#5: Dare You To Move

This picture summed up my marriage for a good portion of 2017: me in the foreground and Bryce in the background; unequal; disconnected.

Coming back from that is rough. Becoming connected again is harder than connecting in the first place. There are unspoken expectations. There are unspoken words. You aren't really sure if what worked before will work again. Trials and triumphs sounds like a good description.

The beginning is the hardest when you know that you are the guilty party; that first step. You are broken, on the floor. You can't move. You're afraid to get up. You don't have the strength. You fell and you fell hard.

"Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell. Where can you run to escape from yourself?"

These words carry so much power in them. This song, in fact, carries so much power in it.

I was a very visible leader in our church for many years. I never once thought, "What happens if...". I'd lived through that with others as a staff member. We all suffered together. But this time, it happened to ME. How could this happen to ME? I was the worship leader. I had a lot of friends. Everyone knew who I was. And yet, my pedestal cracked and crashed below me as I admittedly acted as a normal human being and sinned hard.

Could I actually be forgiven? Of course, the answer was yes. But...this was big. But...a sin is a sin is a sin in God's eyes. So, why the long face? It's hard to accept, when I've accepted it my whole walk with Christ. 

"Everybody's watching you now. What happens next?"

For a couple of months, no one could see me. Me & the Riz had bigger fish to fry, larger than life problems to sort out. Once we figured out the shaky line we were to follow, we crawled back into the light, little by little. I knew that another hard step was coming.

Music. Music is air. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Music is life. It was my life. Was? It WAS? The panic sets in. It....was. Now, I am normal. What do I do? How do I do this? Worship was starting and my legs were shaking from the row I was standing in. I wasn't on stage. This was my team and I wasn't there. I've never not been there. How do you do this? How do you become normal again?

Normal. I wrote about the new normal. But I don't think I completely understood it. This, THIS, was my new normal. A broken marriage, slowly being restored and my identity in myself shattered.

I held my head up and decided that I was going to be strong. Okay, I failed in that. Then I decided that I would be okay. I failed in that too. Maybe I should just let my weaknesses reign...bad idea. It wasn't until I could say, God I give you control, that I finally realized...this was my new normal and I was okay with it.

I'm going to show the world that Christ exists. He exists in my marriage, which by the world's standards, should have ended. He exists in me, which by the world's standards, I should have just moved on and done my rockstar thing. I am going to live for Him and through Him...to the best of my abilities.

"Salvation is here."

You might have lost your identity in this world, but your identity is in Christ.

I dare you to move like today never happened before.

Welcome to the Planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next?
What happens next?

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened,
Today never happened,
Today never happened
Today never happened before