White Flag

I don't know why, but White Flag is one of my least favorite worship songs.  I really don't know why.  I like other tracks from the Passion album (namely One Thing Remains and You Revive Me) but just not that one.  I don't have anything against surrender--though I'm admittedly not good at it--I just....blech.

And then one week, I got that lovely, highly-anticipated Planning Center invite and saw it on the schedule for the upcoming Sunday.  Ehhh.  I've helped lead songs I wasn't terribly fond of before.  I knew I could make it through.  

Then a week or two later, same situation.  

Then a few weeks after that.

Then yesterday.  I got a text message at 6:15am asking if I could fill in for a vocalist who had a last minute situation.  So I got out of bed, got ready, and listened to the worship songs for the day.  Yep.  You guessed it.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, every time this song has been on the set list at our church, I've been up on that platform helping lead.  (You'd think I'd have caught on by now...)

On my way to church yesterday morning, as the sun was rising (and as I was still waking up, honestly), I asked God to use me how he saw fit.  I mean, I hadn't had more than 30 minutes to prepare for the 7:30am rehearsal, so I really needed His help.

And as I rolled into the parking lot, it dawned on me that I *always* need His help.  I should *always* be asking Him to use me as He sees fit.  I should never be relying on myself alone, no matter how much time I have to prepare.  I took my small step towards surrendering, and managed to not stress out about the songs (well, except for this one :-P).  

I'm not always the best at surrendering.  The past year has forced me to at least get better at it.  But I definitely still have plenty to learn.  Especially this next week or so, as we approach what would have been Nathan's due date on Saturday.  And last week, as we mourned the first anniversary of losing Jordan.  And as I continue to struggle with stress and anxiety.  I need so so many reminders.  Being there on that platform yesterday was so much more for my benefit than it was for anyone else's.  

But I still don't like the song.  ;-)

Milestones

We've hit a few "milestones" in the past week or two.

*We hit a year since we found out that Jordan passed away
*We hit 4 months since losing Nathan
*We hit the point where we've now been without Nathan longer than we had him

I'm not sure why that last one hit me the hardest, but it has.

I have so many blessings in my life, big and small.  I have so much to be thankful for, and I have thankfully found myself amazingly happy, especially over the past few weeks.  But I'm also trying to give myself a little grace.  And let myself be sad sometimes.  Because I miss my babies.

Perfection

I've been thinking about perfection a lot lately.  I've written about it a bit before, so I won't go into all of those details again.  I also mentioned a little bit about my enneagram type, but not much.  I shall elaborate a bit.  :)

The enneagram is a personality inventory, a bit similar to the more well-known Myers-Briggs.  This is one of my favorite sites on the subject (and even has a few free tests to determine your type...if you take it, let me know what you are!).

I'm a 2 (with a 1 wing, if you want to get specific) which is the helper.  Among many of the positive and negative traits of 2s is the fear of being unwanted and/or unloved (it should be noted, as a bit of irony, that Amanda means worthy of love).  At our best, we help and love unconditionally.  At our worst, we become manipulative and self-serving.  My 1 wing brings in the perfectionistic part.  I want to help (in some cases, I "need" to help), and I want to do it perfectly.

Yeah.

Lately I've been having issues with this particularly in my home life and in my singing.  I feel bad when my house isn't clean (which is practically all the time) or when I don't cook dinner, even if there are valid reasons, such as working incredibly late hours.  I feel bad if I hit a bum note when singing, or miss a lyric, even if it goes mostly unnoticed.  Imagine, then, how I feel when I *really* mess up.  It ain't pretty.

I've been trying to give myself more grace lately.  That's something one of my doctors reminded me to do about a month after we lost Nathan.  Yes...I needed to continue to focus on my health, but I also needed to remember not to be so hard on myself.

