2020 has been crazy. In a world where isolation, pain, and suffering is all around us, we still have a lot to be thankful for. We know that Yah is on our side and He is fighting for us. I’ve seen this in my own personal life time and time again. Not only did He bring me across the border to be with my husband in the midst of a global pandemic, with every document and piece of paper that I needed arriving exactly on time, but weeks after getting here, Yah provided me with a full time job – working from home! What a blessing in times like these! Praise Yah that my husband and I can work together as we move toward our life goals one step at a time. And next Sunday, Yah willing, I’ll FINALLY be back in the recording studio making more music for you.
Right now, I’m tired as I learn to balance all that’s new in my life – but my heart is full, and I’m grateful. So I wanted to share this song of Praise to Yahuah. I hope it inspires you to give thanks, regardless of your circumstances. Praise Yah through the good and the bad, because He is our Creator, and He never ever fails.
Come, let us sing to יהוה! Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms. For יהוה is a great Ěl, and a great King above all mighty ones. In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The mountain peaks are His also. His is the sea, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down and bend low, Let us kneel before יהוה our Maker.
Psalms 95:1-6 (Read the whole chapter when you have some time)
Leave a comment below if you believe Yah is your almighty Power. If you have nothing else on your heart to say, just say, “Thank You Yah!” Don’t let the mess of 2020 harden your heart. For Yah inhabits the praises of His people. We need Him to dwell in us now, to prepare us to endure till the end. If you have a testimony to share, or a prayer request, you know you’re always welcome to share that below too. Let’s encourage one another in the comments below, and give Yah all the honour and the praise.
Shalom! Long time no see 🙂 Just wanted to share the good news with you! I’ve officially moved to the United States from Toronto, Canada in order to be with my husband FULL TIME. Praise Yahuah! We are SO GRATEFUL to FINALLY be together FOREVER. The process has taken almost two years! So now that the stress of uprooting myself every few months to either visit or go back to Canada is over, I can finally relax and focus more on music. My goal is to get the next recording out to you all before the end of 2020. Yah willing, as soon as possible. Let’s see if the world keeps on turning lol. If I can get into a studio that works for me before any potential shut downs happen again that would be ideal.
I pray that you all will stay encouraged as we continue to endure till the end. Remember no matter what you’re going through in life, Yah has a purpose and a plan for you. So just try to be patient and continue to stay in the Word and press on. If you’re reading this and you’re going through a similar situation as I just did, or if you’d like to have special prayer for anything else that’s on your heart, feel free to do so in the comments below. It’s always good to reconnect with you!
I’ll let you know how things progress the new music when the recording is almost ready. Until then, let’s continue to keep our hearts set apart. Yah bless you Mishpacha 🙂
Have you ever gone through a phase in your Spiritual journey where you felt somewhat disconnected or empty inside? Maybe you just felt generally low, and you didn’t fully understand why? I think it’s safe to say we all go through times like that. Especially during the winter months when it’s dark and cold outside. Some people push through those difficult times by pretending that everything is fine. For what ever reason, the ‘fake it till you make it’ concept doesn’t really work for me. So I’m learning how to just be real, and tell Abba how I actually feel so that He can restore my soul.
Prayer changes things. Do you believe that old saying is true? After 7 wonderful weeks in California with my husband leading me in simple, honest prayers to the Father, my heart is full, and I can testify that even the simplest of prayers, Yah hears. I’m so so grateful for that. If you’re real with Yah, He’ll be real with you. He has the power to restore your soul.
I wrote a new song last night. Thought I’d share it with you now before it gets finished off when I head back into the studio. It’s based on Psalms 23. A Psalm we all know and love. I pray that this music will help you to keep on keeping on. If it does, leave a comment below and speak truth over your life. Say, “Yah, You restore my soul.”
‘Yahuah is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of Yahuah for ever.’
Psalms 23:1-6
If you’re walking through a valley, or a low point in your life. Remember that every day is new. You don’t have to wait for the Spring or the new year. You can choose to lay your burden’s down. Just tell Abba how you feel and keep walking. Keep praying, keep reading scripture, make space to hear His voice. You’ll get through whatever it is that you’re going through. And when you get to the other side, you’ll see that Yah’s been with you through it all. He alone restores your soul.
