integrity

on

Ever had that moment where you knew you were supposed to be somewhere, but everything was working against you to get there? I did, just this last weekend. I was supposed to work with my boss at Worship Team Training (WTT) at the Christian Musician Summit Northwest (CMS), but his son got really sick so he had to cancel. I thought, now what should I do? I couldn’t imagine not being at CMS Northwest this year, so I asked the planners if I could volunteer. Yes! I could! So now I could go.

On Thursday night I met with Dave Cleveland who was doing a Guitar Boot Camp that day at the conference. Dave played on a couple of songs off my new album that we are working on, and one of the songs was guitar driven, that I really wanted to learn some basics for. Dave told me to email him the mp3 of the session track and he would give me some pointers the next day. After leaving, I got in a car accident. I rear-ended someone and then someone else rear-ended me. The front of my car was pretty smashed up, but I thought since it was still drivable and the headlights still worked, I would attempt to stay for the weekend instead of driving the 2-1/2 hours home.

As I drove to the conference that morning, a thought crossed my mind. What if something was trying to keep me from being present? The spiritual warfare I had been experiencing the last year and even more so this last month with my website getting hacked twice, made me think: I needed to just show up and look beyond the trials. So I went in on Friday morning, determined to see what God would have in plan for me, even though my car was smashed and I could be dealing with possible whiplash.

Yep. God had a plan. I was blessed to meet and spend some time with one of the Nashville Session Players, Blair Masters, who played keys on a few other of my songs. Then later that evening after Dave Cleveland and band performed, we were all hanging out at the merchandise table. We were joking around about how they could be my band and tour with me. So I got Nashville Session Playersa picture with the guys for fun. We are all connected through my producer Eric Copeland, as they frequently track in session for a lot of the independent artists that hire Eric through Creative Soul to produce their projects (myself being one of them).

So that was fun enough in and of itself and I was really glad I didn’t get discouraged from the car wreck and go home early. My neck and shoulders started getting really sore that night. Dave had asked me if we could do the guitar instruction the next day instead when he had more time, so that was no problem for me. I decided on Saturday morning it would be a casual sweats day, so I dressed down and drove to the conference.

Before I got out of my car, I checked my emails. In there was an email from Dave asking me if I would be willing to join the band for his 11:30 a.m. workshop that day. He wanted to use my song Deep Into You that they had tracked in session as an example for how to work together as a band. My first email reply was “Seriously?” (my anxiety meter went up). Dave had to write me back and say “please”…etc. Of course I had to say “Yes!”, even though I felt so inadequate and unprepared. After all, I had just recorded vocals on the song a month before and hadn’t event performed it live yet. And another little voice was antagonizing me saying, who do you think you are? You are just an obscure nobody.

I thought to myself and I spoke to God…this is why You wanted me to show up this weekend?” I knew His answer was yes. Then I had my Moses excuses for Dave…”but Dave, I wore sweats today”…”Dave, you are really making me stretch out of my comfort zone”… additional excuses went through my brain (even the fact that it was being live-streamed on internet land with me in my sweats -geez!), but I didn’t burden the guitar hero with them. I mean… c’mon…. this is THE Dave Cleveland asking obscure, small-town girl, me, to sing with him and these incredible session players for his workshop. I didn’t want him to change his mind! Craziness.

But I heard these words…just show up, God’s got it covered. I took myself and my anxiety out to my smashed up car, now doubling as a rehearsal studio and practiced my song over and over again. I finally showed up at our meeting time… and then while on stage as we were prepping, I fell over a floor wedge monitor before going out there to sing. I had a huge goose egg under my knee cap.

Now if anything could take care of my anxiety, a date with my face on the floor was the perfect distraction! Nerves totally cured! By the time I went out to sing with the band, the only worry on my mind was being embarrassed at falling over on stage and wondering if anyone saw it. And then… I was in the most surreal moment of my lifetime, as I listened to the band play my song live behind me, while I sang it… oh yeah, I showed up. And that was all God asked of me. He orchestrated everything else out to the way it was supposed to go and I had to be open and steadfast. To be firm and not let my faith be shaken by a car wreck or falling flat on my face, literally.

