Life Lately

Broken, but made brand new.

- Melody

Last Saturday night the local Christian radio station, KVNE, hosted an incredible Leeland, Francesca Batistelli, and Brandon Heath concert on the Kilgore College campus.  Leeland being one of my favorite bands, I made solid plans to go. I didn’t have any expectations for this concert. Only to go and listen to some incredible Christian musicians show their stuff. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised.

The three of them started the concert out by worshipping together with a song they wrote called “Follow You.” I immediately had tears in my eyes. I can’t describe with words what I felt that night. It was the single most real thing I have ever felt at a concert or a camp or a retreat or conference or anything. Listening to Leeland’s music I knew how passionate they were but I never knew just how much. Watching the band’s namesake sing with tears rolling down as he worshipped our Lord brought hot tears to my eyes and made my heart overflow with passion and love for the people in that room and for my Savior. They weren’t faking to make us, the audience, feel good or fuzzy or make us think we feel Jesus. His excitement and he jumped up and down as he sang and praised, his huge grin, his wet eyes and his choked up words made me realize that God isn’t some fuzzy feeling. He is a real Almighty God. Something about Leeland is more real than other bands I’ve seen perform. Something about them made me feel the passion and realness they felt when they wrote their songs. That something is the only real thing in this world: Jesus Christ.When my fiance looked at me and saw me grinning from ear to ear with tears in my eyes he knew exactly how I felt. He said, “The same passion you see in Leeland, I see in you.” Ladies and gentlemen this is why I am in love with this man and am going to marry him. 🙂 He knows me to the core. (But that’s another blog! :))

I have never seen so many people in a band feel as passionately about what they do as Leeland. I felt encouraged, blessed and loved as I stood in awe of what Christ was doing through those men. As Francesa Batistelli says in her song, “When I was just a girl, I thought I had it figured out. That my life would turn out right and I’d make it here somehow. But things don’t always come that easy and sometimes I would doubt.” You see, I doubt my life all the time. I know I have this incredible passion to worship God in song, but I think about how I don’t have the opportunity to move to a big music city like Nashville or Los Angeles to pursue my music career. I think about all the artists that got their start younger than me and are successful now at my age. But then I remember that God gave me this talent and passion for a reason. He will use me in His mighty way in His good timing. That puts my doubts and fears to rest. 🙂

I pray that all of us would find that realness that we can only find through our Lord.

I’m Engaged!

- Melody

Hello everyone!! Exciting news!! On October 3, 2009 I was asked to be a wife. 🙂 My fiance is a wonderful man named Jason Rich. The first time I saw him I knew he was the one. On our first date we were both shown just how much we needed each other for the rest of our lives. I feel undeserving of such a perfect match for me. No one knows me as well as he does and it is truly unbelievable. He encourages me, makes me laugh hysterically, keeps me in line, knows what to say when and how, and most importantly he LOVES me more than I even love myself. I love him so much I honestly have no earthly idea what I would do without him. It is clear that God knew what he was doing when He created each of us. I have never been so thankful for anything in my life until that blessed moment when he asked me to be his wife. 😀

That precious moment started back in June when he talked to my parents and told them he wanted to marry their daughter. (without my knowledge, of course!) He’d had this planned since about April of this year. (I know!) I got off work an hour early the Saturday it happened. He had no plan to distract me from going to my house where the surprise was waiting. Thankfully, I was starving for lunch and wanted our favorite sit down Mexican restaurant, El Sombrero! (yumm-o!) At some points during the meal he would giggle like a little girl, like I’d never seen him do before. I was hardly suspicious. We had planned to go to the mall and shop around for odds and ends and to leave my car at my work and pick it up later. He asked if I would mind taking my car to my house so we wouldn’t have to swing back by and pick it up. I was ready to get shopping but I said, “Alright.” When we pulled onto my street it was lined with familiar cars; his parents, my pastor, my youth minister. I had no idea what was going on. He got out acting like nothing was happening. We reached the door and I was greeted with an unexpected “SURPRISE!” My birthday had been the previous Wednesday and it was a surprise “birthday” party! Food, family, and gifts crowded our living room and dining room. When I began to open the gifts everyone was silent. It was only when I reached Jason’s present I knew why. I reached into the bottom of the gift bag and there sat a black ring box. He pulled me up off of the chair, told me he loved me, and got down on one knee. I cried and nodded yes because I was so shocked I didn’t know what else to do. I have never been so surprised and happy at the same time. 😀

Signed,

Future Mrs. Rich

Getting Wiser…

- Melody

My birthday is tomorrow! I will be nineteen. 🙂

Well, I’m over the sickness I had last time I posted. It was terrible! Sick is never good for a voice major, let me tell you.

So, I’ve had a few more revelations since my last posting. Can I just say that I’ve never been so directly contacted so often by God these last few weeks? I think there is a reason I don’t turn off KVNE or KLOVE. It speaks so solidly to me. Sadly, even though I am being punctured by Christ through the Subway man, Christian radio, and even school, I still cannot seem to get my heart in better shape! It’s like me trying to lose weight. I think about it all the time and obsess over it and know better but I just can’t seem to buckle down and do it! Why is this!?

