My Music Story

I grew up loving music and listened to it as much as I possibly could.

When I was in Elementary school, my parents put my into piano lessons and I learned the basics of how to read music, hold my hands on the keys, and all that jazz (no, not how to play jazz lol). 

With that knowledge I learned how to play some pretty challenging pieces (at least to me at the time lol) and I began experimenting on the piano with playing by ear so that I could play songs I'd heard on the radio or CD.

When I was in middle school, my mom put me into classes with a teacher who taught me how to improvise and play with chords and that skyrocketted my love for playing since it gave me the keys I needed to play whatever I wanted and to improvise for hours. 

At that point, piano was one of my main outlets to release all my teenage emotions out on the keys. I would play a lot of sad songs and angry songs and songs that were very contemplative and just play and think about life. It was my therapy and it was my safe place. 

But in high school I pursued swimming and had basically no time to the piano unless it was snuck in here and there after dinner when I was supposed to be doing the dishes. 

That is until we moved to Oklahoma my senior year of high school and started going to a church that needed someone to play the keyboard for worship. I started playing with them that year and it became probably one of the highlights of that year. I also played and sang a song for the end of school talent show with two other girls I was good friends with and that was the grand finale for that year of major growth in my confidence as a musician. 

Then I went to Bible college and because there were so many music majors at the college and at the church I attended, I didn't even try to compete with them for a chance to play on the school worship team (although I would have loved to). But thankfully there were pianos downstairs in one of the buildings that were open for the music students (and those of us who wish we were lol) to play. 

I would go down there when my world was falling to absolute pieces and play my heart out and worship. It was my escape once again and the place I came to meet with Jesus and find His peace. When I went to visit my old youth leader, he asked me if I had gotten a chance to play or sing in a worship band in college and out of nowhere I started crying... 

That was probably the first time I realized just how much piano meant to me. 

------------------

Rewind back to my childhood. 

On top of growing up with the love for piano woven throughout my story, I also loved to sing. Both of my parents are really good singers and when I was little they sang for the choir and as part of the worship team. A few times they sang to a track together as more of a performance at church and I remember I always wanted to grow up and sing at church like they did. 

My mom bought me a music track of a song that I loved at the time, "My Deliverer is Coming" by Rich Mullins, and I would sing my heart out to that track, practicing for the day I might be able to sing it for church. 

With parents that both sang really well, all of my siblings actually can sing incredibly well (in hindsight we all should have skipped college and made a singing group together lol). I have a lot of really sweet memories of all of us singing along to the radio in different harmonies, all singing with perfect pitch and sounding incredible together. Music was just a big part of our daily lives and I don't think any of us realized how good we actually were (we were all good, so compared to each other we were all pretty average lol).

When we went to a conservative Baptist church in Oklahoma, while I was in Elementary school, I in a few little kids productions and I loved singing along to the music. 

In Middle School, I was part of the school choir and reading the notes and singing on pitch came super easy to me. I would often sing a little louder for the girls sitting next to me so that they could hear what note they were supposed to come in on and sing our part well. I loved that also but never even considered doing anything with singing other than here and there like I had grown up doing. 

Then in high school, I wasn't part of much of anything to do with singing, other than singing along with worship on Sundays and singing in my car.

But that all changed, like I said, when we moved my senior year and I ended up singing and playing piano for worship band in high school. That really was a revolutionary year for me. But, still, I never even considered pursuing singing or piano in any form or fashion other than here and there wherever people needed help at church and as hobby. 

-----------------

And that brings us to my Sophomore year of college. 

After my first year at Bible college, I moved home and didn't know whether to go back another year or to quit on life altogether (it was a bad year for me and I was majorly depressed). 

Turns out, my Grandma in Arizona broke her arm in a fluke accident in a windy rain storm and ended up needing someone to come and take care of her and my Grandad while she recovered. They needed someone to come the exact day I had been planning on trying to move back into the dorms for my second year at college. 

I just knew it was what God wanted me to do. So I packed up and moved to Arizona (with a lot of tears and a lot of feeling like I had failed God by not going back to Bible college...). 

I was there for three months total and right around my 21st birthday, I ended up meeting up with a mentor of mine who "just so happened" to have moved there from my college where I'd met her! We found out we were only 40 minutes from each other (Phoenix is a massive city and that wasn't even end to end) and she invited me to a prayer gathering at a church she had recently started going to. 

She warned me that it was "pretty charismatic" and I was excited because, other than visiting a church in Northern Cali once, and hearing from my friend's dad that it was a "crazy church" because they spoke in tongues, I hadn't had any experience with charismatic churches. 

That night, I felt peace like I hadn't felt in months and they prayed over me and told me that God had some big plans for my in my life. I couldn't want to come back the next week. 