For me, the balance between trying to be perfect and completely giving up is so hard.  If I'm not focusing my energy on it, it's an either/or thing for me.  If I can't be perfect, I might as well not do it at all.  My most impending example of this is the song I'm leading tomorrow at church.  It's a difficult one for me vocally, as it spends some time down in the basement of my range.  I've been focusing all week on the what ifs..."what if it sounds horrible?", "what if I can't even squeak out the lowest of the low notes?".   But that's just it.  What if those things actually happen?  The world won't end, people won't decide to UN-follow Jesus, friends won't ditch me, my husband won't divorce me, God won't shut the doors of heaven to me.  Point is, if I mess up, that's all that happens.  And people see that I'm not perfect.  And I'm trying to be OK with that.

(We'll discuss my affinity for worrying about what other people think about me on another day ;-))

Greed

I've had a lot of blog topic ideas floating through my head for the last few weeks.  But I've admittedly been a) lazy and b) horribly, terribly busy at work.  I'm still both of these things, but I was inspired by something yesterday, and feel the need to write about it.

Unless you've completely blocked me on facebook, you've heard me talk about our church and the series that we're getting ready to finish up called Decades.  It's been a TON of fun (see Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and Exhibit C...I could go on, but you get the picture) and there have been some great messages.  But yesterday's really hit me in an interesting way.

Yesterday, we were in the 90s, which can be described as the decade of greed.  At one point during the sermon, we were encouraged to take some time and consider what we were being greedy with in our own lives, and talk to God about it.  As I was thinking, the usual suspects crossed my radar...money, time, time with Jeremy...and then something I wasn't quite expecting...my singing.

I talked a little about music a few weeks ago, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much.  But suffice it to say...music is a huge part of my life, and is quite important to me.

I'm not greedy with it like I can be greedy with money or time.  With money and time, I want to keep them, and not give them away.  With music, I want to give it away perhaps too much.  I want to be able to participate all the time.  If I had it my way, I'd be up on that stage most every Sunday.  

And while I'm admitting my greed, might as well hit up some of the other deadly sins!  I'm quite prone to envy also.  I am incredibly blessed to serve with some amazing singers and musicians, and can find myself falling into the envy trap.  "If only I could sing as well as...."  "If only I had the confidence of..."  "I wish I could be up there with them singing this song..."

I've really been in tune with this envy and greed--though I would never have thought to call it greed until yesterday--for the past few months.  However, with all that was going on with the loss of Nathan, I put it on the back burner.  I finally started praying a few weeks back that God would help me with these issues.  That He would help me remember that there are many incredibly talented and passionate vocalists He has called to serve who probably love it as much as--if not more than!--I do.  If I were to sing every week, there wouldn't be a place for these folks.  I've also been praying that God will help me to remember that He uniquely gifted me, and I'm not supposed to sound like anyone else.  I'm supposed to sound like me...for better or for worse.

The one phrase that stuck out to me the most was this:

"The antidote to greed is trust."

I need to trust God to use me how HE sees fit, not how I see fit.  (And back to my money and time issues...trust that He will provide. I have all that I need for today.)

I know that God will help me with this...what I am really, really hoping is that I will accept His help, and not be stubborn like I can be so, so often.  And that I will learn to really, truly appreciate the time that I get to spend in this ministry and remember that it's a privilege and not something that I'm somehow entitled to.  And even more importantly, remember that while it's fun and enjoyable, it's ultimately not about me and my desires anyways.

(And on an unrelated note, 16 weeks today.  And I still miss him.)

Getting real

I reckon I can't be optimistic all the time.  And today's one of those days.

First, I guess it's possibly time to stop just posting the number of weeks since losing Nathan, as folks are starting to think I'm pregnant again.  It's a fair assumption, but no.  Not pregnant.  

And now for my rant--I HATE ANXIETY.  It sucks.  

I've actually been doing mostly well over the past couple of weeks, since being back on some medication.  I've had a few small incidents, but I've been able to talk myself down fairly quickly.  But today was a little different.  I had a slightly stressful morning...discovered that I had made a moderately important mistake, which for a perfectionist can be almost end-of-the-world epic, even though my boss was completely understanding and helped come up with a solution.  I wasn't feeling noticeably stressed about it at this specific moment, but all of the sudden, I had a mild--but sharp--pain in the center of my chest, and then felt tingling that moved from the top of my head down to the bottom of my toes.  All in all, these physical symptoms lasted at most 10-15 seconds, but then my brain took over.  It was thankfully about lunch time, so I clocked out and went for a 30-minute walk.  And talked to my mom on the phone.  And just generally tried to convince myself that it was just a panic attack.  And most of me knows that it was.  But the part of me that triggers panic attacks sometimes has a hard time understanding that.

