Maybe I Am Beautiful

I have a love/hate relationship with downtown Nashville. 

Starting with the positives...

- Going downtown usually consists of meeting up with a distant relative or out of state friend. 

-The Ryman.

And, the negatives...
-People, a ton of people, like- loads of people, like-I'm gonna scream because I feel so claustrophobic around this many people
-Many others, but I will keep those to myself. 

Saturday night, I found myself downtown.

My good friend was visiting with her family, so we decided to meet up on Broadway. 

We ended up at The Stage, a tourist favorite.

The Stage and I go a few years back.

I remember visiting the establishment when I was 25 yrs. old with my parents, aunt, uncle, and cousin.

For those of you that don't know my cousin, she is beautiful, breathtaking beautiful. 

She stops a crowd wherever she goes. 

She probably will disagree with me after reading this, but it's true. 

The truth is, I spent the majority of my life wanting to look like my cousin. 

I was jealous of her, and she later admitted that she was jealous of me. 

Because of everything we have been through together, the ups and the downs, the hair-pulls, fights over guys and radio stations, we are more like sisters.

After we walked into the bar, It didn't take long for every guy to take notice of her. 

Consequently, It didn't take long for me to feel like the ugly duckling. 

It didn't matter that I was with my parents, aunt, uncle, or even cousin, I wanted to disappear. 

At 25, I vowed to never go back into The Stage. 

However, I didn't know at the time that I would be moving to Nashville just 3 years later.

And on Saturday night, I found myself, once again, at The Stage. 

It didn't take long for me to remember why I am not a huge fan of the place. 

First off, when I waked in, I didn't get carded. 

Ugh. 

And my friend, who is not that much younger than I, did. 

Ugh. Again.
Talk about feeling old. 

Secondly, my friend was dancing with her husband, while I was standing by my single self. 

Now, I am not a dancer, in fact, I tend to move away from any kind of dancing. 

The only times I have enjoyed dancing is when it's pitch black, and no one can see me, or in middle school, when I slow danced to, "I Swear" by All 4 One, with my crush.

This time, I wasn't jealous of my cousin.
This time, I was jealous of my friend.

I looked at the way my friend's husband looked at her. 

Smitten. Absolutely smitten. 

She was the only one who mattered. 

In a room full of people, his eyes only saw her. 

Despite being surrounded by tons of people, my friend and her family, I felt invisible, again. 

I managed say my goodbyes and leave before the tears started gathering in my eyes.

When I got to my car, driving as fast away form the neon light as I could, I thought, "God, when will someone be smitten with me? When will it be my turn? When will someone love me?"

I woke up Sunday morning, and instantly thought, "I am not going to eat as much today. That is something I can do to make myself feel better". 

I let my mind go there for a second, knowing that I was trying avoid the hurt, attempting to cover up the pain.

After entertaining that thought for one second more than I should have, I picked up my journal and did the only thing I can do...write.

"Father, You call me beautiful, but I don't feel that way right now. But then again, maybe all these experiences of feeling alone, abandoned, and invisible, will help me help others…Maybe I am beautiful… Maybe these moments of singleness have to be experienced…Maybe these moments will help me be relatable to others…Maybe these feelings of being the one not chosen, not picked, will help me help others... Maybe I am beautiful."

While I can start thinking that God has forgotten about me, I know that He is teaching me endurance and perseverance. 

It hurts, a lot, some days more than I can even bare. Many nights I have drenched my pillow full of tears, asking Him, "Why? When? How Long?"

But if I wish to walk the path that He has called me to walk, trials and pain are necessary. 

Hardships, no matter how big or small, no matter how surface or deep, force us to grow, force us to become the person God needs us to be.

“A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear that results from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl”

-Stephen Hoeller
 

I don't have some wonderful revelation or brilliant, awe inspiring answer that God gave me after writing this. 

This is just a blog about days when you feel invisible. 

I believe that sometimes God wants us to sit with our pain, and our sadness. 

We can't stay there, but we must address it. 

We can't cover it up with make-up, food, or lack of food, clothes, trips, drugs, alcohol, work, muscles, money, legalism…

We have to go there.
We have to be brave and face the truth, no matter how painful and uncomfortable it can be. 