My second week there was the most magical, powerful, transformational night of my entire life up till now. I was sitting there in prayer, truly seeking God with my whole heart and soul, and I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I started sobbing and heavy with tears as the darkness and pain inside my soul was pulled out of me and then I began laughing uncontrollably for at least an hour as God's love and light filled my whole body and I knew from the depth of my soul that God really did love me. 

Then I started singing from a place deep inside myself - singing like I'd never sung in my entire life. It was as if in that moment, the Holy Spirit had opened up my vocal chords so that I could sing piercing notes that felt like arrows into that atmosphere - piercing darkness and clearing away all oppression and fear around me. I worship and sang spontaneous songs of love to Jesus... What I wouldn't give to have a recording of that night to hear what I sang in that moment of complete and utter abandon...

After my crazy manifestations of the Holy Spirit began to subside, the whole meeting of people (there were probably 5 of them besides me) gathered around and began praying for me. They started prophesying over me that I was anointed as a worshiper and that my music would break people out of bondage and free them from addictions and oppression. 

I was awestruck and dumbfounded... I knew I loved music and singing but I never could have imagined, not in a million years, that God would use something so small and seemingly insignificant in my life to change the course of other people's lives and to even be a weapon on my hands against the enemy... And on top of that, I had just been in a deep, dark depression!!! And they were prophesying over me that I would bring JOY and life to people! In one night God had turned my whole life 180 degrees and had taken an insecure, lonely, hurt, depression, fear filled little girl and had crowned her as a queen whose destiny was to push back the very same darkness from other people's lives that had haunted me. 

That was almost exactly 3 years ago. Since then, God has catapulted me into my destiny as a wife and a mother and a leader in the church... The life I am living now is an unimaginable testimony of God's grace and goodness in my life... and His power to redeem EVERYTHING!!! I can't even begin to tell you how much He's changed me from the inside out - from a broken, hurting, shut down girl into a woman of vibrant life (who still has a long way to go I might add lol) and who loves people and loves life...

And as far as the music thing goes... I moved home and played my keyboard and worshiped in private every day, while I lived with my family and took classes online. I didn't really have a clue what to do with the prophetic word of destiny over my life and so I went along with my plan to become a missionary and was working towards a degree in International Studies. That way, I wouldn't have a degree from a Christian college and I could still study other cultures while honoring my parents and graduating with something to hold onto in the future. 

This was when I was living in a sort of "middle ground" place - trying to reconcile my desire to serve overseas and do missions (an idea I'd always found kind of glamorous and adventurous growing up in a Christian home) and at the same time trying to figure out how to incorporate my music and singing into that. 

I thought I'd found the perfect solution with an organization that was, at the time, called "ACTS": Antioch Center for Training and Sending. It had its roots in the International House of Prayer, which I was obsessed with at the time because they merged prayer and worship into one 24/7 expression of praise to Jesus at their headquarters in Kansas City, MO. 

ACTS basically trained missionaries to go to the "hardest and darkest" regions of the world (spiritually) and to plant houses of prayer and worship there, while at the same time ministering to people there in tangible ways. I still adore this model of missions because it is deeply rooted in prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit as the missionaries will pray for hours a day as their primary ministry to the country they're in. And then, out of that place of intimacy with the Father, they will minister to the lost. 

But all that to say, when I finally went to visit ACTS, all they talked about that weekend was marriage and kids!!! I was like, "WHAT?!?! I came all this way to hear about how God wants many of us to be open to MARRIAGE?" lol Ok I wasn't that dramatic about it, but it caught me completely off guard... I was not at all on board with the idea of marriage... 

But on top of that, one of the girls (who literally seeped the Holy Spirit...) prayed over me and in the middle of her prayer she just randomly started asking God to bring a MAN into my life who would heal the broken places of my heart and would show me the love of God in a tangible way... I was so confused and caught off guard...

Why had God brought me to this incredible missions organization only to throw marriage and family in my face??? But I was open to following Him no matter what that looked like and felt like it was a sign from Him to be open to the idea of marriage and to the idea that He might want to show His love to the world through the way I loved my future husband and kids. 

So I get back from visiting ACTS and I kid you not... within 2 or 3 weeks, I met Josh for the first time... Don't tell me that isn't crazy timing you guys.

And our little love story is a whole nother tale of its own, but as far as this story is concerned I'll summarize it as best I can. 

So basically one year after being prophesied over about music and worship, I met Josh (almost to the day). At that time, like I said, I was still on the track of going to ACTS. And Josh was a youth pastor. So he definitely wasn't an option as far as I was concerned lol. 

