It’s funny how you think you don’t really have a ton of things to work through and then you go on the World Race. Beware.
I always found my identity in music. Most of my life, I’ve been singing, playing guitar, writing music, performing, even leading worship in different capacities. I did it all.
Music had become both a huge source of pride and an even bigger source of insecurity. My self-esteem was fragile. I was constantly comparing myself to other musicians. Constantly beating myself up for not being better. I recorded and released an album last year but what no one saw was me, sitting alone in the room I recorded in, crying and hating myself for not being better. Hating the songs I had recorded. Sick of writing and singing and writing and singing and feeling like it all meant nothing. Performing gave me anxiety, so I rarely did it.
Music was simultaneously what I loved most about myself and what I hated most about being me. Because it was expected of me. I had made it who I was. There were times I wanted to break my guitar and throw in the towel altogether.
But still, I never really considered it an issue. I was fine.
It’s funny how we allow the enemy to whisper lies to us and how we allow ourselves to believe them.
“Would they still like you if you couldn’t sing?” No, I don’t think they would. That’s all I have to offer.
“Could you really do anything else worthwhile with your life?” No, I think this is it.
“You’ll never amount to anything.” If I don’t pursue music, I’m a failure.
And I believed all these things and thought that I could handle it. And then God took me on the World Race.
And that’s one of the very first things that He showed me I needed to let go of.
It was hard. I was finally dealing with this issue that I had pushed away for so long. I had panic attacks. There were a lot of tears and a lot of frustration.
At training camp, I was made Worship Coordinator for my squad. I had to lead worship pretty often for them and recruit others to lead as well. But that was just the beginning. God turned my view of music upside down—and ended up turning my view of myself and my view of Him upside down too.
It started when Liz told me that my gift of music wasn’t for performance—it was for connecting with the Lord and having people see that connection.
And when we prayed over the dry well in the Andes Mountains and sang hymns declaring that God was King, and I felt the weight of our songs in such a spiritually dry place.
When we worshipped in the village and I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me to play “Because He Lives”. When I opened my eyes and saw the YWAM team standing, worshipping, singing the song in French.
When I saw the beauty in the absolute joy of the Ghanian people, singing to the Lord and dancing around because of the freedom they had found. There was no fear of man in that room.
When God gave me bits of himself through different instruments in different songs: a cello for his deep lament for His lost children, light piano for his joy and peace, a strong brass section to showcase His power.
When a woman named Broncha prayed over me in Montenegro and cried as she told me the Lord gave her a vision that my voice was “a golden needle and a golden thread in the wedding dress of the church.”
He gave me all of that this year. I stepped onto the plane in Atlanta carrying my 15 pound guitar, but I was also carrying the weight of performance, perfectionism, and sadness.
When I lead worship for my squad, I experience the freedom in music that God wanted for me all along. Freedom that is so sweet I am often moved to tears. Finding this in different parts of the world is just an added bonus that He was gracious enough to let me have.
I won’t deny that the small voice of the enemy creeps back in sometimes and tries to bring me back to where I was. But I’ve seen too much, felt too much to go back to putting my identity somewhere it shouldn’t be. God loves me too much to let that happen.
(Also, music still makes me cry, but in really good ways.)
