Awaken the Dawn

For my birthday Mum and Dad gave me a CD. I have picky taste in music. I have to really love a CD to buy it and generally aren't a fan of CD's bought by other people. Even CD's I buy myself I tend to only like a few songs and skip the rest.

Which is a long winded way of saying when I opened my gift to find Awaken the Dawn I was a little skeptical. I knew that I would probably like the CD, because Mum knows my taste pretty well, but I didn't think I'd love it.

Boy, was I wrong. I finally got around to putting on the CD a few days ago and it's been on repeat ever since. It's Beautiful. Achingly, simply beautiful.

I was in tears more than once.



Keith and Kristyn Getty describe themselves as modern hymn writers. At first I didn't get that, but it's totally right. The music is designed to be able to sung by a congregation (though also sounds lovely as a solo - Kristyn's voice is gorgeous). The music has a traditional feel, but also sounds modern. When I first listened to the CD I thought it was old hymns put to new music, but all the songs have been written by Keith and Kristyn in the last few years. I realised that one of my new favourite songs at church is on the album (When trials come).

There is a lovely Irish lilt to most of the songs on the album (Some have a similar feel to The Corrs). Many of the songs have a stirring build up that really climaxes a hymn musically. The songs are full of real biblical truths.

I think one of my favourite things is that this album is written from a community perspective. There very few 'I' in the songs, instead there is 'we'. The gathering of Gods people together is really emphasised. God is Our God, Jesus died to save us, we worship the lamb. It is nice to sing songs together, not as individuals singing at the same time (if that makes sense)

I have many favourites from the album including; Come, people of the risen king, Creation sings the father's song, All around the world, Every promise of your word.

But my favourite is By Faith. It's a simple reminder of those who have come before us and the fact that we live by faith.





The last few days I've been feeling confused, trying to grapple with what was right about a situation, what was the real Biblical response . And it was churning me up inside. I hadn't felt like praising God, or even thinking about worship. But listening to this CD reminded me of how important it is to just worship him, to relax and give our troubles over to him.