look to, but it’s more than enough in Christ because our hope in Him will endure and we can press on.
There are days when I feel as though nothing will ever look up again, then God reminds me of this song (usually randomly coming across it in lyrics or movies on youtube) and I remember the hope He gives.
This song has touched my life and heart so deeply, it has helped me to get through some of my darkest days. I am so blessed by Natalie, her ministry, and her music.
thanx 4 ur song. i’m a domestic violence survivor. i finally got out. it’s been the hardest thing ever. i’m getting a divorce and my husband is fighting for our kids. this frightens me. i’ve asking ‘why?’ a lot and ‘when will it end?’. life won’t be easier for a long time but with songs like ‘our hope endures’ it will be less painful cause i know God is with me. this song means a lot even tho it was written specifically for people with cancer. thanx for giving words to what my heart is crying.
Hi Natalie and family,
God bless you all. I found out in November of 2005, 1 month after my marriage of almost five years was ending, that my husband was molesting our then four year old son. we have been through three years of court hearings, psyche evals, investigations, etc. Thank God for one year he had no visitation. however, as often happens in court, the district atorneys office dropped the case (due to my son’s age) and the judge in our family law case gave the father normal parent visitation rights. I am appealing the decision on my own as I used all my credit to pay my attorney. I am relying mostly on God’s goodness to save my son and my family (two older brothers) from this unbelievable horror. I bought your cd “stronger” in 2007. since I bought relentless and deeper life and attended your Christmas concert in Bakersfield. I hand out your cd’s as thank you gifts. I suppose I am not too different from most of your fans who know you have used your God-given talent to further His Kingdom on earth. Maybe a little different that I am Catholic who attends daily Mass (16 years). However, I want to thank you for having this web site for this song because all the family of Christ is suffering and we need to pray for each other for strength and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God love us all. Almost forgot, my son knows the words to almost all your song on those cd’s and wants to see you in concert.
This song was playing on my favorite syndicated radio station K-Love one day and as I listened tears began to fall until the lines on the road became blurry. I tell you I almost came apart and had to pull over. I couldn’t believe a song could be so “me” in so few words. It was like this lady had “read my mail”, so to speak. The part in the beginning that says “you asssume, this one has suffered her share, life will be kinder from here..but sometimes the sun stays hidden for years (YES! YEARS!), sometimes the sky rains night after night..when will it clear? But our hope endures the worst of conditions..Its more than
our optimism…Let the earth quake..Our Hope is unchanged..
Then as the song continued she said “walk a mile with the woman whose body is racked with illness, oh how can she laugh? BUt our hope endures the worst of conditions…Its more than our optimism..let the earth quake…our hope is unchanged…El Shaddai, God with us, Emmanuel, we never walk alone…And this is Our Hope!
I tell you that part was where I almost lost it….friends, after seven years of continual and constant pain, two bedrests and complicated pregnancies, almost losing our third when he was 3.5 weeks old to RSV and he was in SCU at Children’s and not given much hope of survival by the Chief Dr, then having him hospitalized and sick all the time with severe asthma, my 5 surgeries and hospitalizations, including one very near death experience, traveling the South for a Dr who could treat all my diseases, having a house fire and being relocated to a hotel from that for near 6 weeks, one of those weeks our third got very ill from the Rotavirus and had to be hospitalized again, it taking two years to sale our first house (during all this), deaths, loss of friends who just couldn’t understan why we kept having problems and were tired of hanging with us through it. All this while going through Ministry Training School for 7 years (our previous Churchs’ seminary they wrote and the Pastor taught). God only knows the tears we cried, the nights we laid in bed clinging to each other crying out to God for answers and direction and to not leave us. Leave us He did not, refine us He began…Praying “Whatever it takes for us Lord…” was a scary and real prayer that brought many trials and tests and the ultimate for our marriage and this family was my severe and almost fatal illness that had me move 13 hrs from home for 6 months by myself. The treatment was grueling at best. Daily life was three hours of I.V. treatment starting at 6:45 a.m. in my recliner at the Health Centers of AMerica clinic…getting ill sometimes during infusion, sometimes on the way home, then sleeping until time to go back for 3.5-4 more hours of treatment at 3 p.m. Getting home around 7, eating when possible, taking the thousand of supplements and pills and going to sleep. Then doing it all over again the next day, seven days a week. Every 4-6 weeks Verick and the kids would fly out to see me. It seemed like every time I would be extremely ill, despite my best efforts. Then every other week or so I would be pulled off i.v. antibiotics I because of my lab work. I was sent to a hematologist/oncologist at the Kansas City cancer center every two weeks I would have labs there. I was told to go off my i.v. antibiotics and I went to the clinic for treatment for my CNS Vasculitis and antioxidants..on January 5th after the clinic made a mistake on the schedule and turned me away, I went to IHOP, not the pancake place but the 24 hr prayer place. A 90 yr old woman who had (along with two other older ladies) prayed for me several times from the very beginning, sat next to me and was praying for my healing. The guy at the mic began to stop praying for K.C. and started saying “I feel like there are some people here who need a physical healing. You have been sick for years and the enemy has thwarted your healing..but now is the time..today is the day…you have been waiting…Then the praise team began singing the song “Restoration” which had been my “anthem” at IHOP for healing. Talked about Him bringing restoration…and turning our mourning into dancing” As I sang I felt a release and I knew without a doubt I was being healed after all these years and prayers…the next day at the cancer center my Dr was amazed at my lab results from that day. He asked me what I thought…prayer, healing, God! was what I said! Absolutely he said. Wow, I didn’t know he was a believer. He pulled out the labs from two weeks prior and showed me the huge jump…my numbers had doubled all the way down the sheet! Pancytopenia was gone! Bone Marrow biopsy no longer the next step! Praise God! He told me he never wanted to see me again! The feeling is mutual!
