2008... the Year of NEW BEGINNINGS.
Numbers totally have meanings. Like 7 is the number of completion. Well, 8 just so happens to mean new beginnings. This number seems to be a trend in my life, but I didn't realize it until this year... so that explains the title :)
"Northern Cali Tour!" (May 26 - June 4)
The past couple of weeks has been unreal! I am out on my FIRST tour ever and I can not explain fully how amazing it has been. The band is here with me to... they are all so awesome. Oh and BONUS- two bass players. (not at the same time, just different parts of the tour.) So I have gotten to work and be close with some of the most amazing musicians known to man. I am so blessed by them musically and seriously at a heart level. I go to band practice some times just asking God, "How, when, and huh? How did I get so lucky?" OK, so back to the tour stuff...
It has always been one of my favorite things to hear all the voices in worship at church. For a really long time I wouldn't sing on purpose, just so I could hear every one around me cry out this the same God. There was something about it that tugged on my heart and drew me in to the same place... seemed like home. I grew up in the church but I am pretty sure this is how I FIRST met the Lord, truly experienced Him... in worship.It is something else to see fruits of your ministry. The fact that God would use us at all in mind boggling. I have had so many moments on this tour where I just realize how fortunate and undeserving I am. I remember when I first started writing music... (I was a little turkey) and just trying to picture other people knowing or even singing a song a had written. Impossible. Well OK, maybe my mom would know my songs, but only because I sang them all around the house 24/7. This tour it was like I got to experience that miracle.
Straight up GRACE. There was so many times where I just had to stop singing and pull away from the mic because it was so overwhelming. There have been so many thoughts that have been going thought my head. Maybe you can relate to some of them:
"God, how could You use me. ME, Haley... What have I done up until this point in my life to deserve this experience. I'm so average. There's nothing special about me... I am just as messed up as the next person. Why do you use the broken. Your able to do anything and everything on your own, but you still choose to use us. Not only do you choose us but You call us by name. By name. Our name is important and significant to you... What?! I don't get this crazy LOVE of Yours."
It is crazy to be in this process. You dream dreams for so long... and then what? You wake up and your living them. That's what this experience has felt like. I am kinda scared. A little nervous. WAY excited! Its rad to think the God begins preparing us for what He has called us to way before we are aware of it. Like domino's. Good events, bad events, all leads us to Him it seems. If we are able to see it that way. That's what I have been praying... that I would have those kinds of eyes. I remember being about 5 yrs. old and learning this verse-
"For God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power love and a sound mind."
2 Timothy 1:7
I used to pray it every night as a girl. Well here I am, a young women now... praying that same prayer every time step on to a stage or stand in front of a mic. Its been nice to realize this past year or so that I will never be perfect, meet my expectations, or other peoples expectation of me. And that's OK, God doesn't call that version of me. He calls the broken, dorky, imperfect, smack your head on a microphone on the way back up from dropping a pick in the middle of a show... Haley. It is what it is. I am who I am... and God loves who that is. So truth of the matter-I should to. Definitely takes some pressure off.
Well these are just a few lessons I have been learning and felt like sharing. More to come, I'm sure of it.
*h
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