My Own Personal Miracle

Sitting in the airport for five hours in Midland, Texas on Saturday, I never would have thought that on Sunday morning I would be sitting here in my hotel room basking in my own personal miracle. I can’t wait to tell you about it!

Here lately God has been working in my life in a big way. Of course, He has always tried to work on me, but it has been only recently that I have really let Him. My turn around happened after a big fall (what we sometimes like to call sin when we don’t want to say ‘sin’). I had sinned. I had been “overtaken in a fault” as the Bible says. On my return trip from the habitual sin that had consumed my life I really comprehended the words I had heard so often before, that I could not “do it in my own power.” I had been working all my life for God. I felt an all-consuming drive to please Him in all things. Now don’t get me wrong….pleasing God is good. It’s what would happen when I didn’t please God that wasn’t so good:

You know we can never do it right? We “come short of the glory of God,” and “our righteousness is as filthy rags,” etc. When we live to please God we are set up for failure. I have equated that mindset to swimming but never getting anywhere. You can sure get tired, frustrated and depressed when you feel you are working on something you can never quite accomplish. In my experience, I gave up trying to please God altogether and gave myself completely to the sin that I had struggled against for so long. I felt like if I couldn’t win completely and make God happy, I would just give up altogether. You know, God never intended for us to just keep swimming while He watched from above criticizing our mistakes. If that is the view you have of God, I pray you will begin to learn a little of what He has been showing me. What I have been learning lately is that I should live with God instead of for God. After all, He created me for fellowship, not service. As Mike Donehey of Tenth Avenue North puts it in his blog, “Don’t live for God. Live Because God.” Those words are so profound. It was fresh to read those words and thoughts that God had already been nurturing in my own mind. But it wasn’t the first time God has used this musician to touch my life.

I never realized before how important music is. When the changes first began taking shape in my life and I began to return from the pit I had gone into, my first response was to praise the Lord in song. I would hear a new song and the words would knock me off my feet. Fresh words in the music I discovered came pouring into my life like a cooling rain to parched skin. I knew music was going to be a crucial part of my devotion with God from now on, so I started looking for music that I could use to express myself to God and that He could use to speak back to me. I found several groups and artists that I liked. One of my favorites was Tenth Avenue North. The first song I heard by them was “By Your Side”. It was amazing how closely the words to that song echoed the words I had expressed in my writing about the very things I was going through:

Why are you striving these days?
Why are you trying to earn grace?

Whoa, whoa…stop the music. Trying to earn grace? That was exactly what I had been doing in keeping swimming. I believed in grace at the point of salvation, but by the way I lived my defeated life it was apparent that I believed it must be earned after that. My striving and trying had gotten me only tears and frustration.

Why are you crying?
Let me lift up your face.
Just don’t turn away.

God was embracing me, loving me in my failure. I had tried to run from Him. I had run to my own sin to comfort myself for my failures. The song asked the question:

To where will you go child?
Tell me where will you run?
To where will you run?

My running had gotten me nowhere. I knew that now. One of the things I had realized as I lay in the bottom of the pit was that He was right there all the time. I had wrenched myself free from His hands and ran to a place that He could never be, but He was there. The song continued.

I’ll be by your side wherever you’ve fallen...
Please don’t fight these hands that are holding you.

The message was exactly what I was needing to grasp from the Lord. Of His undying unconditional love. I ran out and bought the CD to listen to whenever I was down or needed to hear that message from the Lord again. He is “by my side”.

When I got the CD I found it wasn’t just that song that I identified with. The song “Let it Go” speaks of letting go of works as a means of acceptance to God. “Times” is a song that lists every possible time that God could not love us, and yet He does. I fit a lot of those times on the list. “Beloved” is a love song to me, the Bride, from a loving Husband, my savior. I am astounded that He is that crazy about me. His undying devoted love for me was just what I was looking for, and I had looked everywhere for it but from Him. Now I have come running home to Him and I rest in His arms. I feel particularly blessed to have discovered music that speaks to my heart in such a significant way.

Saturday we had a chance to go hear these songs in person. We were traveling to Tennessee to see some kids we love graduate from Bible College. I noticed on TAN’s website that they would be in Hartsville, South Carolina just two days before the graduation. We decided to book the fight to come early, make the drive to the concert and then another drive back to Tennessee for the graduation. It would be a lot of extra effort and money but it would be worth it. We got our hotel rooms and rental car and all that we needed to make it happen with a couple of hours extra to spare…we thought. Our unexpected delay in Midland caused us to miss our connecting flight in Houston by two minutes, ultimately making us almost three hours late for the concert I had so been looking forward to.

My first reaction was to be angry with the airline. But my second (and better) reaction was to pour out my heart to God who cares about me and my hurt even over a small thing like missing a concert. I didn’t need to go to the concert. God knew that. Nevertheless, because of things I had been learning, I knew that He cared about my dissappointment. I dared to ask Him for a miracle as we drove in the rain to Hartsville, even while we knew the concert had already ended.

As we drove up to Emmanuel Baptist Church, most of the lights were off. There were a few cars in the parking lot. We parked, walked into the building and began chatting with two girls about our woes of missing the concert. We soon learned these two “girls” packing away the merchandise were Jeff’s and Mike’s very sweet wives. They insisted on taking us to meet the guys. We were elated about the special treatment as we walked in and among mic cords and boxes to shake hands with Jeff, then Jason, Scott and lastly Mike. As we stood talking, Jason was telling us about their upcoming album and the recording that would start on Monday. I was pretty excited to hear that a new album was on the way and wondered if the songs would be as meaningful as the first CD had been. While we were talking Mike walked away and reappeared with his guitar strapped around his neck. He asked if we would like to hear a song. Would we?!? He asked what we would like to hear and I quickly piped up “By Your Side”. It was the song that had meant so much in the beginning and had introduced me to the group. He began to sing and play. And just at the time that I was used to hearing Jeff’s voice join in on the CD, Jeff stepped up with guitar in hand and joined in playing and singing. The guys didn’t lift their eyes to us as they stood less than two feet away from us, singing for us. They did it as to the Lord, humbly.

When the song was over, we got to talk to Mike a few minutes. We talked about grace and what we had been learning. He talked about what he had been learning as well, and reiterated the phrase I had read in his blog just the week before. “Don’t live for God. Live because God.” Then out of the blue he asked if we would like to hear a song that would be on their new album. “It’s about confession,” he told us. Wow. Confession. Another topic that had been on my mind. In fact, very recently I had taken it upon myself to share with my church family the fact that I had been struggling with sin. I had personally confessed to some close friends the nature of my struggles and my particular sin. This had been so liberating, to take off the mask I had been wearing. Was it coincidence that the song Mike chose to sing for us addressed this very topic? Once again, their music had touched my life. This song, in particular was there when I needed it, even though CD’s wouldn’t hit the stores for months. I had my miracle. Meeting the guys, hearing my special song, discussing our struggle and growth with a Christian who gets what it means to fail and doubt and still have God. There is even more to the story, like the t-shirts and posters they showered us with, photos they took of us at their suggestion and will email to us, crew members escorting us to our hotel and on and on. What is special about it all is not Tenth Avenue North, but the fact that God used them to give us the miracle. And the most special thing of all is that God cared enough to give it to me. I am His beloved. I thank Him so much that he has brought so many things in my life so that I will know that for sure.