Then came the thought “Am I healed of everything now or just my marrow and cells healed? At church I received a two hour prayer time one day after church that the Holy Spirit orchestrated…and was prayed over every area…only the Holy Spirit speaking through this guy on the prayer team, and the Pastor’s wife would have known to pray those specifics! I felt a warm swirling feeling in my thyroid area where there was a goiter..and it was gone! Then they began to pray for emotional pain that only God knew about. I was truly able to forgive…That afternoon as a family we went to the Center for God, Country and Family and I line danced for hours without pain or even breaking a sweat! The kids and Verick were ecstatic…I just felt like I was in a dream! Thank you Jesus! I just can’t thank Him enough for restoring my body, mind and soul..my marriage, my family and other relationships!
On an incredible trip (given to us) to ALabama last month we stopped in Nashville for a lay over. I got to see my Sister, Candice, who lives at FT Campbell, nearby. As we were sitting talking the elevator in front of us opened and the two cutest little girl twins got off with their parents. I was so busy oogling the girls I missed seeing the mom, Natalie Grant. Verick, who is always good at never forgetting a face told me. Before I knew what I was doing I called out her name and promised her I didn’t typically stalk stars. She laughed. I told her I had just bought her Relentless C.d. and was in love with this song that was so me on there. “Our Hope Endures”, she said. Yes! I said and told her I was just miraculously healed from a terminal illness and that song inspired me after 7 years of sickness. She teared up, hugged and thanked me and asked me to post my story on her blog. An instant connection was made and a confirmation to me on my way to Alabama to celebrate my healing took place! Awesome how God does that! Thanks for those moments of not coincidence but confirmation!
Thank you Natalie…your genuine, precious personality coupled with your zeal for the Lord and His people are what allows the Lord to use you as His vessel in such an awesome capacity! I will be speaking at a church on June 11th to women and young ladies, sharing my testimony and healing and have asked the worship team to sing “Our Hope Endures”. Your legacy reaches far and wide and keeps going…Love, Crystal Burchfield
There’s so much to say, so much I can’t say. I literally don’t know how to express my heart in the limited vocabulary we all like to call human language.
I have not used my real name here because I am afraid to do so. But I will say, I am in the midst of the biggest battle of my life. After 35 years of literal service to Satan in the Temple of Set, I have decided to accept the Lord into my life and become a new creation. I am leaving a religion of pain and torment and confusion and misery behind. It is not easy, it is not pleasant, and it is not for the faint of heart. Most Christians, in fact, run away from me. As far away as possible. They feel I’m scary, I’m horrible, or the demons that taunt me might start taunting them if they’re too close to me.
But that is ok. Because God has shown me more in these last few months of my life that many life long Christians will ever even dream of seeing or experiencing. I know that and I hang on to it. There is so much I have learned and experienced in this short time that I am dumbfounded and excited to see how God will use me in the future. I’ve been literally baptised by Jesus himself in a vision, I’ve looked into His eyes of pure perfect love, and He’s washed me clean and fresh and new. And let me tell you – if I could choose to live any sort of exciting life or chose to sit and look into those eyes of His forever and ever – I’d pick the latter. Looking into His eyes is better than anything I can describe or imagine. He literally showed me that I never walk alone and that HE is my Hope!!! Even through the worst of conditions!
Natalie has been, quite literally, a guiding light for me. A lighthouse that points me toward the Lord. Her music, her lyrics…they have become this undescribable physical concrete strength that I can hold on to through the darkest of nights. Natalie has been there, I don’t know how or when or where, but she’s been in pain and she understands the deepest despair that I don’t even know how to describe. And somehow through that despair I feel, I can hear her present The Solution. And it is good.
The first song I discovered was “Held” and it immediately struck home. Not because I have lost a child of my own that wasn’t healed, but because until I became a Christian a few months ago, I had no idea what love was and what it meant to be comforted. I thought I did. I thought I knew it all. But, really, there was no comfort for me before I met the Lord. There was no being held, no being loved, no surviving. I was walking dead.
I just want to thank you, Natalie. I know you are having fun with what you do, that it’s something that is exciting and fun and thrilling to travel and sing and meet people. But always remember, for every 1000 people you meet, there are many thousands more of us our here who hear your music in a dark corner of this existance and it is the only hope and encouragement we may hear. Remember that your lyrics and the heart and story behind them can change the coldest and most evil heart, a heart that no one else could have reached.
Frankly, I don’t know you and I don’t know if we will ever meet one another. Perhaps in heaven. Perhaps in email. But know that your beautiful voice, your lyrics, and the message behind them have gotten me through the toughest, darkest battles imaginable. Remember that. And I’m sure there are many more like me out there.
And thank you for allowing God to speak to me through you. I may not have ever heard His true voice.
Sincerely,
Maddie
In 1999, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Fifteen months later, she was fighting to stay alive. By the grace of God, she survived her illness, but was left with epilepsy and learning disabilities including mild autism.
After several years, my husband and I felt strong enough to have another baby. But month after month, I wasn’t pregnant. In August 2008, he rushed me to the hospital in severe pain. The doctor’s discovered a bleeding ovarian cyst had ruptured and during surgery to repair it, they also discovered several problems that would prevent us from having another baby.
We turned to fertility treatments and were thrilled to find out we were pregnant in December following IVF treatments. A few weeks later, I started to bleed and the doctor told us to prepare for a miscarrage. Again, by the grace of God, our baby survived.
Madison Hope Moller is due to be born in August.
I was really inspired by your song “In Better Hands”. It helped me to remember that since I’m saved, I know that no matter what happens, I’ll always be in good hands-Gods!
I thank God for bringing your song to the airwaves right when I needed it. My first calamity this year was losing my dear gramzie. She was probably the person I was closest to in my whole life and we shared a unique and tight bond. It was like part of me was suddenly missing. The joy in the midst of it all was that I was able to share with her (just before she died) that I was expecting my first little one (after 9 years of marriage and her wishing and praying for me to have a baby the whole time!)
