August 21, 2015
So I left off with the drip. A single droplet that touched my soul.
Have you ever been standing outside when a drop of rain hits your skin. It's almost unnoticeable. It takes a second to register and then you look at the place of impact to verify that a raindrop, in fact, fell and hit you.
That's what this felt like.
It took a moment for me to register this droplet of God's grace, mercy & power. It had been SO LONG since I felt anything at all. I had basically resigned myself to a life walking through a parched, deserted wasteland in order to get my prize of eternal life with my Father. I wasn't sure what I had done to deserve this sentence. Where had I made a left turn? Don't get me wrong. I was saved, but a sinner. I definitely had hard lessons I had to learn and being quite hard headed, sometimes it took longer than the average bear. However, I understood God's mercy and did my best to confess, turn away and find redemption through Christ.
This was different.
I tortured myself for the first few years, racking my brain at what I could have done to cause all of this heartache and pain. Unable to make sense of it and frankly tired of thinking about it, I just gave up any hope of ever getting through it. I found myself reading JOB on a regular basis and I was pretty sure if I could Ancestry.com my way back to the Old Testament...I'd find him.
REWIND: To give you a bit of back story...I would have NEVER, and I say it again, NEVER imagined that I would EVER find myself in this wasteland. Not me. (Prideful, right?) I asked the Lord into my heart when I was 7 years old and answered His call into ministry at age 16. I went to college and studied Music Business, met the love of my life and married him in 1991. I had sung professionally from the age of 16 and moved from traveling and singing to congregational ministry. I was ordained. I loved the Lord and desired to sing and minister for His Glory since I could remember. I read God's Word and hid it in my heart. I had two beautiful daughters. I was happy. Was I struggle free? Well, no...
My eldest daughter started showing signs of Autism and was delayed in her muscular development and received diagnosis' of Asperger's Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy at the age of 3. I had two difficult pregnancies and a year after having my youngest daughter, was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis & Lupus. These are things that I still deal with on a daily basis...but just a part of my life and as a family, we learned to cope and adjust.
I left my congregational position to pursue a concept that I KNOW FOR SURE the Lord had given me. The Kingdom Kidz Club was born because I wanted my kids to know God's Word in their hearts and at the time, I wasn't sure how Rebecca would learn but she could mimic any song with haunting accuracy. So, I started writing little songs with the Bible verses and put the Book, Chapter and Verse into the song so she could remember and started singing to her. She sang it back to me. This little exercise turned into volumes of Bible Verses that reached thousands of homes worldwide. Everything seemed great! I began to write prolifically and my mom and I were even honored with writing a song for the National Day of Prayer that was a finalist. It seemed like nothing but blue skies.
So...how was it that I was in this desolate, barren, never ending desert?
I'm pretty good with directions, but taking a slow 360 degree panoramic camera shot from my current location, yielded miles and miles of the same sandy, rocky nothingness. I was now going on almost four years of feeling absolutely nothing stirring in my soul. I went to church, sporadically, but couldn't sing. The song inside my soul was silent. I couldn't write music and rarely even played the piano.
So here I was March of 2013, laying on the floor, crying out to God from a deep, dark recess of my soul. Through the tears, I was releasing all of the anger, disappointment, sadness, heartbreak, fear and pride. Basically, I dumped my entire purse on God and it was a BIG PURSE. I emptied out everything I had been carrying.
I remembered the Bible verse 1 Peter 5:7. It says, "Cast ALL your anxiety on him because he cares for you."
God showed me that when you CAST something, you are throwing it away from you. Like if you are fishing and cast the line and hook into the water. When a fisherman has a net, they cast or throw it out into the ocean for their catch.
You can't cast AND hold on to something at the same time. Where had all of the anger, bitterness and disappointment gotten me. Well, smack dab in the desert, that's where.
So, I threw it all away from myself and asked God to carry it for me. I accepted and owned where I was and still didn't expect a helicopter to come and rescue me from the desert, but at least my bag was significantly lighter.
When I got back up from the ugly cry and purse dump, I did feel lighter. I also felt a bit of peace--not a torrent but the drip had become a trickle. I didn't know what would happen next and NONE of the things in my life had changed, except I wasn't shouldering them on my own.
I said, "Okay, I can't make all of this better. I can't bring my Dad back, I can't heal my mother's broken heart, I can't make the economy better and get my former job back. But I can listen to You, Lord. Tell me what to do and I will do it. Whatever it takes."
What God put in my heart would have NEVER been what I would have thought in a MILLION YEARS...
To be continued...
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