A New Dream

Way back in January, I wrote a post about saying yes to God when He asked me to release all my dreams and aspirations into His hand.  I was writing at the time about The Audible Dark and my future as a musician.  I said in that post: “If you will open your hand, He will replace it with something better.”  But what I didn’t share with you was the other half of that conversation with God that day…

I’ve been surrounded by stories in the last several months of miraculous healings, massive answers to prayer, lives transformed — many of which are happening right in and through my own family.  It’s opened my horizons, and created in me a deep compassion for the sick and the hurting.

So as I was worshiping before God that morning in January, and I heard a report of a child being healed of autism… (Let me say that again: A child HEALED OF AUTISM!) my entire being inexplicably exploded in wild yelling and crying and delight!

Followed by a great ache to see more innocent children released from illness and disease.  To be made whole.  To have every obstacle removed that would stand in the way of each beautiful divine destiny.

And I found myself screaming and crying out to God to heal every little hurting child.  To lavish love on each forgotten one.  That every orphan that was abandoned because of their disability.  That is stuck in a incomprehensibly horrible orphanage because no one wants a child with Downs.  Or a 4-year-old.  Or 3 siblings together.  That every hurting child would be embraced by unconditional love and find perfect wholeness.

(I think you can see where this is going.)

And then I did it.  I said the fateful words.  “Give me the children. I will love them.”

(I’m crying again as I write this.  I’ve never cried so much as I have in the last two months.)

A more considerate wife might have run this by her very understanding husband before committing him to parent more children.  Alas, my dear husband was not that lucky.  He got to hear about it after the fateful “Yes” had been spoken.

I won’t pretend he was ecstatic at first.  I told God He’d have to move Cedric’s heart. … I may have helped God out with a few manipulative adoption videos, like this one:

And some incredibly inspiring and heart-wrenching orphan stories.

He didn’t last two weeks… 🙂

And so God gave me a new dream.  Not one to replace the old one.  A new one.  With a life all its own.  A life that has experienced more pain than any child should know.  A precious treasure of a life.  One that is loved beyond measure by its Creator.  That will someday soon know that love through a family.  My family.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” ~ James 1:27

Get Up and Do It

The crazy thing about chasing your dream is that it oh so rarely follows the path you expect.  As I have just discovered yet again.  A few days ago, Christmas break came to a delicious close, and both of my kids headed back to school.  (I was definitely more excited about this than they were!)  I took advantage of the morning home alone to get back on my face before God, without interruptions for a change.  (Actually, Pokey the beagle thought it was lick Mommy’s face time, so that was a little distracting…)

What I heard was liberating and terrifying at the same moment.  While I won’t go into detail here, I felt God asking me to release my dreams and aspirations into His hand and trust in His destiny for me, even if that looks different than I expect.  I know well enough by now that God’s plans are far better than mine, and yet, even I was surprised at how quickly my heart said “Yes!”

And then He gave me an action to reflect the state of my heart: Send the remaining songs I’ve been hoarding out into the world and let them go where they will.  It’s a simple principle I’ve heard before: God says, “I want to give you something, but your hands are full.”  You have to open your hands and release the thing you’re clinging to in order to receive what God is offering.  Sounds simple enough when your face is mashed into the carpet surrounded by the thick, liberating Presence of the Holy Spirit.  But at some point, you have to get up, and do it.

That’s where obedience comes in.  There was no promise that this would yield anything or even that the dream would return to me in some recognizable way.  Only a call to obedience.  It took me only three days to create art and prepare the tracks.  And yesterday as I was preparing to release “Released”, a not-confusing-at-all name for my first full-length album including all the songs I’ve recorded to date, I discovered it was National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.  I instantly knew I should pour all the proceeds into a desperate cause and an organization I’ve supported personally for a couple years now.

So without weeks of buildup or anticipation, a surprise album was sprung upon an unsuspecting world!  Not exactly my ideal plan…  But here it is: the new The Audible Dark album!  Please stream, and if you enjoy it, click the Buy Now button on the bottom right (or go to http://www.theaudibledark.com) to stand with me against human trafficking.  (And feel free to share it around!)

How like God to ask you to release the one thing that your dream seems to hinge upon.  But if you say yes — don’t just say it, but get up and do it — if you will open your hand, He will replace it with something better.  I wish I knew now what that better thing is for me.  I have no idea what comes next.  But I know that I’ve been obedient, and that’s enough for now.

Don’t Get Run Over

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

~Will Rodgers

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, all!  About this time of year, I tend to step back and assess where I’m at (though less because it’s a fresh year and more because we as a family get a few days off from the crazy business for once).  I figured I’d give you a progress report on my pursuit.