However, right before the 15th week of pregnancy I found out that my baby had died. I felt like I’d already “suffered my share” but here was my second blow. It’s been a few weeks now. My surgery is over and I’m healing physically, but the emotional healing takes time. God is good. He is strengthening me day by day – through the emotional moments, the grief, the disappointment – he is all sufficient for me. It’s funny, as I read through the lyrics I challenged myself to ask if my hope was truly “unchanged” and was blessed and encouraged to realize that through these trials, I feel that my hope has changed – it has grown. Thanks for ministering to my heart. I know I’m not walking this alone. – John 16:33
My mother bought me your cd for Christmas, and I’m ashamed to say that it took me 6 months to get around to listening to it. I believe however that things unfolded that way for a reason– the timing could not have been more perfect. I’m 24 years old and I have Lupus, an extremely painful and crippling autoimmune disease. I have recently suffered a crisis in my faith. I never had any doubts about God’s existence. My questions had more to do with the nature of God and the nature of my soul. Being in greater and greater pain 24 hours/day for the past 8 years has changed me. I was so strong in my faith when I was a teenager, and as the pain and level of disability increased, my resolve just started to crumble. Some days I have almost no hope at all. I still pray, but the nature of my prayers has changed dramatically. Lately, I’ve begun to make some progress with myself, and regain my sense of joy and purpose. I’m nowhere near where I want to be, but I’m getting closer.
Today I put in your cd for the first time and heard Our Hope Endures. It felt like the second verse was written just for me. When I heard the lines about a woman torn by disease I stopped the cd, backed it up, and played it again because I thought I must have heard wrong. Your song touched me in a way that Christian music hasn’t done in years. I believe that God sent me a message through your song. Thanks so much for recording it.
I have loved your music for a while now because the lyrics hold such meaning in them. I just recently bought your new cd, Relentless, and I LOVE it! I especially love “Our Hope Endures” for various reasons. First of all, I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis about 2 or so years ago, which was a huge impact on my life. When the doctor told me the news, I felt like he had told me I had cancer. I was 16 and really scared of what my future held. However, with all my family, friends, doctors, and God backing me up, I knew I would make it – and I have! I’ll never understand why God chose for me to have it, but I know He never gives me more than I can handle. Also, my past has come back to haunt me numerous times, just about past sins, and only hope and prayer to God got me through many dark nights. Also, my dad has a brain tumor that has come back from previous surgery and that scares me some and I know it scares him and my mom, too. But I have hope that everything will work out the way God has planned. Only hope in God really gets me through tough times. Hope, trust, and love. Thank you so much for the amazing songs! They really do help so many people
I love this song…I have been fighting brain cancer since I was 27. 4 years later I am still fighting. They said I had 6 months to live. This song is exactly my heartbeat of this fight. In the midst of the storm is peace. Stop fighting against the storm, stand firm and be still and see the beauty you are missing out on. they said i couldn’t have children and we now have a healthy 5 month old beautiful daughter. And now, they have given me another time on my life as of may 2009. This song is beautiful and hope that endures is my life. My testimony and life offer hope and fight. Bc i am not giving up and what i plan on getting done in my life will endure to the next generation and the next. My focus is a placing a shelter in texas in 2010 for trafficking…..the ball is rolling. When u are faced with a war, you have two choices…go full force and bring an army with you or turn around. I am going full force and making a big stand against my illness. My hope will endure and this shelter (my purpose) will be the start of making the earth quake and placing undying hope in those that so desparately need it.
Jeremiah 29:11-12
Wow. I took my family to hear you in Euless, TX. You are a blessing. Your witness comments bring forth the Holy Spirit and your music instills it into our hearts.
Hi Natalie,
Even though I have never had the opportunity to see you in concert, I love your music. Your lyrics are so powerful and so real. They really speak to me. You make no claims of having it all together and having all the answers. I love that.
I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing your new single yet, but I hope to hear it soon. Your new CD is definitely on my “want to buy list”
I have suffered from severe depression since I was 15 (I’m now 33). Sometimes, I find myself wondering if God even cares about what I’m going through. I don’t have the words for prayer, and God feel so distant. There have been times when I have wanted to throw myself completely into the world and just disappear. But I just can’t do it. I know that Jesus is the only way and He alone is the truth and has the words of eternal life.
I love all your music, but probably the song that has ministered to me the most is probably “In Better Hands” Due to my depression, I often have trouble sleeping. Sometimes, I lay awake for hours unable to follow asleep. Other nights, I wake up in the middle of the night and lay awake unable to sleep. I listen to the radio before bed, because it helps me lay awake. Sometimes, I will turn on the radio in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. It was on a night like that that I first heard “In Better Hands” As I listened to the lyrics, I just started to cry. It expressed exactly what I was feeling at the time. It also gave me a much needed reminder that God does care and that God is always nearby, whether we feel it or not.
I also really admire your work with the Home Foundation. Human trafficking is something that the Lord has also laid on my heart. It is such a tragedy with real people behind it. It is not possible for me to donate at this time, but please know that I support you 100% in what you are trying to do to end human trafficking.
May God bless you. Thank you for allowing the Lord to use your music to speak to others like me. I hope that you will continue to make music that honors Him.
Blessings,
Lisa
My name is Stacey (23), and I graduated the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in May 2008. I stepped out in obedience over the summer through a Christian leadership camp to give my testimony at Mackinaw Island. Well, I felt like I should step out again and share it with you and then let you know how your songs have helped me:)
(Look in the prop mirror and then turn it away…disgusted)
I am not
a glamorous beauty
Exuding an aura of confidence
I am not
A fascinating intellectual
Enlightening all with an extensive knowledge
Though I know what I am not
I, too, know what I am
I am
A devastating disappointment
I am
A faltering failure
I am
A nameless nobody
I am an airy apparition
Admidst the living
Not seen nor heard
Taken from a poem called “Irrefutable realizations”
that I wrote when I was 16 years old.
