Since we've moved, I've really struggled with anxiety. I've recognized a tendency towards it in the past and stuffed it down, covering it with other things, laughter, food, running away from the root of it. Here I am, alone a lot, and forced to face it. There's not much to cover it up here in California. This dark valley seems to cast light on the darkest parts of me while the rest remains shadowed. I feel imprisoned by myself. I've grown, I've learned, I've lost, this year, but I've refused brokenness. Jesus has asked to wash my feet, asked for my humility, asked for my submission, and it's uncomfortable and I keep trying to cover up my entire exposed self with a washcloth.
Today, I like Peter, will allow Jesus to wash my feet, to be deeply intimate with me, to point out the dirt, not only on my pinky toe, but the dirt that covers the soles of my feet, the dirt that is in between, the dirt that makes me brown instead of the untouched white that I am once He has washed me.
Okay, Jesus, clean me up.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Here we go...this time I really mean "we"
Recently my life has been sort of a crazy mess. There's too much going on and I'm afraid to just live in my passion...I'm not good enough, educated enough, don't look the way I "should." I have been watching Jeremiah live his passion, strive for it furiously, work on it diligently, and I'm standing by watching. I'm not sitting down at the keyboard. I developed a kind of fear of it, of pouring my soul out, fearing its contents. When I look at it I see something I want, but can't have, kind of like a new roller coaster with its colors, its screams of enjoyment, and unexpected nature. What if I like it? What if I want off? Have you ever done that? Have you ever gotten on a ride and then gotten off before it starts? I never have, I'm too afraid of what people will think. I've been avoiding the long lines on the big ride for fear I'll want off and then what would people think? I'm ready to stand in line with open ears to the creator, with open heart to what I can't plan, what I have to let go of in the way of control. I'm getting in line today. I won't get off or only halfway give myself to it for fear. I'm ready, I'm broken.
Brandon Cannon and I were talking the other night about the pressure to be good at all kinds of things. I don't care about those other things. God will still use me, but that's not what I am created for. I am created for music for worship with reckless abandon. I am going to get completely back to my Levitical mindset and strive for intense concentration and practice, excellence for the God who made me for the purpose. I'm going to start taking the opportunities and not expecting I can't live up to it. I can because that's how I'm made, fearfully and wonderfully. Fearfully of the God who formed me, who knows me intimately who pours my tears out of my eyes because they pour out of his in empathy, not sympathy, empathy.
I've been fighting this since I was young, since I was forced to sit for hours repeating to her that I couldn't sing. I couldn't sing. I couldn't sing. It stopped hurting after a while, but it bound me for years. I think I am breaking free of that today. No, I am breaking free of that today. She has no power over me. God is the only One with power over me. Here am I, Lord. Send me.
My family thinks I'm good. They think it's nice, but not a vocation. I know deep down in my God shaped hole that it's all I can do. There's still that painful see through space when I'm not writing, not singing, not playing, and not learning more of it, tuning it, grasping it, living it and living it for God. I can't be broken like this unless I give up everything, not in the sense of giving up my husband, my dog, my home, but in the sense of just knowing my time is not my own. This selfish outlook and agenda to do "God's work" is not what stirs me. God stirs me in the depth of that space. God stirs me when I am in a room whether there are other people or there are not, I let go, I let it fly, I feel it, I'm not afraid of it. My music is the Lord and I'm quenching him with fear.
No more.
In the midst of all this, God's been stirring my heart and yesterday under unfortunate circumstances he broke me. Here I am sitting on the couch writing furiously, crying my eyes out, something I am not even comfortable with alone, and singing with the broken pieces broken just the right way. How do I forget how much I love this brokenness, what the Lord does with it in my heart?
I seek to remain broken, to remain open, and to let God have my passion, my pride in my own agenda, and do the scary crazy artist stuff that I love to be afraid of. I want that see through space to be filled with the pain of Jesus, the comfort that music brings, and with none of me.
Brandon Cannon and I were talking the other night about the pressure to be good at all kinds of things. I don't care about those other things. God will still use me, but that's not what I am created for. I am created for music for worship with reckless abandon. I am going to get completely back to my Levitical mindset and strive for intense concentration and practice, excellence for the God who made me for the purpose. I'm going to start taking the opportunities and not expecting I can't live up to it. I can because that's how I'm made, fearfully and wonderfully. Fearfully of the God who formed me, who knows me intimately who pours my tears out of my eyes because they pour out of his in empathy, not sympathy, empathy.
I've been fighting this since I was young, since I was forced to sit for hours repeating to her that I couldn't sing. I couldn't sing. I couldn't sing. It stopped hurting after a while, but it bound me for years. I think I am breaking free of that today. No, I am breaking free of that today. She has no power over me. God is the only One with power over me. Here am I, Lord. Send me.
My family thinks I'm good. They think it's nice, but not a vocation. I know deep down in my God shaped hole that it's all I can do. There's still that painful see through space when I'm not writing, not singing, not playing, and not learning more of it, tuning it, grasping it, living it and living it for God. I can't be broken like this unless I give up everything, not in the sense of giving up my husband, my dog, my home, but in the sense of just knowing my time is not my own. This selfish outlook and agenda to do "God's work" is not what stirs me. God stirs me in the depth of that space. God stirs me when I am in a room whether there are other people or there are not, I let go, I let it fly, I feel it, I'm not afraid of it. My music is the Lord and I'm quenching him with fear.
No more.
In the midst of all this, God's been stirring my heart and yesterday under unfortunate circumstances he broke me. Here I am sitting on the couch writing furiously, crying my eyes out, something I am not even comfortable with alone, and singing with the broken pieces broken just the right way. How do I forget how much I love this brokenness, what the Lord does with it in my heart?
I seek to remain broken, to remain open, and to let God have my passion, my pride in my own agenda, and do the scary crazy artist stuff that I love to be afraid of. I want that see through space to be filled with the pain of Jesus, the comfort that music brings, and with none of me.
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