Tag Archives: Faith

04.21.15
by

Getting Personal #9: Back From My Hiatus

Image Credit: inkmonster.net

Image Credit: inkmonster.net

In the beginning of April, I felt like I’d hit a brick wall at a high rate of speed. I didn’t feel inspired. I was struggling with a few things.

The blog was one of the first things to drop off my radar. I didn’t like it though. I hated that I wasn’t posting new things.

But everything that I normally feel with blogging – Energy, excitement, happiness, positivity, the sense of accomplishment, pride – just wasn’t there.

Every once in a while, we need to make the “time out” sign.

Take a breath.

Take a break.

And that’s exactly what I needed.

Over the course of the past two weeks (although it’s felt much longer than that!), I’ve been thinking a lot.

There’s been so much going on. 2015 has been a big year so far! And it’s almost May!! Time is flying by. It gets faster every single year.

Two weeks ago, everything just caught up with me, very suddenly – Hence the slamming into a brick wall, going from full speed to a complete screeching halt/standstill feeling. I’ve been overwhelmed a lot. Stressed. Nervous. Adding things up, both in my head and on paper. I was beginning to drive myself crazy. I knew I needed to pull myself out, one way or another, but at the right time.

I received answers along the way. Confirmations, waves of relief, assurances, lots of hugs, promises of good thoughts and prayers. Lots of people have said, without having a clue about what I have been experiencing internally, “Everything is going to be okay.”

I started praying again. I took a hard look at my spiritual life and my involvement with my church. Because of that, I was humbled. I was overcome. I felt something ignite inside me again. I felt confident. I felt restored. I felt at peace.

Yesterday was my first day back in the gym after being on the DL for almost three weeks, due to six stitches in my back. Skin cancer runs in my family, and this was the second time in several years that the dermatologist found a pre-cancerous mole on my back. I won’t lie, sleeping in on the weekdays was nice for a change, but having established the consistent gym routine and then breaking that pattern for a bit threw a lot of my internal workings out of whack, more than I realized.

So, even though it was absolutely pouring rain at 4:30 a.m. yesterday, I got up, put on my workout clothes and raincoat, and drove over there. I walked on the treadmill for 45 minutes and cranked out 2 miles.

It felt so good, that I did it again today!

Now – I want to write again.

I’m ready to write again.

I feel inspired again.

I feel excited again.

I feel refreshed.

I feel calmer, more at ease with everything going on.

I love this quote from Walt Disney:

Image Credit: livefitandsore.com

Image Credit: livefitandsore.com

Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂

03.08.14
by

Right Here

I love music. Like most of us, I have certain genres that I love (country, oldies, rock and roll) and ones that I detest (rap, hip-hop, metal). But there’s one genre that I’ve had a love-hate relationship with for many years: Christian music.

I grew up in a United Methodist church about 10 miles from my house. My parents and I moved to Chesapeake in the fall of 1992, and Mom & Dad proceeded to “shop around” the churches in our area – and there were plenty to choose from. I was 4 years old at the time, and we all easily fell in love with Aldersgate from the first visit. Someone remind me to tell the church bathroom story later 😉

When we became members, I grew to love singing the hymns in worship. Then, as I reached middle school in the early 2000s, our youth group had stacks of CDs (and some cassettes) of contemporary Christian music. See examples below:

Avalon – Testify to Love

Casting Crowns – If We Are The Body

MercyMe – I Can Only Imagine

Newsong – The Christmas Shoes

Steven Curtis Chapman – Dive

Switchfoot – Dare You to Move

There are so many more I could list, but I’ll spare you.

As I journeyed through middle school and high school, I developed the love-hate relationship I mentioned earlier. I loved certain songs – Case in point, all of the YouTube links are some of my absolute favorites.

And then there were periods of weeks or months that I couldn’t stand to listen to any of it. The hymns in worship kept me grounded, but the contemporary stuff drove me nuts for certain periods.

Part of the problem was me – when I found out the local library carried a ton of the contemporary music. I remember grabbing up to 10 CDs at a time and working my way through them for each two-week loan period. Once I received my iPod halfway through high school, I filled it to the gills with full albums of easily 20-30 different Christian artists. The “Christian & Gospel” genre was by far the biggest group in my iTunes.

Fast forward to starting college at Longwood, fall of 2007. I still had a high number of Christian artists on my iPod and iTunes from all of those CDs, but I found myself skipping over 95 percent of the songs. I fell back to the small list that are still my all-time favorites, especially Avalon, MercyMe, and Steven Curtis Chapman.

I was also struggling with my faith in general. I was very homesick for the first several months, having moved 150 miles away from my parents and my church. Add to that my boyfriend, who became more and more abusive over a long and arduous 4-year period from 2006 to 2010, and the love-hate relationship continued to evolve.

I don’t remember when this happened, but one day at Longwood I found this song embedded in my iTunes:

Jeremy Camp – Right Here

I had heard a few of Camp’s songs before, and I wasn’t particularly impressed. I felt he was straining in the songs, like he was trying too hard to get the message across.

However, seconds into “Right Here,” I was taken. I was overwhelmed. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I had a few moments of peace.

This instantly became one of my go-to songs. I have it on my iPhone now, and whenever I’m feeling stressed, I know I can go scroll through my artists and find that song. It has an incredible calming effect on me.

Another song I love by Camp is an oldie but a goodie – “Walk By Faith.” It has similar effects on me as “Right Here.” They both make me well up with emotion a little bit, and I have to become acutely aware of my surroundings when listening, because I am known to break out into spontaneous singing.

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from both “Right Here” and “Walk By Faith.”

All the world is watching

All the world does care

Even when the world weighs on my shoulder now

These feelings I can bare

Because I know

That you’re here

Chorus

Everywhere I go

I know you’re not far away

You’re right here

You’re right here, yeah, yeah

———————————————–

Well I will walk by faith
Oh even when I cannot see it
Well because this broken road
Prepares Your will for me

Help me to win my endless fears
You’ve been so faithful for all my years
With the one breath You make me
Your grace covers all I do
Yeah, yeah , yeah, yeah, yeah

Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