I hated myself, especially in junior high and high school
I carried this enemy inside me wherever I went
It was a relentless criticizer that wanted to tear me down
Mirrors were a tool that only egged on this poisonous internal dialogue by bouncing back a reflection that churned my stomach. I zeroed in on the imperfections: acne, the dark circles under my eyes that I tried to cover with thick foundation and powder
I thought…NO ONE COULD EVER LOVE SOMETHING SO UGLY
To tried to decrease my turmoil by making A’s my addiction. I got good reactions when I got good grades, so I continued to place my self esteem in the hands of a mere letter of the alphabet.
Even though I spent hours studying, I still felt stupid because I HAD to work so hard. I discounted every A that I received anyway; the high wearing off only moments after I saw the grade on the paper. I felt empty of knowledge and on top of that lacking beauty, friendships, and meaning.
If I died, would anyone care? I would say no, no not really.
This all confused me…I tried to figure out where these ideas came from because I had a loving family…I wrote the following poem about my father as a 14 year old that said:
“Smiling, laughing, rejoicing …He’s always there …struggling, falling, crying
He’s there always, my father, with outstretched arms”
While I didn’t realize it at the time, I was writing my first poem about God, that this is even more true of God. Because no matter how my father outstretched his arms to hug me, this Daddy’s girl…He couldn’t reach the inside of me, he couldn’t change my mind, my heart.
Things changed, though…one day when I was 20 years old, I tried to look in a mirror, but physically couldn’t make eye contact with myself. Something, though, drew me back, something had convicted me…Why couldn’t I do such a simple task? God had convicted me, God had caught me red handed in my self-hate. Drawing my eyes up to face my adversary, I cried, my tears, I saw shockingly as beautiful, somehow seeing the honesty, the person behind that mask of perfection that I had tried to construct. He showed me that He could and wanted to love someone that I thought was repulsive, and in that moment, He had redefined my definition of beauty. This was an unconditional love…not based on grades, external beauty, or intelligence: How wide, long, high, deep is the love of Christ became clear to me, that Christ’s love is 3 dimensionally real.
(Look in the mirror prop again)
I am not…a nameless nobody
Though I know what I am not
I, too, know what I am
I am …pursued with outstretched arms by a Father who wants to teach me how to deeply love who I am, who can call me His beautiful daughter.
I have been struggling recently, but God is pointing me back to singing and writing again when I used to have a phobia of singing. When God called me to sing like a year and a half ago, I thought it was funny because I had no training really, and I haven’t really sang since grade school. I obeyed though, and I ended up trying out for Intervarsity’s worship team, which I was apart of at the time. I didn’t make it, but I was told that I had potential and that I should maybe take voice lessons. I actually did end up taking them, and it was the scariest thing in my life because I believed that I had a horrible voice, and I wouldn’t even sing in church! My instructor pushed me to keep singing even when I would crack! I have the whole perfectionism thing too! Anyway, I ended up singing a duet in front of an audience! Then after that, I actually ended up singing on a worship team! AND in a gospel choir AND in a college level choir, which was also scary because my knowledge of music (reading notes, etc.) is about zero—BUT I GOT THROUGH IT and loved it!
So just today, your song “In Better Hands,” popped into my head, and it was like God was helping me make a stand against all of the negative self beliefs that I had, giving me the courage to believe that I WAS IN BETTER HANDS NOW! Then when I started to sing it…I hit some high notes that I NEVER thought that I could! I was amazed. I sang it with power and support *the same girl who used to be silent.* I think that I hit some of those notes because I really believed what I was singing probably for the first time…like really believed it…that there was a choice I could make: to listen to that negativity or kick it out! I felt like every snapped into place like maybe singing/writing is what I was supposed to do despite my lack of knowledge about music theory, my lack of knowledge of how to play an instrument…He said that he could provide the people, and he has so far (I did end up singing with a worship team afterall:)…I have to have faith and your song helped SOOO much with that!
Also, “I will not be moved” especially the part “on Christ the solid rock I stand…all other ground is sinking sand” reminded me how God is my rock and loves me the same no matter how much I try to convince him otherwise, no matter how much the opinion of myself goes up and down.
So…thank you for all you do, and I pray that God continues to give you lyrics to write, His lyrics!
Much love,
Stacey
I have loved your music for a long time now. “Held” and “The Real Me” were such songs to my heart. I turned 50 years old on Feb. 11th of this year. It was also the same day my sister attempted suicide due to a very unhappy marraige and long addiction to alcohol. In the same week one of my daughters told me her marraige was in trouble and yet another daughter said she wasn’t sure she wanted to carry the baby she had in her womb.
I prayed to our Father in Heaven to help this family, and would sing loudly the lyrics to your songs!
My sister got help in re-hab and is doing well, has finally given her life to Christ! Praise God! My daughter’s marriage is riseing out of the ashes, and my other daughter will be giving birth to a wonderful baby girl in August!
But tragedy struck again, on May 26th I lost my brother to a massive heart attack at the young age of 47! Through all of these struggles, I know my God is with me. I know He loves me.
Your song “Our Hope Endures” has helped hold me together as I greive loss and celebrate life.
And now, yet another song that reaches to the inward parts of me “Perfect People”.
Thank you Natalie, for your wonderful voice during my joys and sorrows. God has surely blessed you!
I was at the women’s conference at the Galt House in Louisville just yesterday. I sat mid-way in the crowd and had a great front view. It felt as though you were looking right at me and singing to my heavy heart. I left there so blessed and full of the Spirit of God.
