Well, I've been afraid of changes... Cornerstone part 4

To preface what I'm writing about you should know, this year started out with me, along with my family asking God where He wanted us this year, laying our travel, festival, music, business and all other plans on the alter, preparing ourselves to make the necessary changes to go where He wanted us and only there, even if that meant, we were supposed to stop doing certain things we've always done, that were good and right and important, all that mattered was where He wanted us. Sometimes this left me feeling like I was waiting on the edge of the dark unknown, standing with a calendar in one hand and a pile of questions in the other, with the only answers being, we have to pray about it... That's all fine and good, praying and seeking God, but deadlines are deadlines and time waits for no man, that's what my calendar was saying to me and what I was saying to my Dad & what I was thinking towards God. This carries over into my personal life, kind of like a mirror. Anyway, It is probably significant that in our 20th year of ministry God has really taken us back to our roots in walking in faith, trusting only in Him not in man.

As this seeking and planning or putting planning on hold to pray was happening earlier this year, we got an email telling us that something we had done for years wasn't happening this year. Now I was all fine and good surrendering my plans to God as long as I was orchestrating & planning the surrender, but as doors closed and things changed and parts of my life disappeared, I realized more & more how much I was not okay with it. If I make a decision to change my life or end something so be it, but when someone else tells me its changed without my consent....that is not the same at all.

In the days months and years that follow the significant changes that happen in my life without my consent, I learn to live with them but find myself rarely accepting them, because they weren't my idea... In my process & all the kicking and screaming that accompanies it, I ask myself why I'm so violently opposed to change, some of it is fear of the unknown, a little bit of "look how you trusted the changes last time and got in this mess." And some of it is insecurity I suspect...

So though I'm saying that I trust God with my life I'm too worried to believe that His plans will work for me. When I'm faced with a change in a relationship I hate it, and I give it what for and continual grief over how it failed me. Never trusting that God can look out for me, my heart, the boy I loved, the lilies of the field & the sparrows with equal strength & ability. I have come to realize I have to get over myself, because my planning skills & ability to manage the world while keeping it spinning fall significantly short when I step back and compare my methods and track record to Gods. As much as I need to learn this in relationships, I have to learn it in every other little way. His ways are not my ways. When the jobt that I have done all of my adult life, over 8 years, was taken from me against my will right after I told God to handle it. I had to do a lot of dying to self. I had to step back and ask if I was only hurt because I had worked and sweated and served until I was far beyond my self, for so many years and I didn't want to disappoint the people I wanted to keep serving. Was that all? No somewhere in there it became much more about grieving for me than just them. At some point it turned a corner and became about that job being a piece of my identity. And at what point insecurity & a sort of pride overlap I can't tell you. But I do know with all the other unexpected changes and the ways I doubt myself, the idea of not having that big piece of my identity to wear around suddenly became a very real problem for me. Or maybe I suddenly realized that it probably wasn't right for me to feel inferior or inadequate just because one little job was ripped away. It didn't define me. Just like all of the times people question my unusual lifestyle and choices, to the point that I used to feel the need to prove who I was or wasn't. Or why I was or wasn't. And suddenly I realized that it was all the same, what I do doesn't define who I am anymore than what I do needs to be defended so that I can prove that who I am is okay. I am who I am. Things change, change comes and goes, People grow and change, I change and as I grow I see the need for change and for sameness. I realize that change is good but knowing who you are is better and makes change less traumatic.

In the midst of all of this change, I have my ups and downs because while knowing who I am helps, I am still human. I still have to close the doors in myself that Time, God & circumstance has closed around me. I still have to accept things, let go of things face things & people, end, start over, be friends or enemies or be somebody or nobody, I have to face and move within every change & its a beautiful thing to learn, the healing that comes in change and the change that comes thru healing... A beautiful paradox of sorts.
So, though I spent my childhood hating change, even the.changes in my storybooks. I didn't want to grow up, I didn't want my friends to grow up, I cried everytime I read Little Women, I didn't like it when people cut their hair, I didn't want my friends to get married, I didn't want heartbreak and death. But you learn to accept it, you learn to live, and living learns you. Something like faith comes thru hearing and hearing thru the word of God. Change comes with healing and healing is a type of faith. A trust in Gods sovereignty, a belief that He knew you before you knew anything and loved you there. Perfect love casts out fear so the more you accept who you are, become accustomed & okay with being who you were made to be the less there is to fear in change. It moves you and moving makes you.

