My musical absence part 1.

I was reminded this morning of the pain of loss and how it keeps us paralyzed, often unable to move past it. Let me explain:

From as far back as I can remember, I was always singing. I sang at church. I sang at school. I sang in the car, the shower, my room, the yard, the street - it didn't matter. I loved it. And because I had also always been overweight, I believed that music was the only good thing about me, the redemptive quality to my otherwise meager and unlovely existence. I never got compliments on my looks or my clothes or my contribution to class projects. I was a singer and I felt good about that. And then I picked up the French Horn and excelled. My parents musical abilities were passed on well and I found my identity in that microphone. And honestly, I loved the attention it got me and the compliments that I didn't get anywhere else in my life. When someone asked me to sing for an event, I would throw my hands up in mock protest, knowing full-well they were going to ask me - why wouldn't they? I ate it up. While all of my friends were getting asked on dates, I was getting asked to stand in front of people and sing. It didn't take effort, it just was.

In college, I performed in a musical ensemble with Campus Ministry and quickly took the lead role from the group's shining star. I won't lie, I loved it. And when I quickly learned to play the guitar at the end of freshman year, I was asked to not only sing but play. All of a sudden, my stock soared and I was very popular, from weddings to retreats. It was tiring, being in the limelight so much, but I adapted quickly. And then, it happened. I met First Love. He sat next to me on a retreat and sang with me and quickly asked me for guitar lessons and singing pointers. He was beautiful and popular and I couldn't believe he was interested in me. Yet somehow, our relationship developed over lifegroup guitar sing-a-longs and late night movies. We dated for the better part of two years, singing and playing everywhere together. It was some of the most amazing times of my life to that point. It seemed perfect and I knew we would get married and be traveling musicians for the rest of our lives. Like Waterdeep. But as you would expect from his blog moniker First Love, he broke up with me. And my world fell apart. Two days after we broke up, I had to sing and play at our weekly bible study and, with exception to a few weddings, it was the last time I performed publicly. It was 1999. Something died in my soul that day and it's only over the past few years that I've been able to name it and begin healing from it.

From years of observation, I'd say most breakups work like this: guy seems to move on quickly, girl sits around for months trying to figure out what she did wrong. I am no exception to this pattern and spent the next few years (yes, I said years) trying to explain to myself that I was, in fact, lovable and that I would someday find "the one." In that process and in that place of deep insecurity, the questions that would haunt me for years surfaced: "Did he only fall for me because of my music? Did he just love the idea of me because of the musical roadshow we would rock all over the nation? Wasn't there something more to me in his mind than 'Girl Who Sings'?" (Interestingly, my next boyfriend would, very sweetly, give me an old book of collected poems, one of which was entitled "My Girl Who Sings" and I couldn't breathe.) These questions and others like them kept me from sleep at times, from beginning new or substantial relationships, and from singing. I'm not sure I picked up the base guitar again after that, until I sold it to move overseas six years later. I didn't want to play the guitar anymore, where I had once sat for hours in my apartment, fingers bleeding, heart full, Jenn Knapp lyrics belting their way into my neighbor's living room.

At some point in the midst of all of that, music lost it's joy for me. Or to be more specific, music for the joy of music disappeared. I still loved to worship and continued to be on worship teams for Campus Ministry and Barn Church. I even lead in North Africa for our team worship times. And through all of that worshiping, I was learning how to become an "Invisible Worshiper" like Matt Redman reminded me to be and God was transforming my heart. It wasn't about me, but how I could usher people into His presence. And I almost forgot that I used to write songs and that music used to overflow out of every part of me. I tucked away that fear that I was only as good as the notes that came out of my mouth. And I never thought about First Love or how deeply our relationship had wounded me years before. But then I met someone who ruined my life, in an incredibly painful but beautiful way. After knowing me for about five seconds, he had more insight into my heart than I'd had in years. He said, "You have to let go of the fear that you're only worth that. There is so much more to you than music, though it's an incredible gift. And it's not that you're prideful and it's not that you aren't hurting, but you have to let it go. You have to sing." (That's an incredible generous paraphrase as I don't remember exactly what he said. But that's what I remember about it.) A few weeks later, his close friends even prophesied over me in a sports bar, having met me two hours earlier over tapas, that I had a new song to sing and that I had to keep singing. I have never felt more exposed. Trying to deflect the conversation from me and my issues, I told him he needed to paint, that there was creativity in him that needed to come out on canvas. He said, "As soon as you write another song, I'll paint." Crap.

That was more than two years ago. No song, no paint. Just the healing remnants of a broken girl.