You are “wonderful, beautiful”
With love, Shelly
I heard this song for the first time on the way to work this morning and it will definitely help me make it through the day. The last week has been especially difficult, on top of serious health issues for myself, my daughter and grandson. Natalie reminded me that I never walk alone and tears of joy sprang to my eyes as I felt the presence of My Lord and Saviour beside me. Thank you so much for sharing your gift of music and love. Sue
God woke me up early this morning so I too could find some quiet time from my busy life of raising two girls only 18 months apart. My name is Melissa Russell and I also attended your concert at the Galt House in Louisville, KY this past Saturday with my mother, grandmother, and Aunt – a special thanks to our husbands’ and their thoughtfulness on Mother’s Day. I saw you perform live at the DOVE awards two years ago for the first time, but this was my first time actually attending one of your concerts. My husband and I began listening to Christian music nearly 5 years ago and have attended several concerts, but your concert was particularly special to me and one that I will cherish and hold in my heart for as long as God grants me a sound and stable mind. Let me tell you what happened. Shortly after your first song, my eyes began playing tricks on me. I don’t know if it was the bangs or the way you had your hair pulled back in a ponytail but I couldn’t shake the image of my sister Melanie. Although I was only sitting a few rows back and generally just need my glasses when driving at night, I pulled them out of my purse hoping for some clarity. To my surprise, there was little if any difference in your appearance. Yes – everything was obviously sharper and clearer, but is all I could see was my sister Melanie. I even tried rationalizing the situation by reminding myself that you guys really don’t look that much alike based on your pictures and that Melanie and I only sound good singing with the radio turned up loud but it still couldn’t stop the tears. At one point, I thought I was going to have to get up and go to the restroom so I could “sob it out” for awhile. Anyway, within a few songs, God began speaking through you to me through your testimony. My mom and I exchanged glances as you began sharing about your twin daughters – Melanie and I are identical twins. She passed me the tissues when you began discussing your struggles with your insecurities and consequently your appearance – I got chill bumps as I thought about the several years in high school when I struggled to understand how my beautiful sister could ever see her body as being ugly. And although praise God she recovered in this one particular area, her insecurities carried over even into her young adult life. I won’t go into details but I could tell from just the bit of testimony that you shared that you could so relate to my sister. Although she wasn’t blessed with ana amazing singing voice such as yourself, she was incredibly beautiful and extremely intelligent, graduating amongst the top in her high school class and magna-cum-laude in college with a degree in Occupational Therapy. Even more importantly, she was more beautiful on the inside than out- not discriminatory in her relationships with others but loving to all with whom she met. This was quite apparent as more than a couple of thousand people streamed through our small home-town church during the weekend of her funeral. For you see, God chose to deliver my sister into His arms along with all three of her children (Madeline 7, David 6, and Charlotte 1) on April 25, 2007, just two years ago. As you can imagine, the pain and grief have been unbearable at times and frequently visits at the most unexpected and unanticipated times. As an identical twin, we shared just about everything with one another including our fears concerning tragedy and even discussed how blessed our family had been for the past 31 years. This conversation took place in my kitchen just a few weeks before she and her children lost their lives in a tragic car accident. Because of the severity of the accident, we were unable to view their bodies, with the exception of my nephew David whose body was retrieved just shortly before the vehicle burst into flames. And that Natalie, is why your concert was so special to me. You have no idea how many times I have prayed that God would just let me see her one more time w/o calling me home just yet. And it wasn’t until yesterday that God had reminded me of my request and gave me the answer to the WHY? I have been asking ever since I left your concert. Once again, I am in awe of our God and His ways. My family and I are living testimony that He is faithful to His children and He can draw you closer to Him even during the worst of situations. There is so much more I want to shout as I testimony to the goodness and greatness of our Lord and Savior but that would take up way too much of this blog. If anyone is interested in more about this story you can visit the following website that my sister Kim created in honor of my sister and her children http://kimberlyodaniel.typepad.com/homesick/ So Natalie, thank you so much for your desire and willingness to love and serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Who would have thought that on that particular day your appearance would play such an integral role in my healing! May God Bless you always for your faithfulness and willingness to serve and love Him. Like you Natalie and so many others, MY HOPE ENDURES in the only One who Can and Will deliver me from the troubles of this world. With Love, Melissa Moore Russell – FYI – I posted a pic of you and I on facebook and one of my friends commented that we looked like we could be sisters! What a compliment!
In December 2008, an old friend of mine from high school was in a tragic car accident where she lost her precious little boy. I’m sure it was her faith that kept her going. Surely, “this one has suffered her share, life will be kinder from here.” I can’t imagine how dim her skies are, or when they will clear for her. But our hope endures…
Everytime I hear this on the radio, I think of her and her family. God be with them.
I was raised by the most amazing, Christ focused, single dad in the world. I never met my mother, so when my dad got married when I was 11, things looked promising. My beautiful, amazing little sister came into the world just a year later, and life was good. Things were good for a while, but about a year and a half ago (right after my 20th birthday) we found out my step-mother was having an affair. Things kind of spun out of control for our family, and the divorce was finalized last summer. Just six months after the divorce and already facing financial trouble, my dad was laid off from his job.
Things seemed really dark for a while. My sister, now 9, started suffering from severe stomach problems which were more than likely stress related, dad was depressed and the whole family was on edge. It was right in the middle of all the chaos that I first heard your song. It was one of those times in my life where I knew God had a plan, but none of it made sense. The line about “comprehending peace within pain” really hit home. It helped me stop questioning and to remember that at the end of the day, all that matters is that my Savior holds every moment and every situation in the palm of His hand.
