musical stylings

The Time I Went B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Yesterday was a bad day. A really, really bad day. I basically failed at life yesterday.

My sister-in-law, Carlie, recently sent me a song that has become my anthem. I have this song on repeat for much of the day, and I'm telling you that if you watch this video, and watch it all the way to the end, you're gonna straight up pray that sinner's prayer. Okay, maybe you won't, but that is the impact that Miss Tasha Cobbs has on me when she's singing this song. This song, it is my anthem.

Plus, my voice sounds a lot like hers.

Official performance video for "Fill Me Up/Overlow" by Tasha Cobbs. Recorded Live at Redemption Church in Greenville, SC. Video Producer & Director: Chiquita Lockley, Associate Video Producer: Bohannon Nichols, Executive Producer: Tasha Cobbs, Editor: Terrence Crowley, Musical Director: Kenneth Leonard, Music Producer: VaShawn Mitchell, Music Co-Producer: Tasha Cobbs.

I can not overstate how this has become my battle cry. "I am empty before you, fill me up God." 

I don't know how it is possible to feel so empty, and also so full of my own self. I am empty, and yet, I am stuffed. I am stuffed with selfishness, with fear, with stress, with rage, with pride, with self-loathing, with a desire for control, and more than anything else, I am stuffed with a desire for relief. I am stuffed sick of my self, and at the very same time I feel completely empty. So, I listen to this song on repeat and I let Ol' Tasha usher Jesus into my empty places, and I let him sweetly pour me out, all of that junk that is in me, I beg him to let it spill out so that He alone can fill me up. 

I know that this sounds ridiculous if you have never encountered Jesus as a living leader and active forgiver. But, for me... this song is like being in a spiritual spin class. Where the instructor is leading me into an excercise that I lack the motivation and discipline and know-how to do on my own. Listening to this song has been a spiritual excercise, and the incredible voice on that woman is walking me through the process of opening up inside, and letting a holy fire burn out whatever is left in me, so that I can be an empty vessel that God, in his mercy, can fill to overflowing.

Yesterday was a bad day. Yesterday, I was empty. And I am realizing now that "empty" just means that I am actually full - of all the wrong things. So, yesterday I was stuffed. And I lost it. I absolutely lost my mind. I have a new respect for the phrase " go bananas" because I truly and completely went bananas. Ironically, about 14 bananas were actually involved in this particular incident. I won't go into the whole mess of the thing, but let's just say that lives were saved by the fact that bananas are a soft fruit. If we were talking pineapples, I'd be in jail right now.

It wasn't pretty y'all. My entire dining room was a battle scene, the evidence of our struggle was everywhere. The floor, the table, most of the chairs, the walls, all of it, was caked with smashed banana, and my heart was caked with shame. And while I was on my knees, face down, sobbing in the literal and figurative mess of my life, I heard Tasha Cobbs still playing on my phone. It was at 3:56 into the video and in the song she is begging God to fill her up. 

Fill me up, God

Fill me up, God

Fill me up, God

Thirty times in that section of the song, the phrase, my anthem, is repeated.  

"Somebody ask him," she sings, "I need a fresh annointing... Somebody ask him, fill me again. I need more of you. I've been running on empty. I need you to fill me again. We cry out for more. More of your spirit is what we need. More of your annointing, more of your glory, fill me up. That's what I really want, that's what I really need. I'm so tired of me, I need more of you. I gotta have more of you. "

A couple weeks ago, I was the key-note speaker for a weekend retreat. Next week I go to Michigan for two speaking events, and when I get back home, I have even more events lined up, or maybe not after I publish this post. Either way, I am not selling out arenas or anything, none of these events are necessaily huge or impressive. But, I stand before people and I tell them about my life, I tell them about the wisdom in the Bible, the truths of scripture, but ultimately... I only ever say one thing, that Jesus is the bringer of hope and redemption. That is my only message.

Sure, I write and speak about my life. I talk about parenting a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder. I talk about being a multi-racial, adoptive family. I talk about racism. I talk about the violent end to my brother's life, and my response to his death (#AdamsActs) with you all. I share my family's personal experiences - my daughter's current health struggles, my mistakes and my struggles, about throwing down with bananas, cross-country road trips, general shenanigans, and all the in-between stuff. But, all of that sharing is just a pouring out. It's just an attempt to overflow what God is doing, has ALWAYS done, in my life.

I have nothing to say, I have nothing to write, that isn't about redemption.

People often tell me that I should write a book. There are even times where it feels like it could actually be a dream realized. But the question remains - what would my book be about? 

The answer is redemption. The answer can only ever be redemption.

Because I am empty, and yet I am stuffed. And I am the worst. And I lost my head and I went crazy and I let myself lose sight of who God made me to be. And so much banana was involved. And still, somehow, God still lets me speak to rooms full of people. God still lets me tell you my story. He lets me tell you his story.

Please don't tell me how amazing I am in response to this. Please. If there is ANY good thing in me, anything at all that is inspiring, or encouraging, or worthy of admiring in me then you must know, that is not me at all. I am on the floor covered in fruit. I am dry, and empty, and still sickly full of my self, my shame and my sin. But, still, he uses me. I am not amazing, I am broken and he redeems me for his purpose. And that is the miraculous power of the living God that I serve and rely on. Because if, even for a second, I take my eyes and my hope off of Him... I instantly become part of the broken mess. 

