Reconnect

"I've been severely depressed lately."  Those words came out of my mouth yesterday while talking with Yo Momma.  I retracted it a little.  "Okay, maybe not severely but severely for me."  This isn't a new revelation.  I felt it beginning back in October.  Maybe even before then.  Actually, I've probably held some form of this depression for few years now.  Quitting my job made it come to the surface and stick around for awhile.

Naming it, though, is new.  As is realizing that something had been missing from my soul too...music. 

Music has long been the centerpiece of my communication with God.  Whether joy, anger, sadness, frustration, there is usually a song that correlates to my heart tugging at the moment.  Singing along to music in the car, strumming the guitar and letting my voice soar has been a way for me to communicate just what it is I'm feeling to God and to receive messages in return.

Music was also part of my livelihood for awhile.  For years I lead worship on Sunday mornings with a talented group of people.  There were days when it was a job and days when it was worship and days when the two mixed.  When I left my job, I left that team.  I was striking out on a new journey...somewhere along the way I lost the music.  For the last few months, I've felt like I've been in a music-less space with God, like the music in my soul had dried up.  I just wrote that sentence like I was aware of that happening.  I wasn't.  I just realized it as I began this blog post.  I just realized that because recently I reconnected with God through music...and I hadn't realized that I had disconnected to begin with.

David Crowder*Band released their final CD a few weeks ago.  The first time I listened to the CD, I will admit to being disappointed.  I wanted something different, especially since it's a 2-CD set.  I kept listening.  It's their final CD!  I love DC*B!  I was determined to like this CD.  I listened and I listened and then I heard...

"I swear I'm trying to give everything but I feel like I'm falling, oh make me believe.
What I need is resurrection.  What I need is for you to put me back on my feet."--Let Me Feel You Shine

"King of glory oh my Jesus Christ.  Free me from what keeps me from your life."--Oh My God

"Oh Great God give us rest.  We're all worn thin from all of this.

At the end of our hope, with nothing left.  Oh Great God give us rest."--Oh Great God Give us Rest

"Sometimes every one of us feels like we'll never be healed.  Sometimes.

Sometimes every one of us aches like we'll never be saved.  Sometimes.

When we've given up let Your healing come
When there's nothing left let Your healing come
Till we're rising up let Your healing come
Where You go, we will follow
Where You go, we will follow

It's Your love that we adore
It's like a sea without a shore
We're lost in You, we're lost in You
It's Your love that we adore
It's like a sea without a shore
We're lost in You, we're lost in You
Sometimes"--Sometimes

I didn't know that I had disconnected with God.  I didn't know.  It wasn't the songs, it wasn't the Cd's, it was me.  The music had stopped playing in me.  Sure, I still sang along to the radio.  Pulled out the guitar and sang with a group when asked, but I had disconnected.  I wasn't feeling it.  It was me.

Saturday I played guitar and sang with a group for a memorial service.  "I'll Fly Away" was the requested song.  As we sang I couldn't keep the smile from my face.  I didn't mean to be disrespectful to the family who was grieving, but I was starting to reconnect and I couldn't keep the smile from my face.

Sunday in church we sang a new song and the connection continued.  My hands itched, not to clap but to start rising from their clenched position by my sides to maybe somewhat mid-waist. 

I'm starting to reconnect to God through music...it is good.

Dream job

As I type this Creative Guy is lounging on the floor at my house, watching Despicable Me and creating something spectacular with the Erector Set he has.  He's home from school because he has a gnarly cough and a little bit of a fever.  K asked if I could hang out with him today.  Of course I said yes.  I picked him up from the office and we got coffee and Jamba juice (cuz fruit is always good for sick kids, right?!) and headed back to my house.  On the way Creative Guy piped up from the back seat "are you ready to have so much fun?!"  My melty ol' heart melted again.

Being mostly unemployed has given me a lot of time to think and rest.  I've felt very restless the last couple of months, anxious for a new job.  I realized the other day that while I want to be busy, a major reason behind wanting a new job is for the paycheck.  Which frustrates me to no end.  I've held off on making any kind of volunteer commitments because of the job search thing, but I know if money wasn't an issue this restlessness inside me would be eased as I volunteered at the Library or wherever.  It bugs me that money is so much of an issue.