Things are still rocky as dad continues to search for a full-time job, but we’re settling in. When I think about how we made it through, I remember that it really is more than just being optimistic that pulls us through the dark days. We have a peace, a confidence, and an unwavering hope for God’s move in our lives.
i’m 17. about a year ago i was raped by my friends moms ex boyfriend. i never told my family. and only shared it with a few frinds. i was 16 holding so much inside. my parents fought with me all the time. i ran away. got tookin into juvy intake. about 5 months ago i started drinkin everyday. before school after school. all the time. my mom and dad wasn’t gettin along. mom moved out. leaving me and my younger sister with my dad. one day i deciced to tell my dad about it. he pretty much told me it was my fault and i shouldn’t have even been talking to a 45 year old. as if i didn’t know it was my fault anyways he had to throw it in my face. the guy that raped me comes around all the time. to my job. by my house. calls me. saying sorry. i couldn’t take it anymore. i went home and over dosed on my depression meds. got sent to the hospital. told them it was an axident so they’d let me go home when the meds was all outta my system. mom moved back in. said her grls need her and she needs to be with us. shortly after i ran away again. this time when court came around i chose to live with my aunt and uncle. mom found out about the rape.and just wanted to be there for me. my aunt and uncle wouldn’t let us have anything to do with each other. i got in counseling. i have post traumatic stress. (guess drinking on those meds is a really bad combo) about 3 months ago i went from. no sexual contact to abnoral behavior sexual interation. i started talking to my aunts boyfrined. the cheif of police. he has helped me out alot with the rape. i could talk to him about anything and he made me feel safe. one night i got drunk. he was drunk. he came and picked me up and we had sexual activity. my aunt found out. i had to tell my parents. they wanted to send me to a hostpital to get me some help. they didn’t know what to do with me. i lost all my closest friends. lost everyone that meant the most to me. when i needed them the most. i have questioned if there even was a God. Hes with us all the time. watching over us. but how could he just sit there and watch it happen? i now see that i am not alone. everyone has problems. everyone needs help. and when no one else is there. God will always be there. i am still in counseling. and have gotten into drug and alcohol counseling also. i’m workin on fixin myself b4 i get any worse,all of your songs have touched me in many ways. Thank you.
-Amanda
I had just got the CD and I was reading all of the lyrics…Our Hope Endures spoke to me, I just knew my daught Katie needed to sing it at church for our Sunday school teacher miss Shirley Baily who was fighting cancer…the same one that her sister had and went home to be with the Lord the year before. Calamity only strikes once. Last year at our annual cancer awareness walk, Miss Shirley was only able to do one mile. Walk a mile with a woman whose body is torn.
The next night on the way home from music lessons with my two youngest daughters, we put in the CD and I went right to Our Hope Endures. I cried…we listened to it over and over again that night.
I went on line and found the voice removed copy of the song and my daughter Katie age then 12 set about learning the song. We had not heard it on the radio yet.
Katie never got the chance to sing it for Miss Shirley…she did get to sing it at church 3 weeks after Miss Shirley went home to be with the Lord.
Since then she has performed it several times for various events, and when they light the Luminaries at next years cancer awareness walk in April 2010, Katie will be singing Our Hope Endures. Thank you for such a wonderful song! It is so inspiring, God is so good.
I had this song on repeat for a few days straight while working out. I started to listen to Our hope Endures in April on Easter Sunday and it woke me up. I had been broken and prayer and crying out to God asking for a sign that it will all be better. By it I mean my marriage, my family and the state of my life. I felt I was on the verge of breaking and I couldn’t take anymore heartache until i listen to the words over and over. At that point I decided I will not give up and my hope is not in man or in me its in the most High God. He kept me and kept me and showed me unbelievable mercy and even after all that I could cast my burdens on him and my hope endured. I just feel such a praise in me and this song helped me to get to a point to pray and remain steadfast that all will be restored.
I have lived my life going to church and sunday school and doing all the things a little girl could do. Now i’m in my teen years. I have always wondered, though, what it is like to die. When my grandmother died, I wonder what it was like for her. She left her husband and the rest of her family here on earth. I wonder if it was hard fot her. i know that she probably didn’t feel sad or anything. I remember that before she died, I had never had someone died that was so close to me, so I was asking God in my prayers to show me what it felt like. So, in a way, I was asking God to take someone’s life so that I could feel pain. i feel so bad for even thinking that now. Idon’t want people to feel bad for me because of what I lost, I just want people to understand that death is painful for the people that the person leaves behind. Life is like a train. It just keeps moving. Sometimes, people get off the train, while others keep on going. Everyone has there own destination. I know that I had no idea how it would feel to loose my grandma. She died from cancer. I believe that she just gae up instead of fighting the illness. I know she was strong enough to, but she just felt that she had cancer, so she was going to die, that that ended her life. God used this as an inspiration for me. He used this to strengthen my faith. i believe that he will do the same for you in your life. Just keep your eyes open and listen. He will speak to you. I heard him. Thank you for your inspirational song and for all the other song that have inspired me. I have been a fan for a few years now! Keep on writing and I’ll keep on listening! <
I am grieving the recent loss of my mom, who I was very close to. I share in the truth behind this song “Our Hope Endures.” There are times when I feel God is so silent. Where is He in my grief? Where was He when my mom was battling cancer? Why did this have to be her time?
But ultimately, through it all, my hope endures. My mom raised me to know Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. She was confident in her hope and that confidence is instilled in me. For anyone who believes in Christ, we have a living hope that cannot be taken away from us (1Pt 1:3-4)! Our hope is our Salvation.
I am so thankful for my moms salvation. Without it she would not have been able to endure the pain and grief of cancer. She knew that if God did not answer our prayers for healing, she would instead enjoy the peace found in heaven.
I am so thankful for my salvation. I know that I will be reunited with my mom one day. I know that God is with me, even when I don’t feel him. And I know that my grief and suffering is not in vain. God has a purpose whether we know it or not (1Pt 1:6-9). Praise be to God, our hope endures!
Hello Natalie,
I love this song. I first heard it when I was in a stail place in my walk with God. After being alone and kept for God only for 3 years I met a man, who I thought would be my husband. Longest year of my life. This Song gave me hope for all my short comings. I’m glad to say today that I have been rebaptised and refilled and living a Holy life onto God again. Thanks for being a ray of Hope in some of my darkest hours. God Bless.
Deborah
Why Hello Natalie.
As a matter of fact, the words “our hope endures” are the words of my banner on my phone with a picture of a cross as the background. i took the picture at the big ticket festival in Gaylord Michigan, where i saw you perform the song “our hope endures” amoung the many others you performed brilliantly.