At the moment, I’m having mixed feelings.  There’s been a lot of movement in my life over the past year.  I’ve moved across the country, built relationships for my kids with 6 separate schools all told, gotten involved with a new church family, bought our first house, moved again, adjusted to suburban life, started a house church, put about 15,000 miles on my Highlander, and — most importantly of all — experienced the beginning of a great reawakening in my relationship with God.

It’s been a very busy year, full of so many things I’ve wanted for a long time.  I feel incredibly grateful to be blessed in this way!

But then there’s the other side of the coin.  While the rest of my life has been chugging along on the bullet train, the music piece of the picture has been quite stagnant.  I’ve been singing in a really fun dance cover band since about May, so it’s not like I haven’t made music, but The Audible Dark or any original music venture is still firmly parked on the ground.  I could say that life got really busy, and this got shunted to the side for more urgent matters, and that would certainly be true.  But no excuse is ever really good enough to justify abandoning something truly important.  Isn’t that kind of my mantra anyway?

I’ve made a few feeble attempts to get out to open mics and meet folks, which led rather indirectly to jamming with a potential drummer for the band…who promptly moved to Texas.  I’ve found myself quickly discouraged and frustrated with that approach though.  I have felt increasingly that the structure and the focus of the band will be changing.  (And thank goodness — the current structure of a one person rock band, really isn’t working out!)  It’s left me really confused and uncertain about how and where to even find the right musicians for the project.

I hope this doesn’t come across as self-indulgent.  I only mean it as a transparent, honest picture of this stage of the dream.  I guess struggle is a part of every journey.

I’m still determined to keep pursuing this.  I still believe this dream is part of my destiny.  So I guess it’s time to regroup.   I was in a pretty similar place at the beginning of last year, and though I still may not see the next step clearly, I now know one thing that never fails.  You can find me with my face squashed into the carpet, seeking fresh direction from my Heavenly Father.  Until further notice.

 

Ships In Harbour Are Safe

“Ships in harbour are safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”

~ John Shedd

Whoopi Was My Inspiration

A friend of mine posted a clip from Sister Act 2 last week, and it reminded me just what a huge impact that movie has had on me.  I realize I’ve just lost credibility with a large number of people by saying that, so I feel like I need to take you on a little musical journey to explain.

Growing up homeschooled in a conservative Christian family, we didn’t listen to “secular” music at all.  My whole family is really musical, and music is the centerpiece of most of my early memories, but my influences were quite limited.  …So I wanted to BE Sandi Patti.  Though later in our wild high school days my sisters and I ventured into the dangerous world of Christian rock and rap (*gasp*), there was a time when my dad would only play the crazy Buck & Dottie Rambo cassette when my mom was away at the grocery store.  Listen at your own risk:

So you can imagine how Sister Act 2 would have struck me the first time I stumbled across it on network TV around the age of 12.  Lauryn Hill’s voice alone made such an impression on me.  I programmed our VCR to record the movie the next time it aired (does anyone remember how that was done?), and watched the following clip, and all the other songs in the movie, a million times over.

I admit, it still gives me goosebumps.  (If you need to hear the whole song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Pk5YMkEcg)  This music catapulted me into the world of gospel.  Mahalia Jackson, Yolanda Adams, and later Kirk Franklin.  But especially Cece Winans.  It led me deeper into what singing could be — the breadth of expression, the sheer power, the incredible control — all in service of the song.  People tell me all the time that my voice sounds country, but I swear to you that gospel has had the biggest stylistic impact on me.  (My family, who suffered through countless hours of my experimentation with “Amazing Grace”, will attest to this.)

But the music of Sister Act 2 wasn’t the only game changer for me.  Ok, fine, so it’s a pretty hokey movie with a pretty hokey storyline and some questionable acting, but there are a few great quotes delivered by Whoopi Goldberg, of all people, that have really stuck with me over the years.  Perhaps the most significant for me has been the first part of this scene that follows, where Whoopi’s character talks about “Letters to a Young Poet”:

“I either wanted to be a singer, or the head of the Ice Capades.”  Wait, no, not that quote. This one: “If you wake up in the morning, and you can’t think of anything but singing first, then you’re supposed to be a singer, girl.”  It was maybe the first time that I realized that singing wasn’t just something I enjoyed, but was a real passion.  And as the poem goes, “that has made all the difference.”

So I have two questions for you:

1) What’s that thing for you?  That passion that threatens to overwhelm everything else at any moment?  That thing that grips you right in your chest?  (technically, that’s three questions already, but…)

2) What have been those motivating, life-changing influences for you?  Maybe it’s a quote or a person or a movie, or even an experience.

I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.  And maybe what inspired you will inspire someone else too!