And every time I go to write, or speak to other people there is nothing I am more aware of than my own lack. My shortcomings, my limitations, my total and complete depravity are never far from my mind. The day I lose the awareness of my own need for redemption is the day I have no business writing or speaking to anyone again.

Yesterday was a bad day. A really, really bad day. All of us can relate to that. Anyone parenting a difficult child, or does life with somone who has mental health issues, may be able to relate to some degree. Those of you parenting a child with disordered attachment... you have a banana battle story of your own, I'm certain. And as I kneeled down, filthy and sobbing and ashamed, I begged God - out loud and in front of my empty, hurting child - to fill me up.

"Fill me up God, Fill me up God, Fill me up God"

I do not deserve to write or speak to so many people. I am not worthy to speak a single word about a Bible that I can so easily disregard in a moment of anger or exhaustion or emptiness. But,

That. Is. Redemption.

That in the unlikliest places, that at the unlikliest times, in the unlikliest people, God chooses to fill, to forgive, to heal and to sort it out for good. And as long as he continues to redeem me and fill me and give me another go, I will simply never shut up about it.

 

 

lara's crazy carol countdown - 10 days left

i am notorious for getting lyrics wrong.  it doesn't matter how many times i have heard a song, i can never hear the lyrics right or something.  the problem is that this does not deter me from singing the wrong lyrics, loud and proud.  my poor children do not know any of the right words to traditional christmas songs.  it's kinda sad.  but not really that sad.

so, i have decided to do a christmas carol countdown.  i will offer a sampling of carols done my way.  the wrong way, yes, but still pretty great.  these are all actual songs that i sing to my children (and anyone in earshot) around christmastime.

to the tune of frosty the snowman:


"frosty the snowman, is a pretty real-looking guy.  with corn for his nose and sumpin' for his eyes, and buttons for other things!  oh frosty the snowman, yes, he will marry you.  oh, down by the bay, with doctor brown, yes he will marry you..."

merry christmas to all, and to all a good job!

there's this guy who's in love with me.

it is not easy for me to write that sentence up there.  i don't understand all the ins and outs of it... but i am keenly aware that it is unusually difficult for me to say that i am loved.  i know that there are plenty of people in my life who care about me and would do anything for me if i asked.  and there are even some particular people who genuinely love me just the way that i am.  still, i am secretly afraid that if i were to actually name them here and now, those same people would flog me publicly.  *i don't actually know what it means to "flog" an individual, but i am pretty sure it is what they do to fozzy bear in 'muppets go to hollywood.'  in order to flog another, there has to be a lot of throwing lettuce on a stage, i think.

i know that none of my loved ones would really ever throw lettuce at me, just for saying that i think they love me.  however, i have always had this fear that if i make a declaration of certainty about any relationship... that everything i think to be true will blow up in my face and i will have been bamboozled in a serious way.  it's as if i believe that if i avoid ever being vulnerable enough to say that someone loves me, then i can also avoid the  suffering and humiliation that comes when you find out that, in actuality, they do not.  i realized this was a serious problem when i would not even say out loud that God loved me.  primarily because i did not fully believe it to be true.

i once had a college roommate tell me that Jesus probably didn't love my singing voice.  but, other than that... i had no reason to believe that Jesus had anything against me in particular.  (aside from my obvious, heinous sin nature that is.)  so, why couldn't i feel loved by God?  other heinous sinners seemed to bask in the love of God, why couldn't i?  

i honestly have no real point here.

it's just that the other day, i was driving in the car, feeling very sad, and i was listening to a secular love song about how the singer will make everything okay, and will be there to show the listener all this love.  and right when i was about to dry heave, something hit me for the first time, i really believed that Jesus was trying very hard to say "hey, you. i really love you.  and all these words are cheesy and unrealistic as far as romantic love goes... but I died and then I came back to life and I did that for you.  and I can do things like that because I am God... so, i think that i can handle loving you.  stop protecting yourself, I can take it from here thank you very much.  but, keep it down with all the singing.  just kidding, you belt it out baby."

this made me realize two things.  i will list them below.
  1. Heaven might be a little bit like the 6th grade, in that i still had a nice singing voice at that time.  it wasn't until the 7th grade that i recorded myself singing a gospelly version of amazing grace on my answering machine taper and realized how horrific my voice was.  the 7th grade is more like hell as far as singing voices go.  but in heaven, they're all a bunch of 6th graders up there lovin' every minute of my jams.
  2. Jesus is seriously wild about me.  
now, i realize how stupid and ridiculous it sounds to say that i believe that God literally came down from heaven, became a little baby Jesus-God, who grew up to be rejected and tortured and executed just so He could push me out of line at the gates of hell.  i know that it is crazy to believe that Jesus is speaking to me through the theme song from the movie hope floats.   i know that sounds crazy.  it IS crazy!  but, i actually believe all of that.  and i am so thankful that i do.  because in Him, there is hope.  there is hope that someone like me could be loved!  there is hope that God can redeem the cheesiest of songs, and also my wicked soul.  there is hope that i can be vulnerable in my relationships without fear of being flogged.  and there is even hope that somebody out there in the universe could love my singing voice.  

and if that isn't proof that there is an all-loving Creator ... i seriously don't know what is.