Feel free to share in the comments if you have a praise to Abba that you’d like to share, or a prayer request on your heart. Even if you don’t have someone to pray with in real time, we all can read the comments here and be united by the prayers in our hearts. And if the music has encouraged you in any way today, say out loud as you type down in the comments below, “Yah, You restore my soul.”
Sometimes we go through phases in our spiritual journey where we start to feel uninspired. The warm fuzzy feelings we used to have from our past religious communities are all gone. You miss having fellowship, and that’s only natural. We were made to be in community.
So what do you do when you’ve been walking in truth on your own and you feel lonely? What do you do when you feel uninspired? When I go through times like these I choose to pause. Just pause and remember who I am in Yah. He’s my Father. I’m His child. And so are you. Yah promised that we’d never walk alone. So we can always cry out, “Abba, I need you now.”
I’ve been working on some new music and just wanted to share a taste of what’s to come. This is one of the songs that Yah inspired me to share with you as is, in it’s purest form, before I go into the studio again. It’s based on Psalms 121 and it’s called, “I need You now.” I pray you enjoy the video of the new music. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
‘I lift up my eyes to the hills; Where does my help come from? My help comes from יהוה, Maker of the heavens and earth. He does not allow your foot to be moved; He who watches over you does not slumber. See, He who is guarding Yisra’ĕl Neither slumbers nor sleeps. יהוה is your guard; יהוה is your shade at your right hand. The sun does not strike you by day, Nor the moon by night. יהוה guards you from all evil; He guards your being. יהוה guards your going out and your coming in Now and forever.’
Tehillim (Psalms) 121:1-8, The Scriptures.
Regardless of your situation in life right now, keep looking up to the hills. No matter what you’re going through Yah will be your strength through it all. To all who have been praying for me and my husband as we wait on my immigration – we are still waiting. Things are moving forward but we still have to be patient, and we appreciate all your prayers in the mean time. We have one more trip planned to each other soon, and prayerfully it will be the last trip back and forth before my papers get approved. Yah is good and we have to remember His mercy is everlasting!
If you’re going through a time where you feel alone, you miss having fellowship, or you just need more of Yah in your life, leave a comment below and say, “Abba, I need You now.” Feel free to share any prayer requests or praises to Yahuah in the comments below as well. It’s always good for us to be able to read through the comments and pray for one another. May Yah richly bless us all.
A wise person once said, “You can not heal in the same environment where you got sick.”
That’s a heavy thought to consider. Most of us have everyday habits and people in our lives that impact us on such a regular basis that we don’t even realize the depth or impact. Many of us are struggling with pain, and we don’t understand why the struggle is so hard, but the people, places, and environments we live in or create for ourselves are the exact same people and environments that caused us the pain to begin with.
Last week here at Set Apart Heart we started to discuss the big, obvious things we don’t want in our lives. We discussed situations we are tired of struggling with, things that are holding us back from our healing – things that could be keeping us from walking in our purpose. A lot of us left comments with very real and tangible struggles. And I read all the emails that came through my inbox as well.
This week I invite you to consider the things that are a little less tangible – the little things that may be hiding in the background… things that could be slowly chipping away at your ability to heal and have peace of mind.
Consider things like self-talk. What thoughts are you subconsciously speaking over yourself?
Consider your music playlist. What messages are in the songs being played over and over again in your mind?
Consider the books you are reading or movies you are watching. Do they build or edify?
Consider your closest family and friends. Do they encourage you to live a life that is pleasing to the Most High Yah?
Consider your emotional state. Are you in a space where you can think clearly and make decisions that will help you move forward?
Yesterday on FB and Instagram I was contemplating how the mind is SUCH a powerful thing. What goes in the mind always comes out – in one form or another. If we find ourselves struggling in certain areas, it is SO important to stop & consider what’s going on beneath the surface. What is really happening in our hearts and minds? And who or what are we allowing to have so much power over us?
[PERSONAL STORY]
This week I gained some much needed clarity in my life. I’m sharing this story in the hopes that it will encourage you as well.
Most of you know that I’m making music here at Set Apart Heart full time now. I just recorded my latest single, Healing Me, which will be available on December 4, 2018. And while waiting for the tracks to be mixed and mastered, I decided to start working on recording other songs for the album that will be released in the Spring of 2019.
