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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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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less of that

Remember how I was writing long, borderline sermonizing journalistic type blog's? I'm probably too busy for that this week. But I wish I wasn't because I am a swarm of emotion. Not overwhelmed, dramatic emotion. Just deep introspective, heart shifting emotion. Some of it can't be written but most of it is well fertilized preparation for a story or 2 or 3. Stories of disappointment, transition, love, broken hearted romance, facing your past and finding healing or hurt, forgiveness, anxiety, proving yourself, and mostly learning to trust God. The stories will keep but my work before leaving on tour won't so be prepared for one liners or two this week and maybe say a little prayer for me if you think of it.

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keeping records

I started out here ready to nicely document my last week in an attempt to maybe make someone laugh. I don't have it in me right now, not because I haven't learned that humor helps make life less dramatic and more bearable... I would know, an all too keen appreciation for the comic and the ridiculous has gotten me in trouble more than once...

But I probably don't have it in me because although my body has been playing errand girl at the lumber yard and at Lowes and in between times I've been cooking for 16, and playing school teacher to my little sister and answering phone calls and doing all this business until I'm too tired and sore to feel like blogging into my phone... My mind is running nonstop in different ways. I don't have time to amuse anyone by laughingly writing off my frustration, because after a meeting that changed my year I'm rescheduling the next 6 months in my head, I'm literally making multiple lists in my head for every area of my life and my family's life and our year and festivals and merch and new product and groceries and a new album, and the current album, and the cheapest place to buy milk and sugar and lettuce and flour and organizing the next festival and making this weeks menu and comparing prices on high-speed internet so I can turn it on while we are home so I can work and type these lists and many more into the computer...but I don't have a computer anymore because the ancient laptop that I have everything on just broke out of the blue. It won't turn on anymore and I keep reaching to look something up but I can't because my laptop's broken and I have no way to get a new one... Inconvenient but still much more bearable than the fact that while these lists and literally at least 50 more are running thru my head...
while I'm working and busy and organizing all the worlds problems away there's a flashing neon sign in my head and a weary spot in my heart reminding me that there are other things I should be doing and everyday that passes I'm not getting any younger and if I'm not keeping house and making babies like a woman should, I should at least be making music, I should. I should allow that though everything I hide behind is good, it's not everything...
But so much time has passed and it wasn't because I wasn't trying and I wasn't using waiting on Gods
Timing as a facade or an excuse. There were times when building a platform for others was more important, and as I get another message asking if they're on the stage this year and I have to say no...not this year, I'm torn. Because I want to give to others... So I guess my momentary pause tonight is this, is it pride in me that is wants something to show for all these years of work, or is it Gods timing? Finally a small piece of fulfillment of the years of work, promises, sweat, patience and
Tears.... Why am I giving pause to any question? I'm going downstairs to answer it.

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10.10.10

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I love my family
I spent the weekend in the poorest county and my time here was rich
Being hurt can be good for you
I like Chicken Flautas
God is real, even when you are afraid. Especially then
Southern Appalachia is a beautiful thing
A Dirty Chai is not a sleep aid
Hard work leaves you satisfied
My sister is one of the best friends I could want
Loneliness is healthy

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