Bravery isn’t the absence of fear…

“Courage isn’t an absence of fear. It’s doing what you are afraid to do. It’s having the power to let go of the familiar and forge ahead into new territory.”
~John Maxwell

I’ve been thinking lately how often I wait to build up the courage to do something scary.  Waiting for a brave day.  Waiting to gather up the fortitude.  Guess how often that actually happens?  Quite rarely.  Usually I delay indefinitely, or some deadline forces me to just do it.  And when it does, the idea of the thing often turns out to be more terrifying than the thing itself.  I can’t always conjure up a courageous feeling to do something, but it seems that doing the thing itself builds in me the courage to do it.  Have you ever found that?

We assume that brave people do scary things because they aren’t afraid.  I’m beginning to think brave people do scary things DESPITE their fear.  True bravery isn’t the absence of fear,  but the guts to move forward in the face of fear.  As dreamers, we are constantly called upon to step out of our comfort zone into the terrifying unknown.  What lies behind is familiar and safe.  The next step toward your dream may have dangerous consequences if you get it wrong.  The very idea can leave you paralyzed.

That’s how I felt when I first started playing open mics.  (This is when each musician plays their latest amazing tune, that he always wrote last night, that has 6 verses and a perfectly choreographed ending, and then exchanges compliments with all the other musicians about what great songwriters they all are.  I love open mics.  I really do.)  You’ll naturally assume I was afraid of performing, but that was only a very small part of it.  I’m not what you’d call an extroverted person.  Like at all.  The thought of interacting with nothing but complete strangers for several hours was truly paralyzing.

One week, a friend invited me to go to Vivaldi’s, her favorite open mic.  I lined up a babysitter, and obsessively researched what to expect.  And then she texted that she was stuck at work.  My last blankie was ripped away, and as I walked toward Vivaldi’s (a tiny cafe a million blocks from the closest subway station), I had a borderline panic attack.  My guitar suddenly weighed a thousand pounds.  My stomach was churning, and my whole body tingled with fear.  My flight instinct kicked in, and I started thinking of all the reasons why I should just go home: my throat was kinda raw, and I hadn’t practiced very much that week, and I was really exhausted.  All to avoid talking to a few strangers!  (My mother would have been relieved 20 years earlier!)

But I already had a sitter, and I’d spent an hour on the subway to get here.  So somehow I went in.  And I put my name on the list, and found the last unoccupied tiny table in the corner.  And it was a little less scary.  And I made awkward small talk with the girl at the tiny table next to me.  And it was less scary still.  And I gave a barely tolerable performance of a song I could play in my sleep.  And I was still alive.

And I did it again the next week.  Just as terrifying.  And the next?  Still scary.  But somewhere along the way the pit in my stomach started to soften, and I learned the protocol (not to mention a few basic people skills).  Eventually, I found a few friends, or maybe they found me, and it actually started to be kinda enjoyable.  Just in time to move on to the next scary step: gigging.

As I’ve been writing this, I have realized that I’ve come full circle.  Having recently moved to Denver (if 4 months ago still counts as recently), I’m faced with a whole new music scene to break into, and a new open mic circuit to learn.  And despite planning to hit the ground running here in Denver, I have only “made it out” to a single open mic…and that was an hour outside of Denver!  I blame it on the chaos of moving, and my husband Cedric’s work schedule, and being sick (again), but if I’m honest?  It’s fear.  I’m waiting for a brave day.  Looks like today better be that day.  I’m picking a night and booking the sitter, and I wrote it on a blog, so I can’t back out.  (Because everything on the internet has to be true.)

So what about you?  Have you ever been faced with the choice of stepping out to do something important that seems terrifying, or staying inside your comfort zone at the risk of not advancing?  What did you choose?  How did it turn out?  Share your story in the comments.

Or, like me, are you facing a moment of terror right now?  What will you do about it?  Tell me in the comments, and we’ll keep each other accountable.

“Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality.” ~Aster and Richter Abend in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

Why We Dream

I was planning on leaving this post for some unknown point in the distant future.  But this past week, my husband’s cousin died suddenly, tragically, and much too soon, reminding me that we don’t have time to screw around.  So get to your point, lady: How are dreamers born?

First off, I should clarify something.  I talk about dreamers as though we’re a special breed, that perhaps there’s only a few of us.  If you’ve talked much about it with friends, though, you’ve likely discovered that everyone seems to have a big dream.  Traditionally, we tend to think primarily of artists and musicians as dreamers (as in, “good luck, sweetie” #eyeroll), but really all of you who aspire to something  are dreamers.  (A couple of you are going to say that you don’t have a big dream.  Not buying it, but that’s another post altogether.)