I really really love that song. its so touching and really spoke to me. and when im like at work thats the song thats always stuck in my head (well it doesnt always stay in my head). the words repeat over and over again in my head and constantly reminds me that our hope endures. doesnt matter what storm we are going through, our hope endures. when i saw you at the big ticket, ahh wow. i cant even tell you how much the words you spoke as well as the songs you sang just really spoke to my heart. at one point you brought me to tears because it was almost as if everything you said, you were speaking directly to me. it was totally what i needed to hear. lately its almost been like i have been resisting God and lost some faith. but He knows me and He knows how to get through to me and He used you. Thank you so much for doing what you do as a singer, as a writer (song and book), as an inspiration and role model, and as an awesome woman of God. You glorify God through your music and its amazing.
By the way, im reading your book right now, and so far so great! i relate to you in alot of ways. and i personally dont read alot of books at all. my sister had to push me and push me to finish the ever so popular book twilight. but your book i cant seem to easily put down. maybe because i relate wayyy more to you than i do to vampires and warewolves.
anyways, thank you. your music is amazing. your book is awesome. you yourself are incredible.
May God continue to use you and bless you.
-Lindsay E.
God is with us and is all sufficient.
I have been a Natalie Grant fan ever since I bought the “Awaken” CD. “Held” had special meaning to me with the death of my grandfather. Then I heard “Our hope endures.” Two years ago I suffered an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured. I was rushed to the hospital and had emergency surgery. Never did I feel like my God had abandoned me. In fact, I never thought I would get pregnant without the help of a fertility doc. I did and although it ended rather traumatically, I know that my God was with me. Now, I have a beautiful baby girl given to us through the amazing technology of IVF and I know that my hope endures. I struggled for years with my infertility, but through it all God had a plan. Thank you for reminding me that even though it is dark, God will give us a way to find Him and peace with our circumstances. May God bless you and your ministry.
Kate Journay
I plan to share this song at my parents’ church in the morning. You see my dad has the first of two knee surgeries this week. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer last month and will have her second surgery on July21. She also sees a doctor about back surgery on July 24 because she is losing the use of her right leg. She also has many other health problems that causes her have constant pain. On top of this, this past week we found out that my grandfather also has cancer. We are not sure where or about bad. All of this is added to the fact that my uncle is incapacitated after falling off of a horse last year. My parents and grandfather have played a major role in his care. With all this, all at one time, my family knows that our hope is in God. He is our strength.
My mom has never heard this song, but it could be about her. She and my dad are the ones that instilled in us where our hope, faith and love should be placed: Emmanuel, El Shaddai!
Everytime I hear this song it makes me cry, thinking about my friend Andrea who is battling Hodgkin’s Lymphoma…walk a mile with a woman whose body is torn with illness but she marches on…her boys are 13 and 15… the football size mass had spread to her throat and beyond…but today she received news that God has answered our prayers…the doctor sees only scar tissue now where the cancer once was…our hope endures…Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Hello Natalie,
I have always believed that there was more to life than just the same everyday routine. I was born into a household that was unstable in what faith was to be believed in. My mother was an aethesist and my father was a buddhist. My childhood was fine i guess you could say up until i was 9 years old and my father turned to alcohol to drown his sorrows and find his answers. He was a very abusive and mean drunk and i was the oldest child there fore i was the only one to take upon the responsibilities of raising my two little siblings. For the next few years up until the age of 12 i was the one who cleaned the house or hotel suite and take care of a little boy and a little girl. my mother was depressed and so slept quite alot. at the age of 12 i witnessed the tragedy of 9/11 and made the decision to join the military when i was older. At the age of 14 Social Services intervened and took my siblings and i out of the horrible lifestyle we were in. However, i didn’t know God as i do now. I spent the next several years in such an angry and lonely place that i was in such despair i honestly thought no one would ever care or want me. Then Jesus found me and my life did a complete 180. I went from being a mean and hateful angry person to a bible walking soirit filled child of God. It was the most wonderful thing in the world.
I am currently 20 years old and i am a member of the United States Navy. Every single day i wake up and listen to christian music. I have both Relentless and Awaken in my playlists.
Right now My father is in a sad place. He is still drinking and refuses any and all help the family has tried giving him. I am his daughter and i am the only one in the family who is still talking to him. Listening to your song Held and Our hope endures speaks to me everytime and the songs play as i read the Lord’s Word.
Even though i’ve done all i can for him, My hope in God endures each and every day. I’ve given this and every other situation up to God. I trust Him.
Thank The Lord Almighty that He made you and is using you through Music. I love music and the music you write, i know it all comes from God. i hope to one day reach the dream of music i have.
Thank you. May the Lord always be with you and your family and bless you always.
Love Always, Mariko
after reading many of these stories… i honestly thought twice about sharing my heart. i almost felt like i couldnt relate to a certain extent. but i guess thats basically how i have felt my whole life.
Natalie, i got hooked on your music about a year ago when your song “the real me” was played for my small group at the camp i go to every year. the topic of that day was self image. what god thinks of us above what we think of ourselves. at the time i was 4 months deep into secret bullemic habits and cutting. clearly blind to the fact that i was leading a double life. i did the whole -get up in front of the church to lead worship with the “face” on so everyone assumed i was happy- then going home and taking my emotions out on myself. mostly deeply rooted from the feeling of rejection from my non chrsitian parents and losing my mentor who moved away. her being the only one i really trusted besides my best friend. after a few months i added another youth group to my busy schedule so i could make sure i was still being fed while keeping busy to avoid emotions. and after promising myself i would never let anyone in again and i would never get another mentor, god placed my current mentor in my life and before i knew it… it seemed like she knew more about me than i knew myself. one night at her house she whipped out your book “the real me” and asked me if i had read it. which i had, but i got nothing out of it the frst time because i didnt have the heart to accept it. but that winter i began to read it again with a bit of a change of heart and little by little i was meditating on some of the scripture but then about halfway through it i got the news that my pastor (aka my youth dad) was getting layed off. and instead of going to god with my emotions and working through them with my mentor, i hid them and took them out on myself.. and in the mean time i put the book down. here it is 7 months later, and alot has changed…good and bad. but i just picked the book back up again today.