My visit to to The Stage, reminded me that I am human. 

My visit to The Stage, reminded me that my heart still needs healed.

My visit to the The Stage, reminded me that it's ok to not always feel ok. 

Lastly, my visit to The Stage, reminded me that I still think Merle Haggard looks like Chuck Norris

 

“She never stays the same for long
 Assuming that she'll get it wrong
 Perfect only in her imperfection

She would change everything for happy ever after
Caught in the in between of beautiful disaster”

-Jon McGlaughlin

Torch Lake, The Bald Eagle's Nest, and Learning to Fly

Over the 4^th of July, you will find hundreds of boats covering the Torch Lake sandbar up in northern Michigan.

It's the new Panama City of Spring Breaks, except in the middle of summer.

Since I was a young girl, every summer consists of trips to the sandbar.

My parents, aunt, uncle, cousins, brother and whatever friends we had up at our lake cottage, would pile in our small white boat, and make the trip from Elk Lake to Torch Lake. Eventually, our white boat was replaced with a larger boat, and later, pontoon. Our families both started growing, and with the added family members, came bigger boats.

No matter how much our family changes, there is one thing that always remains the same: Finding the Eagle's Nest.

Before we reach the sandbar, we have to go through a river that lasts about 15 minutes.  

On the banks of this river, up in the trees, is where the Bald Eagle's nest lies.
Without fail, once our boat reaches the river, my uncle or dad grabs the binoculars and scans.
From the oldest down to the youngest, we each become bird watchers, frantically scanning our eyes in an attempt to be the first one to find it.  
Sometimes, if we are lucky, we not only find the nest, but the Bald Eagle as well.

Now, I am not really a bird person.
The closest I have ever been to being one is when I was dating a guy who owned a hawk.
In fact, he once asked me if I would feed her baby rabbits when he was gone on vacation.
Needless to say, we didn’t last.

I remember hearing someone talk about how baby birds learn to fly.

Sometimes, the mom will actually push the baby birds out of the nest. Talk about tough love.
The baby bird is forced to learn how to flap their wings, wings that they don’t even know how to use, on the way down.
It’s not always perfect, and sometimes the baby bird falls to the ground.
But through practice and trust, the baby bird eventually learns to fly.  

Now, to me, this sounds horrible.

I’m not so much a fan of the quote, “Build your wings on the way down.”
I prefer to build them now, and then gracefully slide into the air, fully prepared for what lies ahead.
I would have the baby bird hiding in the back, being like, “Nope. Not going. Dad, Mom…Sorry. You are stuck with me for life.”

And it’s ok to be that baby bird hiding in the corner for a season.

But eventually, we all have to be pushed off the edge.

Right now, I am the baby bird being pushed off the edge.

I was in a writing session last night, when Nick, my writing partner, told me that he wanted me to perform a song all by myself.

He told me that he wanted me to not only play it, but sing it as well.  
Cue the questions that soon flooded my mind. Do you think I’m ready? What if I mess up? What if I get nervous and forget the words? What if I fail? I mean, I only started singing in front of people again in the last year. I get nervous just sitting there. Now I am supposed to play AND sing?

However, the only question I asked him was, “Do you think I am ready?”

To which his response was, “Yes.”

I have been extremely content to let him do all the work on the performance side.

He is the one that plays the guitar and does most of the singing.
And that has been fine for a season.  
He was one of the individuals who helped me get back into the spotlight. He helped me gain confidence in my songs and ideas. He was one of the people to help me find music again.

He believes in me.
Now, I must begin to believe in myself and my talent.

It’s scary and a large part of me wanted to tell him that I couldn’t do it.

But I didn’t.
Instead, I said, “Ok.”

I am never going to grow as a songwriter, or begin to reach my potential, with training wheels on.

At some point, I must learn to build my wings on the way down.

Like a good parent, God knows when we must be nurtured, and when we must be pushed into the open.

We don’t become the person we were created to be if we always play it safe and comfortable.
We can't discover our hidden potential when we refuse to stay in the corner.
And being the good parent that God is, He knows when we need to be pushed.