Not only do I believe that we all have big dreams, but I also believe that we’re born with them — that we are created for a purpose.  (That’s right, I said created.  Deal with it.)  You see, you’re not alive by coincidence.  You’re alive for a reason.  That big dream?  It’s not just for you.  It’s not just for your ultimate happy, fulfilled existence.  It’s bigger than you.  When you pursue your purpose, you fill your place in the bigger picture.  If you don’t, you will be far less effective, and the rest of us will be crippled with your piece out of place.

As a good example, I have to call on one of my own inspirations: my sister.  From as early as I can remember, she aspired to be a doctor.  But not just any doctor — she dreamed of working with Native Americans.  (Not many 7-year-olds have a dream that specific!)  What came next is the step many of us dreamers forget about.  My sister didn’t stop at dreaming.  She went out and worked her tail off all throughout school, college, medical school and residency.  (That’s 12 years of post-secondary schooling, folks. Count ’em.)  You know it wasn’t a walk in the park.  In fact, at almost every juncture, the next step seemed impossible, but she wore her fists raw banging on the door until the hinges finally shattered and a way was found.  Today she works as an OBGYN in a hospital on a Native American reservation.  She’s made an incredible difference in the lives she’s saved and changed through her work there in just a few short years.  And it turns out the story doesn’t end here.  The dream continues to grow the further she steps into it.

Is she exceptionally smart?  Maybe.  Did she work exceptionally hard?  That’s for damn sure.  Is she most effective, does she make the biggest difference doing this than anything else she might have chosen to pursue?  Absolutely.  So what about you?  You’re here for a reason.  What do you bring to the table that no one else can?  Someone had a purpose in mind when He dreamed you up.

Welcome

Dear Dreamer,

A few months ago, I released a song with my band called “Die Trying”.  The song is about having big dreams that are assaulted constantly, and about being strong and courageous to follow those dreams despite the difficulties and obstacles in your way.  I wrote “Die Trying” out of my own personal experience of pursuing my dream, but I was floored by the response it received.  I wasn’t particularly surprised when a lot of my fellow musicians related to it, but then people from a myriad of different pursuits and backgrounds started coming up to tell me their biggest unspoken aspirations!  “You wrote the anthem for my life,” someone said.  It was at that point that I realized how many people hold a big dream and are waiting for someone to tell them to chase it!  And that’s what inspired me to start this blog.

Perhaps I should tell you a little of my story, so you understand how I got here.  My own dream, to sing and touch people with music, doesn’t have a start date.  I guess I first put it into words during high school, when it was met primarily with feigned enthusiasm and a general sense of good-luck-with-that.  Somewhat discouraged by a lack of direction, I chose to channel my musical purpose into music recording, but after four years of college and two years working in a studio in New York City, I found it wasn’t enough.  When my husband and I had our first child, I became a harried stay-at-home mom with only the rarest moments to wonder if my dream had expired.

Two years later, I was 25 and two kids deep when it suddenly hit me that this thing wasn’t going to land in my lap by accident.  If I didn’t chase my dream — and do it now — tomorrow I’d be an old lady wondering what if.  Baby, I had all the valid excuses in the world why I couldn’t make it — no time, no money, no connections.  I vividly recall a conversation I had with my sister, where I was lamenting all of these obstacles.  Her reply? “So what?  What are you going to do about it?”

Challenged by my sister’s words, I began to find creative ways to defy my own excuses, throwing myself into practicing and writing.  A year later, after an unsuccessful attempt to build a band off Craigslist, I recorded my first EP with a great engineer and friend from my studio stint.  Through this, my band The Audible Dark was born.  (That’s a story for another day…)  I had the an incredible privilege of learning from my bandmates for a little over a year.  When my husband accepted a job in Denver in February, The Audible Dark played our last show in NYC with the current lineup, and I moved my family across the country.  And so here I am, prepping to build the band all over again!

I tell you this not to show how amazing I am, but to say that when you are determined and refuse to accept defeat, you can overcome your difficult circumstances.  If I can do it, so can you!

So why start the blog now?  Lord knows, it’s not out of boredom — I’m swamped with a to-do list that only seems to grow, no matter how hard I work.  No, it’s really because my own song is preaching to me right now.  I’m the one in need of inspiration and motivation!  So as I write this, know that I’m speaking to myself as much as to anyone who reads this.  I hope you’re inspired as you read, but I hope you don’t just read.  What’s your big dream?  What inspires and motivates you?  All of us, we dreamers, need to be pushed from time to time.

It seems appropriate to leave you with some of the lyrics to “Die Trying”:

What’s your excuse today?

Why don’t you fly away?

Are you waiting for a sign?

Don’t you know no one can make you chase your dream?

 

I am not afraid of the dreams I’ve made

I’m not afraid to fall

I am not ok with living life this way

I am not afraid to die trying