just the other day i really listened to this song “our hope endures” and it kind of went with what has been on my heart lately. pretty much sorting out happiness vs joy. all this time iv been striving for happiness when all ineed is joy. i recently got back from my yearly summer camp again and that week i turned 18 in my favorite safe and loving envornment. it was a more bitter sweet than exciting thing tho. my parents didnt even text or call to say happy birthday. the whole day of my birthday i had to remind myself that today is the day that god wanted me here even if my parents didnt plan me and just deal with me. that week i was very much convicted of the fact that i put way too much into depending on such a high standard on the people i let in my life so they can hold a relationship with god for me. it took me to the point of almost wanting to give up on my mentor for doing the right thing with me to realize that, thats impossible. gods really testing me. my best friend asked me the other night in the car comming home from a movie night “laur, can you honestly say the words ‘i love you’ to god and whole heartedly mean it?” and i was like…”uhm….?” i really coud not answer… and she was like..”i had the same reaction.” and i got thinking again and feeling even more convicted of other things. like.. how can i even begin to say i love you to anyone in my life, never mind trust them, without being able to love god and know that he loves me with an ever lasting love? god is love, he desires for us to love and be loved. with that, her dad has lukemia. and she had been battling alot of the same self inflicting struggles as i had been and we had been egging eachother on negatively. i was beginning to think we were never going to come out of it and that the only solution was to distance from eachother for a positive goal. but it didnt happen, gos kept telling me to be there for her, and today were still best friends and both almost fully recovered. i guess listening to this song on repeat for the past 2 days has just reminded me of that whole story and know that my testimony will continue till the day i die. and it helps remind me to run to god first with anything and have hope even in the darkest moments. sometimes it takes falling into the darkest hole to come out with pure hope. he will direct me on what to do and who he has in my life to go to. but most importanly that his love is extravigant and without our hope and faith, we would never see that. iv had a pretty drastic change of heart thoughout all these trials, and nothing has signifcantly changed but its comforting to feel more at peace knowing iv given up a bit more control that iv always held onto that belongs to him, not me. my hope enures
<3 laur.
Dear Natalie Grant, I dont know if you will get this email or not,I am alittle desparate. I have a daughter Amber, who really looks up to you, because one she loves your music, and two you have twins! Amber has twin boys, my grandsons. But she has really struggled raising her babies,I cant help her I live long distance, and it really hurts knowing I cant physically help her. Spiritually I am always telling her to lean on God, but I know she is exhuasted. Is there anyway that you could help her? I can imagine that you probably get alot of correspondence like this, but I pray that you could make an exception! Let me know if you could even send her a letter of encouragement,and I will give you her address! Thanks so much,Donna
im having trouble with my chouce of music and my mom intradused me to you i was amazed how well you sing and i love all your songs god bless you
First I want you to know that we’re not ever sure when we’re going to come in contact with an angel,but even so, they say there are only male angles, they may have made an exception with you.Personaly Ithink you have let our Jesus do wonderful things with the gift He has bestowed on you.Your music has become apart of my life for the past several years.For the last 47yrs.of my life I have been Bi-Polar.Born with it and lived through very frightening moments.8mounths ago I was healed.It hasn’t touched me scence then.////Bring It All Together\\\/ Right after that, with no repreve in between, my husband lost his eye sight in his good eye.We went through 2 eye surgerys and all we had ,to get his eye fixed but the doctor says no work is garunteed.\\\\Our hope Endures\\\\ I have been a giver all my life and now I run a mission out of Buena vista,Ga.I give everything away.Jesus uses me .I’m just so easy!!!!!!!!\\\\\\\\\What Are You WAiting For////////So now I \\\\Live 4 Today//// We’ve lost everything but my EL Shaddai is all sufficient.I just thank God I get another day. Sunshine
Natalie Grant,
the first song i ever heard by you was “held”. and ever since then ive fallen in love with the lyrics to every song on your albums. “i am not alone” is one of my absolute FAVORITES, because its one of the main songs i can listen to on my worst days. God never said life would be easy if i stepped into his arms and let him guide me in the directions i need to go. he only said id never be alone, and that song fits PERFECT with that. he walks right beside every single one of his children giving them more strength than we could ever know. i hope one day to be as successful in music and in ministering and reaching out to the world as you are. i look up to you so much. my friend ashli just met you and i am SO stoaked that she has gotten to become a part of someone’s life who is SO inspiring. i cant even describe how some of the lyrics to your songs get me through some of the days that i have. thank you so much for every piece of inspiration you have given me and i know God is working in my life the way he has worked in yours and many others!
For some reason the Lord led me back to your music. I know why now.
I had never heard this song before but I truly need to get this strong in my spirit.
Right now my mother who is 53 yrs old is at Barnes Jewish hospital in St Louis struggling with one of the deadliest cancers (pancreatic) The doctors cannot opperate because the tumor is intertwined with a major artery.
She does know the Lord I am greatful for that. She has so many why’s and not understanding why the Lord is doing this to her and not healing her here on Earth. The only thing that seems to keep her going is knowing the fact that I am carrying her 1st grandbaby- a boy whose name will be Ezra Josiah.
I keep trying to be the strong one for everyone and it is breaking me down slowly but surley. I am afraid if I break down and cry that I will never stop. I know if I did not have a child on the way and something happened to my mother then I know that I could not live without her. I thank the Lord for giving me this child on they way what a blessing in disguise.
My mom is definatley marching on but she is very tired and weary of everything. She has lived with this disease since June of 2008 I pray that she will be here when her grandbaby is born Dec 9th..
Please keep my mother Debbie in Prayer as well as our family.
ps here is a site that I have created to read about her journey though this. you can visit and leave messages to her to encourage her. caringbridge.org/visit/debbietorres