My afternoons were spent in the quiet corner of our downstairs room – where I thought no-one could hear me but Jesus (I later found out my brothers and my parents would sit at the top of the stairs where they would listen to the overflow of my soul in music form). It was a creative process I alone had in the quiet of my heart. I wrote just because. A song brewing in my spirit – sometimes multiple creations paralleling one another. I wrote for the joy of creating. I turned my dreams into song. I wrote because I was grieving. I wrote because I was happy. I wrote out my frustrations and played until I found my peace again. A creature of habit I found my entrance home was quickly complete by my piano. Just me and Jesus. The stories in the lyrics built themselves and on the days I forced my creativity I took it out on my piano and walked away for another day when it would flow like smooth chocolate. I had books and folders filled with scribbled lyrics in the haze of creation – years of me bled out on paper.
When school finished I still processed around my new found life as a grown up. I still wrote. Until I moved out. Until I studied music. The threads began to crumble like aged satin worn through. I finally understood the world of music in minute technical detail. The crescendo of noise and intellect built in my brain and detached me from my space, my Jesus, my heart and my piano. I no longer sung for joy. I no longer wrote for love. I wrote consciously aware of the formatting I was taught. I got trapped in the net of my degree. A degree I didn’t fully know I was entering into. A contract to unzip all of my rote learnings and making it up cause it sounded right, to a conceived notion it all existed before and there are rules. Rules I wasn’t in fact breaking, just rules I now knew I couldn’t erase. So scales and warm-ups became the new me. I was fashioned into a vocalist of high distinction in my uni. I excelled my craft, but I lost my heart along the way. I loved my voice, I loved to sing but I lost my reason in technique and excellence. Each time I sat desperate to write the voice of my spirit out I got caught in lameity and cliches, again I eagerly closed the door on my old world. But still, a quiet whisper kept calling. “Don’t give up on the dream… don’t walk away from the gift I have entrusted to you”. I kept turning my back.
When I became a mum I thought something was awakening in me, I sat down and started writing songs again, still super conscious of the correct formatting or stuck on a particular key – so all my songs sounded the same. I battled with this internal tug of war and hated the burden I felt I had been given. Why waste a gift! “You’re so talented why don’t you write more… record yourself and songs so we can hear them… you’ll live to regret it”, each encouragement tightened my heart. Fear flooded in and I made my excuse of how much I now hated music. How I hated to create. But only on the inside, if it were you I’d smile and say “oh thanks, just not the right season…” but secretly, I confess, I had walked away a long time ago. I left all the lyrics pent up inside in a big pile hoping a wind would carry them away in my dreams. The tears of my soul wept as I realised I used to find such freedom in a world tucked so deep away. And then He just kept knocking, coaxing my heart tenderly, “Don’t give up on the dream…. don’t walk away from the gift I have entrusted you with…” Like a true gentleman He waited for it to become my idea. For me to decide. Pursue the dream or it won’t come true. I can’t wait for it any longer. This really is an ideal time with two babes at home and a chapter off work. I have the opportunity to choose to invest in the world I once knew each day. Set myself some goals, process it and be vulnerable like I never have been. To open the tomb of dusty dreams. And just like that the tsunami of the past eight years has built to cascade creativity to a numb heart. A heart so weary of holding back the waves I am ready to sink, to be saturated. In that moment whilst I am covered by grace I will rise to the surface, and that first breathe. The one I’ve held for so long, will fill my lungs, my spirit, my creativity.
“Fall in love with The Word,” He said. “Fall in love with words. Discover words. Discover Me.” So here I am prompted, poked and prepared to embrace all the ideas… the ones I immediately do a 180 on and ran from in my mind. Another dream I won’t pursue because fear would ruin me. But I will let Him alone ruin me, I will let Him run all over my mind, my heart, my deepest fears, my shadowed corners and take out all the darkness. I will let light and life ruin me for good. If Jesus already has the victory what am I so afraid of? After all, it’s not even about me… it’s about Him.
There it is again “Don’t give up on the dream… don’t give up on the gift I have entrusted you with…” This time, I might just actually listen. I hope you can too.