Tearful Shadowfeet

I have the privilege of serving on my church's solo worship team. Every few months, we get together and sing a song so we can work on our craft and receive feedback. This time around, I sang Shadowfeet, written and sung by Brooke Fraser.

(Note: I'm a cryer and the entire team - and church - are aware. If the song is beautiful, has powerful lyrics, reminds me of my past, or even has an amazing chord progression, I tend to at least shed a tear.)

I was last on the lineup, immediately after my friend Megan who sang Kari Jobe's "You Are For Me". I'm not sure what the main cause of the tears were - the Kari Jobe song's message, Megan singing it and revealing her heart, the message of Shadowfeet, or all of the above. Whatever it was, I couldn't sing but a few words until the second verse. Rather than stop the song, my worship family used it as a teachable moment for the team.

"What do you do when a song grabs you emotionally and you can't sing it?"

It was amazing how everyone has had those moments of finding the balance between allowing the emotion to reveal the realness of the song and pushing it out so you can communicate the message of the song. It's a fine line that depends on the context - what is the message and who is the (intended) audience? Our church family isn't shy about God's grace in their lives - we will gladly show our battle wounds because we know they give God the glory for where He's brought us. This makes singing these kinds of songs especially difficult because they know where you've been and how amazing His grace really is.

This is what I couldn't sing:

Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet, toward a home, a place that I've never seen

I am changing. Less and less asleep. Made of different stuff than when I began

And I have sensed it all along.

Fast approaching is the day.

When the world is falling out from under me, I'll be found in You still standing.

When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees, when time and space are through.

I'll be found in You.

These lyrics remind me so much of who I was before I knew God. I was a child riddled with depression, confusion, and misplaced emotion. I knew there was something bigger but I didn't know what it was. I sought love and acceptance in people, dance, television, creativity, music; everywhere except God. I didn't even know God was an option! I began my journey with Him when I was 14 and went through the most crap after that point. Deeper depression, abuse, escapism, and deliberate disobedience to His word. His grace swept me into His arms again and I'm becoming "less and less asleep" each day.

I remain the only Christian in my family. It's heartbreaking that even after 12 years of following God, they still attribute my change to my own strength. I think they're excited that I have a hobby that I'm passionate about, but my walk with God is far more than scrapbooking or stamp collecting.  I make choices every day that either bring me closer to keep me from God. Regardless of the shame I have for my past, "He makes all things new" (another powerful lyric in the song and a powerful truth!). 

God is good and His grace makes me new. His strength allows me to sing through the tears - I can only rely on Him to communicate His messages. 

Vent

I'm going to vent for a moment.

Because of a friendship that went sour, I now have to tip toe around at work and church for fear that I may run into this person or cause them to speak poorly about me to others that we both know. I stopped all of my communication attempts back in November per her request (if you read my other blog, you know how horrid my November was). I still miss the friendship we had before things went sour. I'm still unsure what caused the sourness in the first place, but I know that after witnessing the recent behavior of this individual, I have no intention of pursuing a close relationship with them unless God prompts me otherwise. I honestly still pray for this person and want them to heal from their past hurts. We confided in each other about our pasts and our struggles so I'm thankful I'm able to pray for this person in specific ways.

Anyway, I just hate the fact that I have to be careful around her friends for fear that they know about the bitterness she (may still) hold for me. I hate that we can't even say hello to each other when we pass. I hate that I'm so bitter with how she easily discarded our friendship with no communication as to why. I don't hate her, I don't even dislike her. I know that something must be going on with her to make her do this to me and the countless others that she was once close to. Something is wrong and I want to help her through it -  but she's rejected my help. I've mourned the friendship and moved on.

Alright, I'm done venting now.

Mother's Day

(post from 5/6/11)

It's kinda sort my first Mother's Day!

weird..

To start the wonderful weekend, my wonderful baby daddy bought me flowers! His awesomness is heightened because of the stress that is going on at work:


I work in Higher Education Administration at a large University (the 8th largest school in the US). One of my major tasks, on top of managing 20+ employees and their duties, is to help plan Commencement. It takes the entire year to plan all of the details that go into one day (i.e. vendors, transport, "props", conferrals, diplomas, locations, pre-emptive strikes, website updates, communicating with staff, faculty, and students both digitally and in hard copy, etc). It's a whirlwind of AHHHHH that comes to head in the final two weeks leading up to the actual ceremonies. These flowers blissfully arrived to my office on the Friday of the first week of AHHHHH. My husband is freakin' awesome.

Now as we approach the second week, I am trying to eat as often as possible and stay as stress-less as I can under the circumstances of people not reading/doing what they're supposed to read/do. I love my staff and they are wonderful - I am so blessed to have them! They've been helping me maintain my sanity while picking up on ways they can help prepare everything.

On another note, Commencement also collides with the end of term excitement of final grades, exams, and Summer/Fall registration. Praise God for all of Jesus' little helpers!

Word Play

This may not be the blog for this post, but humor me. My brain is fried.

There is a difference between the "sex" and "gender" of an individual. Even though they are used interchangeably in everyday American conversation, they are medically very different. For example, in June we will learn the sex of our baby (male or female). The gender of our baby will not be known until their personality comes out (masculine or feminine). Ultimately, one can be a masculine female or a feminine male. Although to make sure I don't sound like a pretentious d-bag, I let it slide when people ask, "when do you find out the gender!!"

However, I will continue to dismiss resumes with typos and spelling errors.