Braver Days

“I speak to you from the depths of your being. Hear Me saying soothing words of Peace, assuring you of My Love. Do not listen to the voices of accusation, for they are not from Me. I speak to you in love-tones, lifting you up. My Spirit convicts cleanly, without crushing words of shame. Let the Spirit take charge of your mind, combing out tangles of deception. Be transformed by the truth that I live within you.

This looks so good!! 

http://www.thevow-movie.com/

So if anyone is reading this, you may have noticed it’s been a while since my last post. Despite my intentions to post every Sunday, it’s obvious I’ve been slacking lately. I could totally blame that on being out of town, having my parents visiting, and being busy…but if I’m being honest, I think I’ve been avoiding it. I know that sounds terrible. Obviously nobody is forcing me to write this blog, or checking up that I write every week, and it’s not that I don’t want to write, or that I have nothing to write about….it’s just that the whole point of the blog was to record my braver days, I mean, that’s the name for goodness sake! But, these past couple weeks haven’t exactly felt like my braver, bravest, or even brave days…

I’m sure many of you have experienced something similar. You throw yourself into something and get so excited and ready to dominate, only to become completely discouraged when you fall flat on your face (and by flat on your face I mean things don’t work out the way you were hoping), and you’re left feeling like you’ve failed, God’s forsaken you, and you’re stranded. Sound familiar?

In actuality, most of the time we haven’t even actually failed, we just think we’ve failed or feel like we’ve failed. And we think everything is hopeless, but it’s actually not…we’ve just lost perspective. We’re seeing our lives from our perspective, rather than God’s. Every time I start feeling this way, I’m reminded of my favorite story from the Bible. For those of you who start to glaze over when someone starts telling you about the Bible, you gotta just hang in there…this story has changed my life in a lot of ways, and I know it can change yours too. 

The story starts at a point in the Bible where the Israelites are in the desert on a journey to a wonderful land that God has promised them, coincidentally called, “The Promised Land,” also known as Canaan. After a long, long journey during which God performed miracle after miracle for the Israelites (including parting the sea and bringing water from a rock), they finally reached the border of the long-awaited Promised Land (woohoo!), and sent some men in to scope it out. When the men went in, they saw that the land was AMAZING; a paradise of sorts, and “flowing with milk and honey”.

However, the land also held some pretty intimidating enemies that were scary enough to make the Israelites doubt God’s protection, despite the fact that every time they had really needed him, he had shown up. After all the miracles they had witness, how could they doubt him? Because they were more focused on the apparent enemies and their fearfulness, rather than God’s faithfulness. They made God the size of their problems, forgetting that with God, ALL things are possible! (Matthew 19:26) So instead of trusting God, they whined and cried all night, and tried to find a way to go back to Egypt. They felt like they’d failed, God has forsaken them, and they were stranded. They couldn’t believe that after everything, God has just up and left them when they needed him the most. Understandably, God got upset! How could his children, who he had guided and protected for miles and miles, showing himself faithful over and over, be DOUBTING him?? After forgiving them over and over, he finally decided that this generation of Israelites wouldn’t be able to enter the promised land, and they were left to wander in the desert for 40 years…

Fortunately, there were two wonderful men, Caleb and Joshua (part of the group of guys who went to explore the land), who TRUSTED God and said “we can do this, because God is with us!!” Because of their faith, God allowed them to enter the promised land with their families and children and they lived out incredible lives in the land. 

I, for one, would prefer not to wander in the “desert” for 40 years. Who’s with me?

As tempting as it is to throw up our hands and want to turn back when the going gets tough, it seems to me that like the Israelites, we will be missing out on something incredible that God has in store for us if we don’t persevere. We can’t let the failures, the fears, the disappointment, the opposition, deter us from the life that God wants us to have!!

So if you’re like me, and have ever been left feeling lost, stranded, struck, discouraged, and wanting to quit, I want to encourage you to keep going. Walk boldly ahead knowing that God is with you, even if you can’t always see him or feel him. Replace your doubt with faith, your fear with trust, and your discouragement with hope. Be BRAVE!! God’s got your back, and he’s never going to leave you or let you down. 

“Walk by faith, not by sight” - 2 Corinthians 5:7

Hey blogger friends!! Hope everyone is having a happy Wednesday night :)

I just wanted to do a quick mid-week post to share a little bit of exciting news…I have auditioned for, and made it to the second round of auditions for the Country Showcase at Belmont University, where I attend college.

Since most of you have probably never heard of Belmont, much less the country showcase, I’ll just say that it’s a pretty big deal, so if I make it to the finals, it would be incredible, and such a blessing. 

Even making it to the live auditions is such an honor, and something that as a freshman I NEVER would have thought possible. It was always something I dreamed of of course, but always felt out of reach. Now a senior, it is so cool to see how far God has brought me. Even though making it to the second round of auditions wouldn’t be a huge landmark for a lot of people, for me it was. I really believe that that anytime something happens that is beyond anything you could have ever done yourself, ever imagined, or ever thought possible, that is God at work.  

I’ll end with this quote by Tina Turner, an incredibly talented singer and performer, who said:

“The real power behind whatever success I have now was something I found within myself - something that’s in all of us, I think, a little piece of God just waiting to be discovered.”

To say I say, Amen sista!! Finding that piece of God inside me has been the greatest adventure of my life, and my hope for all of you is that you will find that piece of God inside yourselves. When you do, he will take you places you’ve only ever been in your dreams…

Mission successful!!! Tonight’s second attempt at recording vocals was AWESOME. My voice felt back to normal, so I could really get into the songs and sing my heart out. I’m so excited to hear how it turned out, and can’t wait to share it with you all when I get the tracks back!! 