All sorts of fears enter my brain, mostly about dying.  Is that bad?  Is it bad that, as a Christian, I'm scared of dying?  I mean, I want to go to heaven.  I'm looking forward to heaven.  I just always imagined going there at some lovely age like 90 or something.  Not 32.  

At any rate.  I was mostly able to stay calm for the rest of the afternoon, but I just hate that I had this episode.  It can be so paralyzing.  I know I said in an earlier post that I knew this was going to happen eventually, given everything that's happened in the past year.  But then I got to thinking today how completely unfair it is.  This sucks!  First, I had to lose two precious babies, and now I have to deal with this anxiety on top of the lingering grief.  How is this even OK?  And I know life's not fair, and I know God never said it'd be easy, but that doesn't mean that I can't be a little angry about it at times.  

And that's where I am.  I'm angry.  And I'm sad.  And I'm scared.  And I'm sick of being all of these things.

Will you pray for me?  For us?  Because Lord knows Jeremy is a SAINT for putting up with me through all of this.

I love you guys.

Why?

I promise it's not what you're thinking.

Those of you who knew me in Asheville know that I spent the better part of 6 years as a part of the music team at Covenant, and a large part of that helping with lead and background vocals.  Singing has been a part of my life as long as I can remember.  I was chosen for some sort of special kids' choir thing back in 2nd or 3rd grade, and we sang some song about a kite.  Haha.  I don't remember much about it, but I definitely remember having fun with it.  

Though I sang all throughout school, including college, I never really realized how alive I could feel when singing until I started singing at Covenant.  Just something about singing to God and with God's help...and helping lead people into worship.  It's so much less about me and what I do and so much more about getting out of the way and letting people see God.  (Which both takes pressure off, and puts pressure on.  But that's for another day.  :))  There's also, of course, the privilege of making music with other musicians.  When you see me smiling on stage, it does have a lot to do with praising God, but there's also an element of just loving making music.

When we decided we were going to move to Charlotte, I knew that was a part of my life I was going to miss immensely, and that I really wanted to make sure to establish here.  The first church we landed at was awesome in so many ways, but we just never felt like we fit in.  After about 4 months, I was finally able to audition for the band, and was allowed to sing with them.  And I really enjoyed it--they were nice, and VERY talented.  I never really felt like a real part of the group, and they weren't huge on using background vocalists.  So after about 5 months, we made the decision to start searching for a new church.  I was definitely missing being a part of worship.  

Our 2nd or 3rd week of searching, we came across the church we're at now.  Shallow though it may sound, one of the ways I really knew this was a church we should consider is because on our first week there, they played this song, which Jeremy and I had been singing for a few days non-stop.  After a couple weeks, we knew that this church was a strong possibility for us, so I emailed the creative arts pastor to see if they were open to new vocalists, and I got a resounding yes!  A few weeks later I was able to audition, and a few weeks after that, I was on stage with them.  It has been so much fun meeting new people over the past few months, and creating music again with some incredibly talented folks.  This past week, I was given the opportunity to lead a song for the first time since being in Charlotte, and it was awesome.  I had more fun than I've had in a long, long time.

I've spent a lot of the last 18 months wondering why.  Why did Jeremy have to choose a school in Charlotte, so far away from our friends and church family?  Why did we have to lose our babies?  Why were we having such a hard time finding a church?  Why was I having a hard time finding a place to make music?

It dawned on me as I was singing on Sunday that I think God wanted me to give me a new perspective on, and a new appreciation of, worship.  One that I could only have after having gone so long without any meaningful musical participation.  One that I could only have after losing my babies.  One that I could only have after being thrown into a new city without many friends.  I've had to rely on Him more fully in the past 18 months than in any other time of my life that I can remember.  And maybe that's the point.

