A picture perfect summer.
Breathing deeper than I have ever breathed before.
Contented.
Overwhelmed.
Rested.
Alot of my thoughts that summer swarmed around healing, adventure and solitude. And at the end of it, I was ready to come home, ready to start a new year at school--my senior year--and ready to take on every challenge there was. As if we hadn't already experienced enough challenges in Colorado...
H, CG, Me, A, Chas
Each week, a missionary would be challenged. In fact, we would be attacked. CG found out her Dad had cancer. H's house was hit by a tornado. Chas was incredibly homesick until she physically got ill and A's good friend was killed in a freak accident at a parade. I waited for my red letter and it came.
Robert was alot of things to me. He was the Worship Leader of the band I was in, a man I looked up to, a wonderful father of 2, an amazing husband, a talented musician, hysterical, comforting and caring.
Grace, his wife, was who I wanted to be as a woman, as a mom, as a wife. She was beautiful, fierce in her love for her children, had a voice that made your heart sink whenever she pleaded to God for mercy. She loved sharing secret smiles with Robert and she loved us, like we were her kids.
This amazing couple was my family away from family. In fact at times, I knew God sent them to me to show me what family is. They loved the Lord and loved serving Him. They opened their house to us, they cooked yummy food for us, they watched silly movies with us and shared their life and children with us. In fact, I prayed that my marriage would be like theirs; I prayed that I would take care of my family the way they took care of theirs; and I prayed that I would be family to college students who didn't have one. With Mitch the bassist, Will the Guitarist and Jimmy the drummer, we were a family. Our Sunago Worship Band wa a family.
So back to Colorado...
The facebook message came the week it was "my turn" to be challenged.
Robert and his family were leaving.
They were leaving South Carolina to....Louisiana.
"Louisiana?" I exclaimed, perplexed.
As tears rolled down my cheeks, I could hear the slow fainting of my heart. I was crushed. The Sunago Band was my identity. I was a keyboardist in this band. I was part of something real and good and fun. And now...it was gone.
~~Artists use their gift as their language. Music is mine. Whenever I lack the words to express heartbreak or joy, or anything I feel, I go to music. I played my heart out every Thursday night at Sunago, as if the music created was my very love letter to God. Every note and tune was inspired by Him and through this band, I got to the point in my own Walk, where it wasn't about performance any more, it was about true worship. Through our times of Worship, I was free to express my fear, my anxiety, my longing for something greater without worrying about the right notes, the right chords, what others would think...
What I experienced during our times of Worship was so intimate for me, even though we were in front of 100 or so college students. A successful band to me, is when each instrument can portray exactly what another instrumentalist feels in their heart, as if they were an extension of the music you play. The members of this band were my extensions. Robert and Grace sang MY heart's cries and MY heart's desires to our Maker. That was how deep our connection was. And now it would be no more.
~~I couldn't believe that I went to Colorado to be healed, but more things were being stripped away. I was angry and hurt but happy for them, but...sad for us. I was a hot mess to say the least.
Looking back, I see God's sovereign plan. As I mentioned earlier, God was stripping me of my identities...all the ones that weren't found in Him.
First, God took away the relationship I had with by ex because my self-worth was so connected to him loving me.
Then, God took away the relationships I had with the members of this band, because I felt like I belonged there and was safe, almost cliquey with this group of people.
God was sending me a message...that it was HIM alone who wanted to love me and who wanted to show me that I belonged with Him.
While it wasn't what I wanted to hear, and once again, I was kicking and screaming against God's apparent "Will-of-Sadness-and-Suffering" in my life, there really wasn't anything I could do. Yes I was mad and disappointed and perhaps I was even mad at God for all this.
But God.
But God.
But God.
God is good. He is kind. He is loving. He wants the best for me.
That is all I heard the Spirit tell me.
And each day it got easier, and my path got straighter and His light shone brighter. God was gathering me to Him, to be set apart; to Go when and where He would ask me to.
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