I ask God for healing and He gives it, or the way to it... But His ways are not our ways and I must be prepared to accept healing even though it may come from the most unlikely places... the most unlikely Changes

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Starving Artists :: Cornerstone part 3

Well now that I've written myself into a corner, I have to tell you about the hamburgers I led up to in my "love life" blog.

This year at Cornerstone I found myself hungry.... I don't mean like "oh, those vendors have curly fries and funnel cakes and I NEED them" hungry, I mean "since we didn't have Jesus Village we not only didn't feed everyone else we weren't setup to eat for ourselves either so the first 2 days at Cornerstone I didn't eat. I ate something in Indiana Wednesday morning then drove to Cornerstone, got out setup played my show with my beautiful friends and violins and cello's and accordians and then went on thru all night Wednesday & all day Thursday without eating" hungry. I know 40 some hours is nothing to go without eating, I wasn't starving but man, I felt like I was....I was ready for some food. Thursday night came around and as I sat down with my siblings and friends with hamburgers on our plates and oranges... We just kept looking at each other and saying thank you God for this food. I don't think I was the only one who had tears in my eyes as I started talking to my brother saying, do you realize that how we felt not eating or knowing where our meals would come from the last 2 days is what the people we feed always feel? I can not explain how poignant that moment was sitting there with our hamburgers almost crying because we realized how much what we do matters to people.

I am aware of the needs across America, in the city streets, in impoverished areas, in Appalachia, in third world countries, in our own overlooked backyards, but I didn't think that feeding people dinner at Cornerstone the last 10years as Jesus Village meant that much. Until suddenly I was one of the people who had spent all we had to get there and then went around the festival without a meal. Food isn't the point. The poor will be with you always....there will always be need and hunger, and whether I'm always out there trying to meet those needs or not I hope I always remember the point is always being where God wants you when He wants you there, so he can use you, as love, as a bridge, as truth and compassion.

I realized all of these things in succession as I ate, looking around at my family, my friends and at the unending faithfulness of God.
God let me have that moment to feel how grateful others are for even just a meal we give them. As I realized how God had used us even in that way at Cornerstone not just in the trenches I cried, tears of joy and fulfillment and thankfulness. I cried because I couldn't give anything away this year. But in the same moment I knew God had His reasons and timing and perfect ways. He's always doing the good. We just sometimes get to be in the middle of it. And if we're seeking Him in our walk... Well, you know how it goes...

All things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called... That would be me.

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My love life and Cornerstone the festival minus Jesus Village (Cornerstone take 2)

Well if you reading this are as hungry and occasionally anxious as me, you're waking up this morning waiting for something great, though maybe only expecting the usual daily round, because we've learned that if we don't expect too much we aren't as easily disappointed... Wait, have I learned that? And if I have, I'm not living life to the fullest, if we stop expecting great things, if we stop observing and appreciating the little things we may as well be machines. We are made for the experiences in our lives and they are there to make us.

On to the Cornerstone stuff. Cornerstone in 4 parts, Last week was so much... So much.

I thought I knew what I was going to write about today, but as I sit here typing this blog into my little phone as usual the story is taking me in a different direction, anyway....
Cornerstone part 2
I went to the festival this year with many things on my mind, in the forefront was probably the fact that for the first time in 10 years I wouldn't be running the Jesus Village stage at Cornerstone. It was strange, it was a little bit unexpected how it came about and I didn't know what to expect of myself. Mostly I worried about the people I was going to disappoint. I worried about the ones who would come looking for it and nothing would be there, no stage, no devotions, no children's worship, no music, no dinner, no safe place, no drink of water, no place to find someone safe to talk to, no Jesus Village.

I realize that though the structure wasn't there the people still were but that didn't entirely soften the blows. Even as I told myself they didn't need more music at the festival, I knew it wasn't about music, I also knew that the bands we had weren't just about the music, that was the point. But without the stage I had no way to give a platform to the ones I knew were sincere, the ones we had raised up, and the ones that serve beside us and deserve some recognition, even if it is just a spot to play at Cornerstone, to them it said something, it meant something and I cried Everytime I had to tell another one of the sweet young (and old) bands that have been a part of my life for years. "I'm sorry I don't have a place for you to play at Cornerstone." To me it may just be a festival but to them it was more than that. And if we are going to get down to that, its more to me to, its a part of life, its a family reunion of sorts, its a breath of fresh air and a splash of diversity and sameness, the solace of a like-minded multitude. It's beautiful. And I appreciate its uniqueness, its perfections and flaws, its humaness. I love the people it brings together. So it was a hard thing for me to face those people without being able to give them everything I had tried to before.

