Melody on a Mountaintop: Front and Center

It's easy to hide in the crowd of a big church.

Brentwood Baptist has inordinate amounts of positive aspects--meaty sermons, awe-filled times of worship, sound leadership--not to mention an in-house cafe and basketball court.

Really, there's a reason so many people choose to attend there.

But one of the major drawbacks to being one of thousands of members is just that--you can become a wallflower, and some might never know.

And I felt that way some Sundays.  My parents and I would sit on a pew in the middle of the sanctuary, and I often wondered if I was beginning to blend in with the furniture.

If someone had stuck an empty communion cup in my mouth, thinking that I was a cupholder, I might not have been alarmed.

I became weary of "hiding."  I was there to engulf myself in the Word and rejuvenate my spirit with worship and prayer, and so one morning, I told my mom,

"Why don't we sit on the front row?"

She looked at me peculiarly.

I wanted to be right in the middle of the action.  No distraction of people in front of me.  Lasered in to whatever the Lord might teach my heart in the hour I resided there.

So I clutched my Bible to my chest and walked toward the platform and planted myself on the front row.

Front and center. 

And we remained there for every Sunday to come.

But it didn't click that the importance of "location, location, location," could apply to pew-sitting.

Little did I know, the Lord led me there because it was exactly.

Where.

I.

Was.

Supposed.

To.

Be.

Melody on a Mountaintop: It's Not Easy Being Green

I wore my brand new green skirt that day.

It was vivid and fresh and certainly hard to miss, given that it was early January, when colors often bury themselves deep in the recesses of a closet.

But this day deserved something bright.  Something hopeful.

Green--the color of newness, birth, revitalization.

And...reconciliation?

It had only been a week or so after I had been served with divorce papers, but events had led to him calling me that previous Friday night with a certain ambiguity in his voice and a promise of bringing Harlow to our church with him that Sunday.

He was coming with me to church?

Needless to say, this was an unexpected twist in the plot, which I was naively sure was indicative of the change of heart for which I had prayed.

So, yes.  The green skirt seemed perfectly in line with my anticipated reconciliation.

In the car on the way to church that morning, I was overcome with intense nervousness and excitement.

Excitement.  Something that had eluded me for several months at that point.  I had forgotten what it felt like to look forward to something, rather than tolerating the hours as they passed.

We sat together, side by side, but not nearly like old times.  There was a clear line drawn between the two of us on that pew.  He dared not cross it, and I dared not force him.

By the time the afternoon rolled around, and we had worshiped together and eaten lunch as a "family," I found myself in the living room of my parents' house with him, waiting for the words he was obviously hesitant to muster.

Here it comes! I thought.  My suddenly! My answer to my prayers! The restoration of my marriage!

But instead, it turned out to be more of a cruel joke.  Reconciliation was still completely out of the question for him, and I was told that he was no longer in love with me.

The numbness was captivating.  How could I have been so stupid?

He had taken a sledgehammer to my hopes and beaten them into a brokenhearted dust.  He left me that day in uncontrollable tears.

And like the other colors of summer that hid from the bitter winter winds, I laid my green skirt to rest.

Every following Sunday, when I would search for something nice to wear to church, that green skirt would hearken betrayal and misery, and I couldn't bring myself to pull it from the hanger.

Green.  The color of restoration.  A restoration that, it didn't seem, was ever going to happen.

So there it would hang sadly, sandwiched in the middle of the closet, where my glance would fall every time I opened the door.

Until one cheery, warm Sunday morning when I vowed that the past could no longer hurt me.

And I found that God can even redeem a green skirt.

Melody on a Mountaintop: With Her Nose Stuck in a Book

Forever I had maintained the position that I loved to write but hated to read.

 

The people that would tell me they would read for fun?  Well, they were just plain crazy.  What would you want with two-dimensional lettering and imagination when there's a whole world of television to be watched?

 

Before the divorce had been set in motion, every night, my routine involved putting Harlow to bed, chowing down on some takeout, and camping in front of the flat screen for hours of Netflix goodness.

