Category Archives: Life

A memoir on my messy sit-com love story with an unlikely end.

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Our love story starts in a class room. In a dance studio in fact. Not for dance lessons. Though we did take irish dancing lessons together once, funny factoid. Anyway, our university was bursting at the seams, and I guess our class had no where else to meet. It was basically a songwriting/composition class. I believe it was actually a group lesson of sorts, where you would bring what you were working on. We were sophomores in college, hardly mature enough to be handling such matters of extreme heart spillage every week. And yet for the sake of education we were presented with the humiliating, yet sometimes rewarding task of sharing the vulnerable workings of our hearts, out in the open.

Did I mention it was in a dance studio? Meaning it had a whole wall of mirrors. Anyway so you would sit there, in front of the mirror. STARING. Staring at yourself, or staring at others (or pretending not to) as you listened to the sharing of songs. It was actually quite cool, maybe not the awkward staring, but the sharing was really helpful. I mean it sounds pretty embarrassing and I guess it was in some ways. However, the room was filled with the electricity of budding creativity. Creativity that for the most part had yet to be fizzed out with the ways of the world or the realities of a pay check. Creativity that was pure, new, and fresh.

The professor was an adjunct professor. Which means he was not overly “educational” or stuffy. He was often late and kind of weird. But overall he was a pretty happy guy and created a nice safe environment for sharing. I remember four distinct students from that class. Two girl friends who were very near and dear to me. Gals that I am not close to now, but I believe we would probably just about pick up where we left off, due to the nature of that raw season of life that we shared.

However there were the two other people in that class that would change the course of what happened next in my college years and beyond. Two boys.

Ah yes…

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The Silent Treatment is Murder: creative stuckness.

IMG_5761I often delay “doing” out of fear. Being a creative I have a lot of skills and platforms that I could use to tell God’s story in my life. Yet sometimes I squander and wonder and just do nothing. The art of story telling through art and song is a craft that is hard to hone. And out of perfectionism, I often shrink back. But I heard recently from someone older and wiser that giving someone the silent treatment is like committing murder. She referenced this in the bounds of marriage, however I believe it can apply in many areas.

Let me say that again: GIVING SOMEONE THE SILENT TREATMENT IS LIKE COMMITTING MURDER!

As I have mulled this over in my head the last couple days, I have come to a conclusion. My silence hasn’t been a lack of words, but a lack of tending to the projects that I want to accomplish. Projects, ideas that I believe God has given me both the skills and desires to do.

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To my worship leader hubby with the guitar shaped arm.

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Sometimes I think your arm is shaped like a guitar. Seriously. You play it all the time. Even from the farthest corner of the house when you play on a Saturday night I hear you go on and on and on. Sometimes it lulls me to sleep and I have nothing but fondness towards you. Other times I wish I had ear plugs, or brain plugs.

With care you craft every note, because you want to get it right. You know that if you sound the best you can, you are glorifying the Lord. And you don’t accept anything but the best of performance from yourself. Sometimes your drive is an amazing gift. Sometimes it is your downfall. And though often I complain or get annoyed that you are playing the same part over and over, I know it’s a necessary evil. You graciously don’t respond in anger when I have said “give it up all ready” one too many times. You keep playing anyway. You know you need the practice. You know that if you are confident with what you play, you will be able to lead God’s people in worship that much more!

Some may call you a freak of musical nature, because they think it flows out easily like the water from the faucet. But I know better. You are the most musically gifted person I know, however I know how much hard work that “giftedness” takes. I know your musical process is a methodical slow craft. It takes blood, sweat, tears, and hands that ache. But you wear it well, that guitar shaped arm becomes you. It’s a part of you.

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Perfectionism

Lately I was sharing some struggles to a dear friend and she responded: “Allie! You know that does not define you, right?!” And I said: I hope so…I hope I can change. She looked me straight in the eye and said “Yes, you can change. There is hope!”

Praise God for people who speak truth! Do we do this enough? Really encourage and spit out wisdom upon our friends?! I hope I can be the kind of friend that can say “Don’t believe those lies dear friend here is the truth!”

I’ve been listening to a song over and over in my car so much so that my 3yr old now knows all the lyrics. It’s by J.J. Heller she talks about it’s meaning HERE if your interested. But the main point of the song that touches me the deepest is this line:

Perfection has a price
But I cannot afford to live that life
It always ends the same; a fight I never win

I struggle with perfection and I never really connected it with being a controlling person until recently. I spend a lot of worthless energies trying to control the people around me especially when I feel like things aren’t going the way I hoped. And I hold so tight to the things I think is best and don’t release them to the Lord. But releasing our fears on Him is what we are called to do.

“Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you!”
Psalm 55:2

Even within the bounds of my creativity my perfectionism effects me. Creative souls have a need to make, live, create ideas, physical things, pieces of art. And when we find ourselves in the dry spell when we aren’t creating it’s just deflating. And then perfection robs us from the opportunity to grow. If we would just put something out there that’s incomplete and offer that incompleteness to the Lord and ask him to use it, imagine what beautiful things we would experience! Too many times I have stayed quiet, held in my thoughts, kept in ideas because I felt it wasn’t perfect enough so why put it out there? But the Lord blesses our burnt offerings!!! He takes them and turns them into beauty! Praise him for I am fearfully and wonderfully made to create beauty and to magnify the Lord!

“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time
those who are being sanctified.”
Hebrews 10:14

** Thank you O Lord, that you do not leave me in my struggles but that you in your grace will bring me to a perfect completeness. When I struggle to make it on my own way may I look to you. And by looking to you, may I be encouraged to still create and still peruse beauty even when I feel it isn’t perfect. Bless my feeble attempts, grow them towards beauty that will glorify You. **

A Cookie. A Friend. A Promise.

I’ve forgotten how nice it is to sit down with a fellow creative! I am thirsty for this kind of relationship and am so grateful when Erin from Big Day Cakes asked me to help her with her website! As we sat and chatted I devoured the above cookie that she brought. She is a mom and a member of our church and I was so refreshed to remember and be excited over the creative gifts that the Lord has given so many of us!

Transition to this town has been slow.  Just like any other transition in my life, I am reminded just how important it is to rely on my Heavenly father. How easily we forget. I was grateful this spring to go through a women’s bible study at our church and study the Old Testament with the help of Bill Jones and his book “Putting Together the Puzzle of the Old Testament” I am a big picture thinker and I have always used this excuse: I would just understand the bible more if someone sat down and gave me the big picture. I mean seriously! This book really did give me a Big Picture!

Through this study I was quick to be reminded how soon I forget the Lords promises!  He promises to supply my needs, has given me a hope for my future, and yet I doubt. (Jeremiah 29:11) This last year was filled with a lot of unknowns when we were in the search for a new job for Mike. And all the while I said: “It will be better when….” And just like the people of Israel who reached the promise land and had to wait for 40 years before getting to enter because of their doubt, I too make the same mistake! Here I am in the new place that the Lord has provided and I doubt his provision.

In the difficulty of transition when I feel like I don’t have a good friend base yet, or don’t quite feel settled the questioning comes. I doubt…will I ever? Truly I won’t until the Lord returns, However the Lord does have plans to prosper us HERE and I need to be faithful in the waiting. I do have Hope, because before I know it Augusta will feel like home and I will feel a sense of belonging. A belonging that can only be fulfilled through Christ!

Bill Jones in his book not only covers the big picture historically, He also earmarks the most important details that the Old Testament offers: the prophecy of Christ, the complete redemption of God’s Story. Recently I sat down with a friend who told me they believed that the bible was a good historical book but they didn’t believe that Jesus was the savior.  Sure he was a nice guy but other than the moral lessons he taught, why did that matter?

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Bill Jones tells us that The Old testament makes over three hundred prophecies for the coming Messiah!  He mentions that although one could argue that anyone after the fact, especially a Jew who grew up hearing these prophesies, could ride into Jerusalem on a donkey and claim to be the Christ. No one can fulfill their own birth and no one can fulfill their own death. Bill Jones suggests this leads to another objection. Could the prophesy of Christ be accidentally fulfilled? As in could it be a coincidence that Jesus came from Bethlehem and died on a cross as foretold in the Old Testament.

In the book Science Speaks the famous mathematician Peter Stoner explains in layman’s terms that the probability of fulfilling only eight of the three hundred prophecies would be the same probability of covering the state of Texas two feet deep in silver dollars and having a blindfolded person pick a previously marked coin from all the others on his first try. He argues quite convincingly that Jesus Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies could not have been a coincidence.*

The God of the Bile does everything with such intention and purpose.  And he has intention and purpose in our lives! It’s not a coincidence that the Lord placed us in Augusta for such a time as this!  And I need to dwell on resting in that promise. Jesus is the biggest promise that the Lord makes to us and He does fulfill! When we question. When we doubt: will I ever be enough, have enough, love enough, live enough. The answer is yes already and yes not yet. He has given us a plan to prosper in this life and he has given us a plan to prosper in the next! Thankful to be reminded that I am not alone in this trek called life.

Ahemm and all that from a cookie given by a friend….mmmm sorry I couldn’t share all that chocolatey goodness.

* read chapter 3 of Science Speaks HERE if you are interested.