Money is an issue, though, so the search continues.  I have a few dream jobs.  One would have me NOT go to seminary and still work in a church setting.  Director of Administration sounds really good to me.  Another is Volunteer Coordinator for Disaster Relief.  Something about being on the ground with volunteers, helping them help others is very appealing.  Another is a job where I go to work and come home and nary the two shall meet.  I'm actually working at another dream job at the moment, helping a Youth Pastor with the nitty gritty stuff so that he can focus on ministry.  If there were more hours there, it would be ideal. 

Really, the biggest dream job would be one where I can be busy, feel useful, be paid and still have time to, well, hang out with Creative Guy when he's sick or go to coffee with someone at a moments notice, or whatever I feel like doing.  A little more than part-time work with a salary that pays the bills and time to play or volunteer.  That is my ideal world.

Next week I have a job interview.  It's with a non-profit and sounds like a really good opportunity.  I am nervous, trying not to get my expectations up and prayerful.  I don't know what's around the corner, if this is something that will truly happen, but I do know that I'm ready to be involved with something, making a difference somewhere and feeling as though I'm participating more fully in making the world go round. 

In the meantime, I'm helping the world go round at home, with Creative Guy, watching Toy Story 2 (yes, it took that long to write this post.)

Hope your Wednesday is as happy as mine.  :)

Books!

I love books.  I love to read.  I have a problem, though.  It takes me awhile, sometimes, to make it through non-fiction books.  Case in point, a couple of months ago I met a friend for coffee and had a book in hand.  We talked a little about it and went on with our conversation.  A couple of weeks later we met again and again I had a book in hand...it was a different book though.  I had to fess up.  I keep a book in my car.  It's one of those "emergency" books that I can read if I'm early to a meet-up or need to escape to sit by the ocean for an hour.  The book I had our first meet-up I had just bought a couple of months prior.  The second book had been in my office for three years.  All of these books are non-fiction books, by the way.  I love me some fluff books and can get through those really fast.  Non-fiction takes me a little while longer. 

I decided that this year I need to actually finish the books I have started reading.  I don't usually write reviews of books.  I know what it is like to try to write something and then hold your breath while waiting for someone to say something bad.  I know how much I invest of myself into what I write, so I tend not to say anything.  I also can't get all analytical about books most of the time.  I like to read, I read for enjoyment, I don't read to critique everything, so I don't review books.  I think though I need to break my own "rule".  Let's call it a tour around my bookshelf.  I've finished a couple of books recently and I want to tell you about them.

The first is called What Women Fear by Angie Smith. I picked this up because a blogger I read recommended it and, again with the honesty, God and I have been doing a lot of talking about things that I fear in life.  The title hooked me, the overview sold me and I now own the book.  There are some chapters and examples that  don't necessarily apply to me but 90% of the book is dead on.  I feel like the author delved into my head before writing this book.  Which makes me feel strangely comforted to know that I'm not the only woman who deals with these fears.  The author makes some helpful observations and never says "here's how to fix it" but leaves the reader to pray and think about how God is speaking to the reader about the subject.  This is a book that I will need to revisit in a few months simply because the topic is relevant all the time. 

The second is a book called Diary from the Dome:  Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina by Paul Harris.  I've had this book on my "to-read" list for two years.  I picked it up and started reading it this last December during The Great Windstorm of 2011.  That was a mistake.  I was reading the author's description of being evacuated to the Superdome as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast while listening to the wind blow violently outside my window.  At one point as I read the author's experience being inside the Superdome with 20,000 people, no air conditioning, with a septic system that stopped working within days of being inside, I actually began to feel like I was right there.  It didn't help that the power was out, at least 5 generators were being run in the neighborhood and the wind was blowing.  I could feel my chest start to tighten, began to get anxious and stared to feel trapped.  I finally had to put the book down and go find someplace warm with power.  

The book made me wonder, yet again, about the state of the South and race relations.  I want the US and the world to have made greater strides in looking beyond skin color and class.  The stark reality is that events like Hurricane Katrina remind me that we still have a long way to go...that I still have a long way to go.  It still bugs the heck out of me that FEMA, the then mayor of New Orleans and so many agencies were so unprepared for this disaster.  It really, really bugs me.  I'm glad to have read this book.

So, there are two books from my bookshelf.  In my car right now are two more...are you ready?  Dating Jesus and The Search for God at Harvard.  Yep, I've got quite the bookshelf.