While trying to record the music at home, I kept hitting roadblocks. For two whole days, for one reason or another, things just weren’t going as planned. I started to get frustrated, I even shed a few silent tears as I cried. For a moment I questioned whether I had bitten off more than I could chew, and even though I have my husband’s full support in every way, I wondered if I had made a mistake in leaving my full time job. I stopped and I said to myself – Hadarah, is this what you really want?
Because I know that Yahuah gave me the gift of singing and songwriting, I said to myself ‘Yes, this is what I want.’
What I don’t want is to be fiddling around with the technical aspects of recording. So instead of filling my mind with doubt and negative self-talk, I dried my tears, took a break, and listened to an audio version of the Bible. Doing this always comforts me when I get stressed out. After taking my break, I tried to record again, but by then my fingers were tired and I just didn’t have the strength to play the guitar again. So I decided to be done for the day.
That night my husband and I were talking about something totally unrelated to music, and it hit me – the solution came to me clear as day. I love making music, but I don’t like doing my own recording and wearing all the hats. Literally being the singer, songwriter, guitarist, recording engineer, cameraman, video editor, blog post writer and social media manager is just way too many hats to wear consistently. So I simply made the decision that in 2019 when I’m finished writing all the songs, I’ll just go back to the same professional recording studio where I recorded “Peace of Mind“, and “Yahuah Acoustics Vol.1 & 2“. This may seem like a very simple and basic decision to you, but isn’t it funny how when we get emotional and frustrated, even the most basic of decisions just don’t even come to mind?
Clarity can only come from shalom and peace of mind. We can’t make sound decisions that will help us to heal and continue to move forward if we are talking negatively to ourselves about how “we aren’t good enough.” Most of us are so disconnected from our thoughts that we don’t even notice all the little things that we are saying.
This little story may be super simplistic. Your life may feel or actually be way more complicated right now. But no matter what’s going on let’s learn how to recognize when there’s an opportunity for change. Opportunity for us to slow down, so we can calm down, seek Yah, get clarity, be realistic, find healing and move forward with peace of mind.
‘Commit your works to יהוה, And your plans shall be established. יהוה has made all for His purpose, And also the wrong for the day of evil.’ Mishlĕ (Proverbs) 16:3-4
So now I invite you to tell me – besides the big obvious things that are holding you back, like the job that you hate, the dysfunctional relationship you’re dealing with, or the lack of financial stability in your life – what are the little tiny things that might be affecting you on a deeper level that you may not even realize?
If you can’t name them right now, but you know there are areas where you can make some positive changes, whether that be reading more scripture, listening to more positive set apart music, doing away with negative self-talk, or choosing to love certain friends or family members from a distance, leave a comment below and say, “I’d like to make a change.”
That’s all you have to type. Just scroll down in the comments and say
“I’d like to make a change.”
Do it as a committment to yourself. Then take some time to seriously consider what the change might need to be throughout this week.
Below you’ll find the video with the sneak peek of my new single that’s coming out December 4, 2018 “Healing Me.” I posted it on youtube last week, but if you haven’t had a chance to take a peek at it yet, or if you just want to watch it again as you meditate, I pray you’ll enjoy the 2 min clip below. Prayerfully the song will inspire you as you consider the places in your heart and mind that may need to heal.
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you prove what is that good and well-pleasing and perfect desire of Elohim.”
Romiyim (Romans) 12:2
May the little things we choose to change make a big impact in our lives. I’ll see you in the comments below, my friend. Don’t forget to leave a comment of commitment for yourself if you’d like to make a change.
Hi there, I’m Hadarah Batyah. I sincerely believe that in order to have a spiritual walk that is authentic and true, the Word of Yahuah must be written on the inside of our hearts. That's why I write scripture songs and set apart music. Although I don’t have everything in my spiritual life all figured out, I know that Yahuah gave me the gift of music to serve Him and encourage your heart. I pray you'll be inspired by what you see on this blog. If you're curious and wanna know more- I tell it all on the About Page.
Hi there, I’m Hadarah Batyah. I sincerely believe that in order to have a spiritual walk that is authentic and true, the Word of Yahuah must be written on the inside of our hearts. That's why I write scripture songs and set apart music. Although I don’t have everything in my spiritual life all figured out, I know that Yahuah gave me the gift of music to serve Him and encourage your heart. I pray you'll be inspired by what you see on this blog. If you're curious and wanna know more- I tell it all on the