A lot has happened since my last blog post.
About two weeks ago, I had a major meltdown in the middle of the night. My mind was reeling in grief and overwhelming sadness and anger once again. This time I just wanted to throw the towel in. I told my husband that enough is enough. I can't take this sadness one day more. He held me while I cried and threw my tantrum into the wee hours of morning.
Satan is so good at what he does.
This happened on a Saturday night. What timing. I had to get up early Sunday morning to do my "job" of playing, singing and leading worship for three Liturgies that day. While in my car on the way to the church, I wept to God about how unfair it all seemed. So many mothers around me are having beautiful, healthy babies...one right after another...why couldn't I be one of those mothers? Instead, I'm living with a broken heart day in and day out and to be honest...it was getting old.
I was tired of feeling this way. I wanted the pain and heartache to go away. I was trying so hard to embrace what I referred to as the "sacred grief" in my last blog post. But the more I tried to embrace it, the more Satan was attacking me...telling me that I couldn't do this. That I wasn't strong enough. That God had abandoned me and left me to dwell in the pain alone.
Like I said, Satan is so good at what he does.
I began to give in to those piercing thoughts and negative feelings of self-pity, despair and loneliness. I found myself saying out loud to God that even though I would be praising Him throughout the day in song, I was going to do my best to "not mean a word of it."
As I write this, I giggle at the thought of how childish I sounded in my mind when I spoke to Him once more as I was actually walking through the door of the church that morning...."Remember God, I don't mean a word of this!"
But as I sat down at the piano to begin playing the very familiar notes and lifted my voice in union with my parish family, I knew that I did mean every word of it. Denying my love and devotion to my Creator was like denying my very own being. It just wasn't possible. As I played and sang, my eyes couldn't help but glance at the beautiful crucifix hanging on the wall behind the altar. Here I was pouting about losing my precious baby daughter, and my Savior was reminding me that His love was greater than the pain I have been feeling.
I'm not downplaying the pain or grief when I say that. What I realized was that Jesus Christ loves me (and every one of us) so much that He paid a price of a painful and agonizing death to overcome the most intense pain or agony that one can bear on this earth. As I moved through each song that day, I felt God's healing touch on my heart. I was once again thankful for the gift of the music that He has blessed my life with. By the end of the day, I realized that Satan was really doing his best to distract me. And I believe it's because big things are going to happen in the near future. I don't know exactly what those things are, but I know that Satan wouldn't bother with me if it wasn't something important and powerful.
Almost a month after we lost Anna, I began hearing this "chorus" of a song in my head. The words came to me clearly and I wrote them down one day while at work. I set them aside, wondering if this "song" would ever form to a completion or if it would even go anywhere. Another few weeks went by and I was drawn back to the poem that I had read right after I had given birth to Anna. I posted the poem as the very first entry in this blog. It was called "Fiat," which means "God's will be done." That poem had resounded with me from the first time I read it. And before I knew it, I began jotting down words to fill in the rest of the song that God was forming in my mind. Within minutes, I had the entire lyrics completed to this song. I decided to email the author of the poem to share with her how that poem affected me and that it inspired a song that I would like to record and publish. She wrote back within a day and gave me her blessing to use it however I wished and that she couldn't wait to hear the finished product.
Another few weeks later, one week before the Sunday when I had the meltdown that I just wrote about, I was driving the 20-minute commute home when I began singing the words to the song that I had jotted down on the paper at work. I was stunned. It just came out of the blue. So I grabbed my iPhone off of the passenger seat next to me, quickly found the record app and sang the entire song into my phone so that I wouldn't forget it. But there was no forgetting it. I couldn't get the song out of my head all night. So, on Monday morning I called my friend who owns a recording studio and has helped me write songs in the past and told him about this song. He asked if we could meet the next morning and start working on it.
We met the next day and within two hours, the song was complete.
When we finished putting it together, we just looked at each other in amazement and then embraced. We knew that the Holy Spirit had just done some powerful work. And all I could think of were the words that the Lord spoke to St. Paul once again: "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness."
One week later, (two days after said meltdown), I was in the studio...recording the beginning stages of this song that the Lord began putting in my heart only a short time after we lost our daughter. My friend and I are still in the process of completing the project, but it won't be long before it's ready for production.
Once again, I'm amazed at the power we are given when we are at our weakest. As I have been listening to the recoding we made that day, I don't think it even sounds like me. I was so tired and worn from the rough weekend I had, with all the tears and very little sleep. And I can hear all of the brokenness in my voice. I have been tempted to go back and record it over again because of that. But, I'm not going to. The fact that I was so broken when I sang it in the studio that day makes it all the more "real" to listeners....and even to myself.
Even if the song doesn't really "go anywhere," I still feel that the Lord is using it to bring healing to me, my family and other mothers that I come in contact with that have lost babies in their lives. I don't know what the Lord has planned with it, but I'm so grateful for this song. It came from a broken Mom's heart and a God who is so great that only He can be strongest in our weakness.
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