 

But then, when everything changed, my routine just couldn't stay the same.  I was gasping for air and couldn't bear to rot away in front of yet another season of The Bachelor.

 

It would have been like putting a noose around my neck and wondering why I couldn't breathe any easier.

 

So one Sunday after Harlow and I had moved in with my parents, I traipsed the hallways of church, trying to gather the thoughts I'd had that were scattered all over the floor.

 

I passed by the church library and decided to give it a whirl.

 

I'd already started purchasing and inheriting all sorts of reading material to help me stave off the divorce.  My nightstands were stacked with readings like The Divorce Remedy, I Do Again, and Love Must Be Tough.  It wasn't long before my incessant Google searches for how to "pray away the divorce" landed me on a website that supported others like me who desired to stand for their marriages.  And that led to purchasing more books on the subject, like The Prodigal's Perspective and Prodigals Do Come Home.

But when I walked into the library that day, I half-heartedly selected a book by Chuck Swindoll that had zero, zip, zilch to do with divorce.  And everything to do with becoming more like Jesus.

 

And bam!

 

I was hooked.

 

I read seven books in just a few short months that studied the lives of seven different Bible characters--David, Moses, Esther, Job, Joseph, Elijah, and Paul.

 

Slowly but surely, I replaced divorce-busting manuals with inspiring accounts of regular men and women who gave themselves over to the Lord to be used for incredible purposes.  And I became enraptured with the idea of becoming more and more like Christ and less and less like the old Chelsea.

 

I saw my shortcomings plain as day, as well as instruction for remedying them.  I received comfort in the midst of a pit, and hope for a peak in the future, no matter how far away that might be.  I released the desire for revenge and learned more about grace.

So every night after Harlow would go to bed, for months, I would slip silently away to my bedroom, sometimes my closet, and read for hours and hours, nourshing my soul with the sweet air of God's promises.

 

And every Sunday, I'd return a book to the church library and grab another.

 

And another.

 

And another.

And wouldn't you know that the girl who loved to write but hated to read...

 

Wound up being the girl with her nose stuck in a book.

 

Until the one morning she looked up and saw what she'd been passing by all of those months on those long walks to the library.

Melody on a Mountaintop: A Pink Rose for All Seasons

I stared absentmindedly at the rain as it beaded on the passenger door window, coursing down the glass like sweat down a humid Tennessee brow.

The sky was angry with a horrible shade of gray, and my sister sounded a melancholy tune through the speakers.

Funny, even Harlow and my niece and nephew were quiet in the backseat.  The moment was rich with solemnity, palpable to even the deadest nerve.

It was late October, almost Halloween, and my attempt was to escape home and the pain that had transpired in the previous seven days, but even six hundred miles away, the sting had managed to find me and sawed away at my heart.

I need to find a symbol, I thought.  But what?

My heart was hardly in the game that my brain had started, and I closed my eyes firmly, reminiscing about the phone call I'd had the night before.

Choose a symbol, the phone counselor had advised me.  Something between you and God.  And every time you see it, remember God and His faithfulness.

Truth be told, it sounded a bit hokey to me.

But she went on.
Pick something, anything you like.  I knew a woman once who loved lighthouses, and even though she lived in Kansas, that was her thing between her and the Lord.  And you know what? Lighthouses started popping up in her path.  On stickers and pictures.  And each time, they reminded her of God and His great love for her.

God was to be my Husband for this season, she said, citing a passage in Isaiah.  My Provider and Protector.

God?  My husband?  It was nice but a little hard for me to swallow.

But the notion kept turning over in my mind, and like a good book, I couldn't put it down.

Okay, God, I mused silently.  I don't know.  I don't know what to pick.  I guess, I don't know.  I like pink roses.  Pink roses.  That's what I pick.

I hardly meant it.  But I was willing to try anything to bring me comfort.  And if God was to be my Husband, well, then pink roses are what I want.  They're symbolic of romance to me, a thing so intimately important to me.

A thing no longer available to me.

I glared out the window and immediately realized the ridiculousness of my choice.

It was almost November.  In Texas.  I could have at least picked something that I knew I could see anywhere.  Like, I don't know, a Mexican restaurant or a boot store. 

