dumb and instantaneous.

“Your past doesn’t have to be your future.” What a beautiful thought. This idea inspires one to dream of something better, something joyful. It makes one close their eyes and wish for a painless life without regret, disappointment, and heartache.  It gives hope and lets one feel like they don’t have to be stuck; they can move on. Life doesn’t have to be the same. It sounds too good to be true…and it is.

“Your past doesn’t have to be your future…BUT it WILL be if you don’t do something with your present.”

Too many people expect their life to change instantaneously without having to do anything about it. Think about it this way: You’re really hungry, but do you have to stay hungry? No…just go to the kitchen and make yourself a lil pb&j…you were hungry, you currently aren’t hungry, and you won’t be hungry for at least a couple of hours. Congratulations, you just changed your future. Let’s look at this a second time, but let’s say that this time you didn’t do anything about the hunger. ever. Will you be hungry in the future? Well, yeah…unless you died, which you will because the body requires food, in which case your future was WORSE than your past because you didn’t do something with your present.

Ok, ok…I know that the analogy was on a short scale and it was dumb…but so are people. Everyone’s looking for the quick fix, the magic wand to transform their life from the pauper to the prince. Instantaneous. Right now. Everyone wants a fairytale. But healing is a process. Healing…though God may choose to bring healing instantaneously…I’m not saying that I’m limiting God…but healing usually doesn’t happen in the twitch of an eye.

Christianity…oh Lord, don’t even get me started…has just become another fix, a “spiritual high”. I hate it when people are told that all of their problems will go away if they’ll just turn their life over to Christ. Bull! First of all, praying “The Sinner’s Prayer” doesn’t instantly change your life. You don’t open your eyes feeling like you own the world. I didn’t feel nuthin’. My life wasn’t different; I was still me. Second, Jesus isn’t a genie, there to grant your every wish and make life easier on you. If anything, life got harder when I surrendered to Christ, BUT I now have the strength and power of Christ behind me every step of the way, so that I can overcome! I am victorious! Yeah, I still got problems; I still sin; I still get tempted; I am still me. But as I continue to feed on the Word of God, and I spend time in prayer and worship, I am drawn closer to God, and the closer I get, the more offensive my own sin becomes to me, and my desire to partake in sin decreases.

Sin. I really hate sin. I especially hate it when I sin. Sometimes, I start passing judgment on myself and it gets so bad that all I can hear is my own voice, taunting me. Other times, I’m so broken that all I can do is fall back into God’s forgiveness. Either way, God brings me through. Every time. Do I learn from it? Not always, but even so, God is still there, bringing me through. It’s a process. But the process doesn’t start itself. It’s take a conscientious decision. It’s a choice. But you've got to start somewhere.

You want to change your future? Change your present.

God is my future, but more importantly, He's my present. I stopped playing the games. I stopped the charade. I'm just me. And I know that if it weren't for God's grace, I would not be where I am today. But I took the first step...and God met me. Take the step. One step. It's not too late.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” ~Revelations 21:4

This is my future. What’s yours?

undeleted.

I wrote my first song when I was 4 years old. I still remember it. I sang it everywhere. It was very simple, and to be honest, I’m not sure why I wrote it. I doesn’t really make sense. The lyrics were...

“I walk through the path, and He comes in

I walk through the path, and He comes in

Oh, I walk through the path, and He comes in

He is my Lord”

That was it! I don’t know where this came from...maybe it was supposed to be something like Pilgrim's Progress...but I was 4...I hadn’t read it yet. It doesn’t make sense...for one, you walk ON a path, not through it. And yes, even at that age, I had learned the power and significance of the “Oh”. But I guess that song started it all. I’ve been writing ever since, but I like to believe that my stuff is a bit more meaningful now. 

Tonight, I went through 7 of the songs that I’ve written, some that were just lyrics and chords on paper and others that I actually recorded. I came across this one song that reminded me of the one I wrote when I was 4. It was embarrassingly basic; I mean, there are some songs that are sooo good because of the simplicity, but this was definitely not one of those songs. The lyrics are...

“I’m waiting for You

I’m waiting for You

Come fill my life, be the air that I breathe

Consume my heart, be my heartbeat

I’m Yours and I’m waiting for You”

That was it. The entire song. And I recorded 2 and a half minutes of just this! Over and over and over again. I scoffed at myself. Steph, what IS this? You can do better than this. What were you thinking?  As I was moving the cursor over the ‘delete’ button, I heard a voice ask me...”Do you remember when you wrote this song?” I couldn’t remember off the top of my head, so I pulled out my song journal and found the entry...October 2006. My first thought was that the date explained why the song was so basic...I was 15 years old. But then I heard the voice again, “Do you remember what you were going through when you wrote this song?” Bam. My heart stopped, well ok, if it didn’t stop, then something else happened...the earth stopped revolving...the air got incredibly thin...I don’t know, but my heart grew heavy. I knew what this was about. In September, I received some news that would change my life forever, for better and for worse. I was dying...jk I wasn’t dying, but I felt like dying after I received the news that my church was closing. To some, this might not sound like a big deal, but this was my home church. I’d never known another church. My grandpa started the church and when I was 12, my parents were set in as senior pastors. This church was my life, my school, my friends. My whole world was falling apart in front of me...and there was nothing I could do.

The 3 months following were the worst 3 months of my entire life: spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I felt dead. My faith was dead. I blamed my parents and slowly lost all respect for them...I could probably even honestly say that I grew to the point where I hated them. And this news was still a secret...I couldn’t talk to anyone about how I felt. I just had to bear it all...alone. I withdrew from everyone...especially God. I started doubting Him, seriously doubting Him. And if that wasn’t enough, I started finding ways to live in deliberate disobedience. I fell so deep in sin that it took 4 years to find complete healing. That was my ultimate low. 

I have never felt so alone as I did during that time. And yet, somewhere in the midst of all this, I found a place of brokenness before God and was able to form one last cry of desperation...this song. And rediscovering this tonight brought me so much peace and joy. God often reminds me of what I’ve been through, that way I can shout His praises even louder than before. God is faithful :)

So for now, the song stays on my computer...maybe I’ll even take a stab at recording it again, you know, fixing it up a little. This was such a good lesson for me, in fact, a good lesson for all. Don’t take your past too lightly. God has forgiven you, forgive yourself, and remember what God has done for you. 

“There is no pit too deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” 

~Betsie ten Boom...said on her death bed at a concentration camp in Germany in 1944. Betsie, her sister Corrie, and her whole family were forced into concentration camps for hiding Jews.

Sometimes, it’s not about how well you’re able to write, or how well you speak...it’s the background story that brings real meaning to your words.