10 weeks.

A is for Anxiety

I've debated posting something about this for about 2.5 weeks now.  Ever since all of the awful symptoms came creeping back in.  And finally decided that tonight, I'd get it all out.  Or, at least some.

Some of you know that I've battled depression and anxiety for years now.  I suspect they've been around for a good chunk of my life, but didn't really start to beat my door down until I was about 24.  I started having chest pains one day, and just wrote it off.  I mean, I was 24!  Obviously not a heart attack.  Or, at least, not very likely.  But after a few days, I couldn't shake the feeling any longer.  One of the ways my anxiety manifests itself is through hypochondria.  I went to the ER, and was, of course, told I was fine.  And I was OK with that answer.  For a little while.

I think all in all I went to the ER 3 times, had 4 - 5 EKGs and then ended up at a cardiologist and had an echocardiogram.  Everything came back perfectly normal.  But it wasn't until I finally realized (ie--was FORCED to realize) that all of this was an outward manifestation of my anxiety and depression that I was finally able to get past it--by getting the right help.  

I found a therapist (and finding a good one takes trial and error, TRUST ME), got on some medication (again, trial and error), and while it wasn't without bumps and bruises, I finally started to feel better.  Of course, as years went on, and life went on, there were tweaks in therapy (and long stretches without), and tweaks in medication.  Such is the nature of this disease.

Fast forward to the day after Christmas, 2012.  Our power went out that evening, so we went to Target to wander around.  We started to leave after we found out our power was back, and then I told Jeremy I wanted to check the grocery section for a Sprite Zero, since there wasn't one at the check-out.  We ran into some friends and chatted for a good little while.  We finally left to head home, and saw probably 10-15 emergency vehicles at an intersection near the store.  We were hoping it was just because we were so close to the hospital, and several people had responded to a minor wreck.  We came to find out later that a young woman and her mother passed away, while the young woman's two daughters survived.  (We even later came to find out that the young woman attended our church, though neither Jeremy nor I actually knew her.)  One of the first thoughts I had as we left Target was that Jeremy and I would normally have gone through that intersection heading home from Target and that if we hadn't seen our friends and stopped to chat, maybe we would have been in the path of the drunk driver instead of this family.

Normally, it would have been a sad, but passing thought.  However, for whatever reason that thought lingered.  And lingered.  And before I knew it, WHAM.  Full-blown anxiety.  The chest pain came back, the incredibly anxious and inconsolable thoughts came back....basically, I was a mess again.

I know in the rational part of myself that I'm fine.  I'm not having a heart attack, in fact, I'm likely not having any sort of heart troubles at all (though, trust me, I know it's at least a little more possible now that I'm older and diabetic).  But, if you've ever been in the throes of panic, you know that rational thoughts have no place.  And if you've never been there, a) you're lucky and b) please be kind to those of us who have been there, who are there, and who will be there.  Because trust me...it's not as simple as just "cheering up" or "getting over it".  If it was, I would have made that decision years ago.  Trust me.

It's not like I didn't know this was coming.  Because I did.  I had to wean off of my medications when we were pregnant the first time with Jordan.  Miraculously, I didn't have to go back on after the first miscarriage, as I really thought I'd have to.  But losing two in such a short period of time, and in such a traumatic way, I just knew it would come back.

Thankfully, I still keep in touch with some of my old co-workers from October Road and one of them was incredibly kind enough to spend time on the phone with me last week to teach me some ways to calm down in the midst of the panic.  And it actually does work most of the time.  It worked a little bit today, but I think I needed to be doing it ALL day for it to work completely.  :-P

At any rate, I really just needed to get all of that off my chest (pun somewhat intended).  Today was the worst so far, and prompted me to call the doctor's office--at which I had an appointment scheduled for January 24th--and practically beg to get an earlier appointment.  Tomorrow morning sounds much better.  :)  

I know I've been asking for prayers a lot lately, but I would really appreciate some for all of this.  The meds will take a little while to kick in, so I know I've still got a little bit of a rough road ahead.  

9 weeks.