And I kid you not, not sixty seconds later, I saw it.

One lonely hot pink rose on the side of the highway, bending in the wind but mightily standing against the storm.

I sat up and rubbernecked like a lunatic.

I couldn't believe it.

Tears welled in my eyes as I pondered the graciousness of my Father.

A pink rose.  A love note.  From a Husband who knew my heart and my pain. 

And since then, they have popped up all over the place, always when I least expect it...

A pink rose on the binder of a book nestled among hundreds of others in a used bookstore in Texas.  It called out to me, as if it knew my name and had been placed on the shelf for such a time as this.

...a book that was a balm to my soul during my stay with my sister.  It was filled with romance--the one that exists between Jesus and a believer--and too appropriate for words.

Pink roses all over the cover of a book on an outdoor store shelf the day after I was left as a single mom. 

A pink rose tucked in the palm of my mother, as she and my dad came to care for me back in Tennessee when I had the stomach bug on Thanksgiving.

A pink rose on the counter at my friend's house, during a brunch hosted to support and encourage me.

Pink roses delivered to me on my birthday.

Six pink roses at my doorstep on the anniversary of my engagement.

A single pink rose tucked into a Mother's Day bouquet sent "from" Harlow.

Not to mention, my mother had several bushes of red knockout roses planted in our front yard, and guess what...

When they bloomed, they weren't red. We have pink roses in our front yard!

All who sent me pink roses, save for my mother, were blissfully unaware of what the bud meant, yet they were still moved to send them to me.  It mesmermized me.

And as I prayed one night, I asked the Lord that if there be some man out there that He had selected to be a future husband for me, could He please...

...maybe...

...just send him with a pink rose, so I know he's the one?

It was prayed half in jest, but it turns out that God has a sense of humor.

Because on a summer evening, with a twinkle in His eye,

...the most significant pink roses appeared on my porch.

Sing A Song of Six Posts

Y'all ready for this?!

You have sat and prayed with me in the pit, and now it's time to SING from the PEAK!!

Just like Prelude to a Pit, the new series (entitled Melody on a Mountaintop) will start tomorrow night at 7pm, and there will be one post a night for six nights before the big, fat Hallelujah chorus of a post next Friday night that reveals my big news!

God is always good and faithful, friends, even when we can't see it, but I'm terribly excited to brag on how He has brought beauty from ashes and restored ten thousand times over what the locusts have eaten. 

Satan may have meant it for evil,

But God....

He meant it for good. 

Are you ready to stand up and celebrate with me?!?

It all goes down tomorrow night!  Praying I will see you here!

Xoxo,

Chels

It's About to Get...GOOD

Hellooooooo, arrows!

I am home with the "Goose" for a sick day, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a little update on our goings-on. 

This just in: there IS life on the other side of the pit, and I'm excited (in due time, of course) to share what INCREDIBLE things The Lord has been up to in our lives since the last time I posted.

Let me just tease for now that (as my dear old dad says it), for so many months, the odds were severely stacked against us, and not much seemed to be happening at all....and certainly, it didn't appear, for the better. But God is now "spinning the top" at a bazillion miles an hour in the most wonderful ways. You'll have to hear it and see it to believe it!

Stay tuned, faithful friends and prayer warriors. I can't wait for you to hear this sweet song of restoration. 

I get grief from my friends for continuing to stay off FB because they enjoy seeing what Harlow is up to, so here is what's gone on for the last month or so. 

She turned TWO (pause for a mommy breakdown).....

She is obsessed with "goin a-schweeeeming"....

And the park...

(PS: who knew there were chickens at Centennial Park?!? Anyone? Anyone?)

And mommy's high heels (pause for second mommy breakdown)...

(Slowwwwwww down, baby girl)

And let's just say....

...I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. 

We are having the sweetest summer and making some precious memories. 

And just you wait, friends!

Because things are getting

Oh

So

GOOD!!

So long, pit. Here comes goodbye. 

And hello to the rest of our lives. 

Xoxoxoxoxo,

Chels