Now, there is a very good chance that I will mess up when I perform the song by myself. I am fairly confident that I will miss a chord, miss a string, and quite possibly have my voice shake the entire time.

Despite what may happen, good or bad, I must do it.
I must be brave.
I must learn to fly with my wings.

There will come a time when you will also get pushed off the edge.
Instead of cowering in the corner, sometimes peeking over the edge, embrace the fall.
Say, “Yes,” to the open air, and the unknown outcome.

If you don’t, you will never know how amazing you are.

If you don’t, you will never become the person you were created to be.
If you don’t, you may miss out on your future.

If you don’t, you will never know how it feels to fly.

A Shovel and the Man from Australia

Do you ever have moments when you want to give up?

Do you ever have days when it’s hard to hold on to hope?

Even with Jeremiah 29:11 tattooed on my neck, my heart can easily forget that God has a good plan for my life.

Now, I have lived long enough to see that good doesn’t mean that there will not be heartbreak and trials.

Unfortunately, that is part of life.

I have just had a hard time lately believing that God’s plan is good.

That doesn’t mean that I have turned away from faith and denounced Jesus.
It means that I am human.

Yesterday, I called my mom on my lunch break, hoping she could offer me some sort of hope.

When she asked what was wrong, I couldn’t speak a full sentence without breaking down.
Right there on the Starbucks patio, I lost it.

“I don’t get it. I don’t know why faith is so hard sometimes. I don’t understand why bad things happen to good people. I don’t know why I struggle with faith. I don’t know why I can’t seem to fall in love with Jesus as much as I want. I don’t know why I can’t get my mind out of this cloud. I don’t get it.”

All she heard was, “I don’t….Why I struggle…I can’t….my mind…”

She didn’t know what to say, so we both listened in silence.

I always feel such shame when I have these moments with God.

 For the most part, my life is wonderful. I’ve had some hiccups in the road, but life has been good to me.  When I complain, I feel horrible afterwards, thinking I’m a terrible person for having these thoughts.

But sometimes perspective is hard to find, especially when we are in a fog.

I tried writing, that didn’t help.

I looked up quotes on hope, that didn’t help.
I researched scriptures on hope, but for some reason, that made me more upset.

As I sat there, tears started streaming down my eyes. I didn’t even care that I had to be back at work in an hour.  

A few minutes later, I heard an Australian accent coming from a few tables over.

"You need to start plowing and digging," the voice said to the young lady at the table with him.
“You are in a season of preparation and planting. The fruit will come but you must plow right now. You are right where you are supposed to be, so dig.”

He wasn’t speaking to me, but God was.

Plow and dig.

The interesting thing about this was that the night before, I was reading, Greater, by Steven Furtick.

The chapter I was reading was all about digging ditches.

He wrote how we dig ditches because we believe that God will send the rain. We dig ditches because we believe God will come through. We dig ditches because we are expectant.

The exact quote I wrote down last night was, “Stop waiting for what you want and start working with what you have. Start saying, “Yes,” to God right where you are at.”

Sometimes the Heavens are silent, but that does not mean that we quit believing, which is exactly where I was at.  

Despite everything amazing that has happened in my life and in the past few months, from getting my first cut to getting songs placed on hold, I was becoming hopeless, towards my faith, towards my desire for a relationship, towards music.

God knew I needed an intervention.

God knew I needed direction.

When I got home from work, I pulled out my past voice teacher’s breathing and vocal exercises.  

Rusty or not, it was time to start plowing.

After I finished them, I then pulled out my guitar.
I started strumming mindlessly and humming some sort of melody.
 20 minutes later, I had completed a new song.  Now, I don’t think this song will be a top hit or even on the radio, but that doesn’t matter.  
I was digging ditches.

I believe that God has made me an artist, not a performer, an artist.

He told me that music was going to be part of my life many years ago on the treadmill.
I laughed, He didn’t.

My job isn’t to figure out how everything will happen and at what time. My job is to believe and to dig ditches while I wait, fully expectant that He will make it happen.

So I continue to practice the breathing exercises.