But God was using this like he uses everything that I let Him use to do something good in me. The people I felt like I was disappointing rallied around us and let our family know that they were behind us no matter what. They spent the festival one by one having little moments where I would discover just how much each part of what we do has poured into so many lives, and it was more than encouraging, the word might be fulfilled. Rather than just feeling robbed or like I've failed at a part of my life I've worked on for so long instead I got to see the fruit, in faces passing, in children, on other stages at the festival, in seminars, in the work God does in each life we touch if we lay "our lives" down in service.

While talking about this year with a friend and explaining that some things have changed, moved aside and I'm determining to focus more on music... She gave me the line that many well meaning good people have tried to forcefully shove down my throat, "Well, if you stop focusing so much on these things with your family and just focus on you, you'll do really well. It's time. You deserve it, etc." I smilingly let her finish the conversation with me only interjecting once to point out that yes sometimes we hide behind things like college, career or ministry, to keep from walking in what God has for us, but what I'm standing here trying to tell you is that the very things you're saying to me now, is what tore me down and caused me to doubt. Well meaning misinformed people around me trying to save me from what I feel called to, what I have chosen and been chosen for. And where I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has called me to be. If He changes that tomorrow so be it. If he calls me to China or Canada or New Zealand good. If he calls me to go live in a city by myself and work at Starbucks and be normal enough to fit into peoples boxes I will. But He hasn't and sometimes I would appreciate it if people would stop explaining to me why I'm not married. A) I don't need to be married by tomorrow because there's no deadline on that for me. B) I'm not marrying someone that doesn't at least try to understand where I've been with God. I can not. I'm not asking that He live the same life, I'm asking that he accept that up till now these differences have been good, they're what made me and what continues to make me. And I (despite the pain of doubting that for a little while because people don't understand anything bit what they chose to...) Have finally gotten to a place thru the pain of asking why and how and why and why and why...why didn't they believe in and undertand where I am, and why you're allowed to love someone who isn't ready to love you? Why, am I where I am, is it God or am I crazy? Who am I and why? And God... And God being who He is mercifully and deeply answered those questions, maybe not the love and broken hearted part... But the deep, broken, needy ones. Why am I here, who am I? Why did you call me to this walk, did you call me or did I miss something? Was I wrong to not do the normal things, college, marriage, getting a degree, furthering a career, working at Starbucks so you can get married instead of living by faith with nothing giving everything and not having any grandbabies to show anybody.... Am I Following God? Am I Called? Am I Crazy? Who Am I?
And if I am following Him I suddenly start accepting, if I am like him I won't look normal, people won't understand, I won't always undertand. I won't always be able to explain it, even to the most understanding, loving people. His ways are not our ways, sacrifice will be our proof, all things work together for the good, He is the intervening distance. God is good and he wants good things for us and He will give them in His ways in His timing, and it won't always make sense but as His perfect will unfolds externally and internally, as He works the good and the bad and the painful and the ugly and the unfair and the dirty and the disappointments and the hopes and the things, all the things together for our good. We learn to love Him we learn what His love is and we accept ourselves, we accept and embrace who He is in us and what we are without Him. And its all so good and great and complete and I have so much faith in Him. I have so much trust that what we give to Him is always gonna be safe our hearts, our minds, our plans, our fears, the hearts of the persons we love the most and we want the best for, our ambitions, dreams, babies, jobs, career, family, pain, pain, fear, doubt, hurt, life, all of it. As I give it to Him as I sit alone on the floor afraid of letting go. As I stand on a stage, as I walk thru Cornerstone and see God using my family in new ways when the old is missing, as we prayed this year for God to open and close the doors and then he did and I see how its perfect, as I drove thru the festival last week at about 5am with tears on my face and in my throat as I cried out to God to heal me and take my pain. As I cried for what's over, what's now and what's to come. For Cornerstone, for me, for my family, for our ministry, for the people I have to let go of, for the things I cannot cling to, for how transient and flexible and perfect and sure God is and how I want to please Him. All of this.

All of this is me, all of it is God at work in me some of it coincides with Cornerstone some of it overlaps and some of it is years of process just steadily plugging along stomping over Cornerstone like its stomped over everything else that's just a stepping stone in our life just a stop along the way to where Gods plans take us. There is a part 2 to this particular post that involves hamburgers but we have 3 shows this weekend so that is to be continued.

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