I thought of King David in his shepherd days. He showed up every day to tend to the sheep and to protect them from the wolves and other dangers. That was his job and he did it well. He was obscure. The last of all the brothers, and never considered once by his father or brothers to be a possible choice for Samuel to anoint as the next King. But God was equipping him out in those fields for something far greater. There are many of us who are “obscure” like David the shepherd boy. We go about our lives every day, working hard at where we know God wants us at and we just show up. And it is highly likely that God will lead us to even greater things, because we show up every day in what we think are monotonous tasks but He is waiting to see if we are going to be faithful at them. While we may dream of bigger things to come, we stay in the present.

Our God is a God who is never surprised by anything, but He surprises us by using the ordinary to do extraordinary things.

So, if ever there is a doubt in your mind as to whether you should be somewhere, consider going about your plan and just show up. Even if obstacles are thrown at you (sometimes these obstacles are legit and you need to respond to them). However, they may be trying to get you off course and keep you from experiencing something greater that God has in store for you and for someone else who will be blessed by your faithfulness in showing up. After all, it’s not about us. We are the conduit of His love and mercy to others, so just show up!

“For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16: 7b, ESV

 

 

on

“For the wisdom of this world isSunset Travel foolishness in God’s sight.”1 Corinthians 3:19

The other day, I had to attend a professional ethics workshop to stay current on my license as a Mental Health Counselor. I was trying to think positive about attending it, knowing it would not be a class from a Christian world view, but quite possibly I would learn something new. Well, I was quite disappointed. What I did learn is that I truly felt like a foreigner in a secular training. I had to listen to sneers and chuckles when therapists reported that “Christians say people will go to Hell if…” (wish believers were careful with their words, it sure makes a bad name for those of us who are trying hard to be salt and light).

Then we had exercises on situational ethics and examples in which we had to answer, “What if’s” based on our personal values and then, how we would handle that if we were the therapist. On the abortion situation, I was one of 3 therapists out of a room of 25 that held up their hands as being pro-life (because she asked us to). I was definitely starting to get the feeling that we were being singled out. Then, ironically (but of course known to God), I sat next to a therapist whom I had to partner with to discuss an ethics issue that each of us were currently dealing with. She was dealing with a father in session who was “extremely religious” and trying to impose his desires of having her counsel his daughter in biblical standards. She believed that this was going beyond her scope of practice. I suggested to her if she had considered finding a Christian Therapist and referring. She had not, in fact she just couldn’t understand how there could even be “Christian Counselors” and how they could remain neutral in therapy sessions. I smiled politely at her and stated, well, actually, I myself am a Christian Therapist, and this is how I am able to work with my clients from a Christ-centered perspective…” I am sure I surprised her quite a bit. In fact, I must have surprised her so much, she avoided me the rest of the workshop.

Sexual misconduct by therapists with their patients and supervisors with their supervisees is still an ongoing problem in the field of clinical practice and the majority of the training seemed to focus in on this, but instead of using real-life case samples, we got to watch movie snippets for how Hollywood interprets therapy (which for the most part is poorly, by the way). And for a final exercise in this area of concern, I learned that the wisdom of the trainer I had was truly foolishness. First, she let us know that we did not have to do the exercise if we didn’t want to, but that she would explain it after we did it. That was my big red flag. We were instructed to physically write out a plan for how we would sexually seduce a client in our office. Seriously, I was appalled. I refused the assignment. We were later told that by doing the assignment we would then be better able to detect in ourselves when we might be starting to slip into this plan and to be sure to avoid it. Hmmm. Seems to me there could have been a much better way to teach this.

Scripture tells us that we are to guard our thoughts and to flee from sexual immorality. “After desire has been conceived it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown gives birth to death.” James 1:15 How about we just don’t go there? We flee! Why entertain the thought, even yet, why put a plan in writing…can you see what the next step would be? We are living in dangerous times for sure.  When a trainer on ethics decides that this kind of an exercise would help us in physical restraint, we are mislead as professionals. For the only one who restrains is the indwelling Spirit of God in the hearts of the believers. We MUST exercise restraint by allowing the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And we should practice fleeing from sin and sinful desires, being willing to hold every though captive to the obedience of Christ.

I realized after this training, that indeed, I am in the world, but not of this world. And yes, my evaluation of the training that I turned in had a lot of writing on it!