I get back into singing lessons.
I write even when I don’t have the words, melody, or even know what chord I am playing.
I dig ditches.

This blog is redundant of many things I have written before, and that’s ok.

I think many of us get weary and tired on the journey. It doesn’t matter if God spoke to us yesterday, we need hope for today.

If your dream hasn’t happened, if your desire hasn’t been fulfilled, don’t stop believing.  

If you have, ask God to give you hope again.

My exact prayer which I wrote in my journal after the night I read the chapter on digging, and the night before I heard the man with the Australian accent was this, “Father, I do believe in You, I believe that you can make something out of nothing, I believe that you will do amazing things with my life. I’m just so, so, so tired of enduring, or getting by, or just holding on-I long to thrive but I just don’t know how. Please help me know that you are holding me and not letting go. That I am still yours, that you are still working in my life, against all hope, help me continue to believe”

It’s time to start digging.

The Purge

I was watching the television show, Nashville, when one of the characters said something that struck a chord in me. 

One of the main female leads said, "I need to purge."

The character was saying this in reference to getting rid of all of her ex boyfriends belongings at her house. 

When I used to hear the word, "purge," I always associated it with bulimia. 

It was an ugly word. 

It was a gross word. 

it was a word that I avoided at all costs. 

When I heard it last night, I didn't think it was ugly, gross, or relate it to food in any way. 

Instead, I realized how I need to purge some things  in my life. 

I didn't need to purge any of my ex-boyfriend's belongings. I tend to do that right after every relationship ends. 

Instead, I needed to purge distractions. 

Specifically, distractions in the form of social media. 

I can find myself spending a lot of my time on social media sites, responding to comments, looking at my friend's pictures, seeing where people are at now and so on. 

I have  love/hate relationship with it. 

In fact, for so long, I was that girl that got on, and then off, and then on again, and then off again. 

I was like a leaf, being blown here, there, and all over the place. 

I was hot and cold. 

I would get off to just get back on again. 

I realized it wasn't social media's fault I was unhappy, it was my own fault.  

There is a lot of good that can come from social media. 

I can find encouragement through a quote, or something someone posted. 

I can see what all my distant relatives are doing. 

I find causes to get involved with and opportunities to help out with. 

But For me, right now, it has become a distraction, and a pain reliever. 

I don't write when I am on social media. 

I don't sing when I am on social media. 

I don't feel when I am on social media. 

Just like food used to be, and can still be,  social media has become a coping mechanism.

When I don't want to feel my loneliness, or fear of the future, I get online. 

When I don't want to acknowledge my lack of control in life, I get on Facebook and Instagram. 

When I don't want to talk to God about how lost I feel in life right now, I scroll through my feed. 

The problem for me, is that  feeling is vital. 

Feeling is where I get my inspiration from, and how I make sense of the world.

In fact, when I was in treatment,  I refused to stay on depression and anxiety pills, because of their numbing effect. 

When I get stressed, or anxious now, my body starts to chill and I get terrible headaches. 

And lately, chills have started to resurface again.  

My body is sending an emergency signal to me….a warning sign, that I must take into account. 

I must make some changes, now. 

If not, I am headed for a downward spiral.

Interestingly enough, the advice I gave to someone who is headed down a dangerous path, was to get off social media. 

Perhaps, this advice is for me also. 

Ironically, I will use social media to share this. So It's not a matter of shutting down every site and being that girl again. 

It's a matter of taking personal responsibility, and having wisdom when to walk away, and turn off the computer. 

Instead of opening my laptop,I  reach for a pen and paper. 

Instead of opening another app, I grab my guitar.

Instead of reaching for my phone, I close my eyes , take deep breath's and listen.

Listen to the sounds around me. 

Listen to my life. 

What is keeping you from moving forward? 

Where do you need to make a change? 

What are you refusing to feel? 

What are you refusing to do?

What do you need to purge? 

"I'll drown if I don't get out, 

And face the stronger winds.

I must go against the current, 

Find out what's around the bend.

I need a time-out

A chance to lose my breath.

To travel down uncharted paths.

Is the only way I'll find myself back"

"Thats the thing about pain…it demands to be felt" John Green