But when he kept asking me to help at youth group and I kept saying no, he invited me to join a college small group that he was starting (to meet me of course lol jkjkjk) and I felt like God was nudging me to go. So I did and we got to know each other in a really low pressure, authentic way through that year in small group together. 

Ironically enough, God used Josh to open my eyes to the fact that I hadn't been living in God's grace and had always been trying to be good enough for Him. And one of the reasons I realized I had chosen to do missions in the first place was because I was going to try to "prove to God" that I was worth something that to somehow maybe "pay Him back" for all that He'd done for me. And I started to realize that that was a pretty dumb reason to want to go overseas and do missions (better reasons would include, loving the people there and other obvious ones like that lol). 

So in the middle of the year, I finally came to a place where I was still getting my degree, but I had no idea what I was going to do after I graduated. I didn't feel like God was calling me to ACTS anymore and I was realizing that He really did want me to pursue the destiny of music that I was anointed for. I didn't have to try to play this middle ground of "trying to impress God and die for Him" and following the calling He placed on my life. 

And around the same time, I also finally admitted to myself that I really liked Josh and deep down I felt like we were meant to be together. But, like I said, he was a youth pastor and that had literally NEVER been on my radar for a future husband of mine (and neither had actually having a husband lol). 

And so, in a leap of faith into God's goodness, I finally opened myself up to the possibility that God really was as good as He said He was and I could pursue things that I loved and enjoyed and I could even be open to having a relationship with a guy!!! It was a crazy beautiful season of beginning to grow in my skills as a songwriter and in dating Josh and quickly realizing that we were going to get married real soon. 

That summer, a little less than 2 years after the prophetic word over my life, I took another huge leap of faith and applied for WorshipU at Bethel in Redding California... During the past year, Bethel's music had started to impact my heart in ways that no other music had in my life and Steffany Gretzinger specifically had a few sermons and worship sets on youtube that deeply set me free from a lot of lies and religion that was deeply rooted in my heart. So I figured, why not dip my toe in the water and see if this whole songwriting and worship leading thing was for me?

By a small miracle, I was accepted (even though at the time I wasn't leading worship in any capacity at all and had written like a few half songs and most of the people there were literally incredible lol) and I put a huge chunk of my savings into paying for that! 

Talk about revolutionary... My entire life was transformed once again by those two weeks at Bethel. Not only did I learn a TON about songwriting, but I also came out seeing the world with whole new eyes... And I also came away knowing deep in my heart that I was made for this... I'd finally found my tribe, my people, and I knew where I was meant to go. It was probably the second most impactful experience in my life, after the prayer meeting. 

After that summer, I moved back to Alabama, married Josh in November of that year, and got pregnant with Peyton weeks later (lol). I got incredibly sick the first 3 months of pregnancy, couldn't work, and we moved to Central Florida right when I was finally able to drive in a car without throwing up. 

That was about a year and a half ago and honestly it's been an incredibly difficult and an incredibly sweet season as I became a mother and we became a part of a new, incredible community of people at our local church. It's been a season of finding my place as a wife, mother, and leader in the church and I honestly didn't do much at all with music for quite awhile, other than helping lead worship every once in awhile for "big church" and weekly for youth group.

Until now.

I believe I am finally walking into the beginning of my songwriting career. God has finally broken me down to a place where I trust Him (most of the time lol) to provide for our family and He has showed me time and time again that He just wants me to do what I was made to do, regardless of whether it makes sense to myself, my family, or anybody else. 

I was made to write songs that will heal hearts and set people free from oppression, like I was set free that night at the prayer meeting. I am going to pour my heart and soul into writing songs and recording them, not so that I can become famous, but so that my music will push through all the junk in people's live's to their very core so they can be filled with the knowledge of the Kingdom of our Father in Heaven and the glorious destiny He has for each one of us. 

Now is the time to finally walk into the destiny God has for me - a destiny that has been a lifetime in the making and one that I've been looking towards with hope and wonder for three years... 

This is the time to sing my song. 

I've had multiple confirmations of this from rainbow things showing up everywhere in my life (a sign of my destiny and the beauty of the kingdom to me from years ago), to God literally giving me a gorgeous old piano within 1 week of me asking Him for one, to Him actually telling me in the clearest way He could have without actually saying audible words that, "It is time to SING!!!" 

He has brought me through so many trials and difficult seasons and hopeless moments and years to this moment in time so that I could bring hope and healing and freedom to people with the songs that I sing. 

And now I see why those times were so hard... Because years ago Jesus told me that the reason He had let me go into such deep darkness in my life was so that I would be able to say with authority, "Let my people go!!!" If I'd never been down to the pit, I wouldn't have the authority to pull people out of it. 

But now I do. 

And I will.