Shout out to Eric Green and Stephen Whitfield for kicking some serious booty at producing and engineering tonight :)

And thank God that I can trust him fully whether I have a TERRIBLE night of recording or an INCREDIBLE night of recording. How wonderful to know his faithfulness is NOT dependent on circumstances! 

Stay tuned for behind-the-scenes video…and a possible sneak peak of one of the tracks coming soon!

Goodnight to all and to all a goodnight!! :)

Hello everyone!! 

I hope you all had a fabulous week. While this week has seemed to fly by, somehow it also feels like it’s been months since I wrote my first blog post last Sunday. But here we are again, so let’s do this thang…

Whenever my friends and I get together to hang out, go to dinner, or cook a meal together, we love to play a game called “hi’s and lows.” Basically, you go around in a circle sharing the best and worst parts of your week. Anyone want to play? I’ll go first….

Highs: 

-First meeting with my songwriting mentor, Melissa Peirce (http://www.myspace.com/melissapeirce). She’s had hits by Reba, LeAnn Rimes, Carrie Underwood, David Nail, Mallary Hope, and more. She is awesome, so sweet, and I’m so excited about the ways my songwriting is going to improve this semester under her instruction. One of the things we started working on was editing my songs. This has never been a strong suit of mine. I’ve always preferred to write a song, finish it, and then move on the the next one. I’ve never taken the time to go back to songs I’ve finished and see how I could make them better. Why? Because in my eyes it’s hard work and not fun. But in light of my new perspective on being on FIRE, and truly going for it, I really want to push myself this semester to dig in to my editing, making my songs the best they can be. I’m want to step up to the challenge of honoring the gifts God has given me by putting in the work required to reach excellence. 

The Civil Wars Soundcheck - this was AWESOME!!! The Civil Wars played a show at The Ryman (a legendary Nashville music venue), and I got to go hear their soundcheck through something called GRAMMY U. Let’s just say, they are the real deal. If you haven’t heard of them, you should definitely check them out. (http://thecivilwars.com/) P.S. I wasn’t able to see the actual show, but I heard there was a surprise performance from Tay Tay Swift. You can check it out here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y50qA66HARQ). 

-Mockingbird Sun show at Tin Roof. Y’all gotta check out this band (http://www.myspace.com/mockingbirdsun)…WARNING: Proceed with caution, their songs will get stuck in your head for days :)

-Starting my new internship at Creative Nation with Beth and Luke Laird, and Kristen and Trent Dabbs. (more on that later)

-Seeing the first SNOWFALL of the year!!! YES!! 

Low(s):

-Starting to record the vocals for my EP, only to decide to reschedule after the vocals were thrown off by a lingering cold and a stressful day. For some reason, I could not get it together that night. Let’s just say fighting back tears while singing a song called “Stronger”, was probably not the best way to inspire and empower listeners. After feeling so confident last week, I couldn’t understand how I could end up standing in front of the mic feeling so weak. I kept praying that God would give me something to work with, but nothing changed, and we finally decided to call it quits, rescheduling vocals for tomorrow night.

While a lot of you may think God doesn’t care about recording vocals, making an EP, or a music career in general (or a football game…Tim Tebow anyone?), I disagree. I think God cares about everything, even down to the smallest details that go unnoticed by human eyes. I think he is in the huge things and in the seemingly unimportant things. (“And we know that in all things God works…” -Romans 8:28) Though my music career certainly doesn’t have earth-shattering importance, it’s still a big part of my life. Because my music involves a lot of fears and insecurities, it’s also an area where I can really see God work. Since I have really felt like God has called me to do music, and my EP is a big part of that process, I felt like God was letting me down. I’ve spend months and months working on this EP, only to get to the last stage, (recording the vocals), and fall flat on my face. How could that be possible? I’m pursuing a career as a country music SINGER for goodness sakes, a profession where you are constantly singing. If I can’t get it together for one night of vocals when I’m not at my best, how can I possibly hope to make it in the industry? With all these negative thoughts running through my head, it’s no wonder I felt frustrated. The cool thing is, just because my vocals didn’t turn out the way I hoped that night, doesn’t mean my future as a country music singer is doomed, although that’s what my fears would like me to believe. In fact, it doesn’t mean anything at all, and it certainly doesn’t mean God wasn’t right there the entire time. Sometimes he just doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want him to. While this was only one small event, it was a important reminder of a greater truth…

When things don’t turn out the way we hoped, it doesn’t mean we’ve failed. It just means God has more of an opportunity to show up. It just reminds me that in my weakness, I need God. In fact, despite what I said last week about failing your way to success, I don’t think I even believe in “failing.” I think what we see as failing, is simply our inability to meet our the expectations we set for ourselves. We haven’t actually failed at all, we have merely exposed our need for something greater than ourselves. As the apostle Paul says in the Bible,

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” - 2 Corinthians 12:9 

While it would be nice to write a blog all about various successes, I’m actually thankful that I can’t. I will embrace my weaknesses as opportunities to let God work in wonderful ways. As I continue on this journey, I will be extra intentional to “boast” about my “failures” and my weaknesses so that God’s power will be all the more evident. I hope that as you go about this week pursuing your dreams, and living your lives, you will see your weaknesses as an opportunity for God to show up, as an invitation from God to lay aside your pride and own self-sufficiency to call on him for help, remember that his “power is made perfect in weakness.” -2 Corinthians 12:9

Kelly