I guess it’s the ‘getting older’ in me that is pushing me to finally change all of the things I need to change. Like my bedroom closet, for example. I’ve bought a lot of new clothes since I started working last fall and just didn’t have a place to put them. My closet was full of clothes too small for me. Why did I keep them there even though I had plenty of time to clear it out? It finally took the pressing of my wonderful boyfriend to make me do it. He stayed over for FOUR solid hours helping me hang new clothes, clear out old ones and bag them up, vacuum and completely organize. Needless to say, my room feels lighter, cooler and is much cleaner. So why don’t I learn a lesson and get everything else in shape?

I found a pretty solid answer, my friends: LAZINESS. Because of my chronic laziness disorder, God, in His omniscience, paired me with a man of the utmost opposite of the word. This man will not stop until things are done. No surface is left unorganized, unclean, or unwashed if he has anything to say about it. I, on the other hand, will leave things for another day if at all possible. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a good clean room. But that would mean I would have to clean it. Do you see the issue? 🙂

This is clearly a sin! Laziness is keeping me from having a steady quiet time, getting up early for Sunday School, even praying regularly. It’s something I have struggled with my entire life! It is something I need to repent of and relinquish to Christ and lay this care at His mighty feet. Until then, I lie in a puddle of lukewarm doubt. If you think of me, say a prayer. 🙂

melody.

It’s Raining, It’s Pouring..

- Melody

Ahh to wake up to the damp, dark sky this morning. It’s a beautiful thing. And then to spend my day singing beautiful music at St. Luke’s in downtown was the cherry on top! I can’t wait for everyone to hear it at our concert on October 15! 🙂

It’s incredible how many opportunities and combinations there are in the world. Like Iron Chef on Food Network, for example. Crazy amounts of expensive food with foreign names are combined with regular grocery items to make a delectable dish. Likewise, single notes are combined to make beautiful chords that are combined with other chords to make a beautiful song like “Hardtimes” by Craig Hella Johnson. (look it up on iTunes!) And none of it ever repeats. Everything is always new and fresh, no matter how good or bad it is, it’s new and different. And do you know why? Because there is a God in charge of it. Making those new things through broken vessels like us. But, why? I don’t know. Only that He chose to make us to glorify Him. And He loves us. We don’t deserve it, but He does.

Even though we choose to stray and manufacture our own plans because we think we are good and just, He still loves us! Awesome, huh?

A few weeks ago I posted a status change asking friends to give suggestions about job opportunities for a music major. I revisited that on my Facebook app this afternoon while listening to KLOVE in my car. Googleing some of the suggestions in Safari, the husband and wife of Addison Road came on. She said, “When we were in college and dating, I had my life all planned out. Now, it looks nothing like I pictured.” The husband then quoted a verse out of Proverbs that said even though we make our own plans, God determines our steps. He went on to say that God has given us desires and passions because He will use them.

How ironic and encouraging is that? As I sat googleing my life’s plan, He told me that no matter how hard I try to lead my own life He will determine my steps and they will be good and right for me. As a young college woman struggling with God’s plan for her life, I connected immediately. At times I feel overwhelming doubt that I won’t end up doing what I want to do. Then I realize, that it’s not about what I want to do. It’s what GOD has planned and what HE wants me to do. Because “He determines our steps.” 🙂

Melody

Christ is where?!

- Melody 1 Comment

Well, first of all, hello. 🙂 Let me start out by explaining the reason for even creating this blog. I’ve always loved to write and create and sing. Something about these abstract things let one leak their soul out into the open for others to peek upon. I honestly wish there was some way to just take a snapshot of my heart and soul over the course of the last year. You (whoever you are) would see dramatic and insane changes in color, shape, and texture of it. I know I have.

If you read my little autobiography, you would notice that I have an extreme and raging passion to lead worship. But the raging is more from the inside; not sure how to let that out yet..? 🙂 With all of this comes a desire to write and create melodies (hehe) and chords- that I don’t necessarily know yet; I’m learning-that will eventually mutate with the crazy lyrics in my head to make a song. But right now, words aren’t coming out in lyrics; they’re coming out in paragraphs. Hence, the blog. I’m praying and hoping that with me blogging and creating the paragraphs I will someday soon come back and condense what I felt and learned into lyrics and therefore a song.

On to my crazy day. 🙂

I had forty minutes from the time I got out of class until work time at 2.00 PM. I had eaten breakfast at McDonald’s earlier that day and wasn’t all that hungry but I knew I wouldn’t have a chance to eat at work, so I just decided on Subway. As I walk in no one is in line; perfect. Two boisterous black women and a twenty-something white woman were working. I stood waiting when a man stepped in line behind me out of nowhere. He must’ve been a regular because at once everyone working recognized him. One of the black ladies exclaimed, “Oh it’s so good to see you! I love it when you come because everytime you leave I’m always in a good mood. You bring an encouraging word.” The man replied, “Well, thank you. That’s a blessing.” At this I teared up. Why? I saw true Godly love. Christian to Christian. Friendship. Fellowship. Love. This man radiated Christ and His love for others.

As I watched I felt something deep inside just tugging on me. For a long time now God has been showing me His love with others. Not necessarily His love for me but how His love connects others. But as I stood waiting for my cheese pizza to cook he turned to ME and asked, “Young lady, has God been good to you?” I was taken aback. I responded with a smile and my eyes wet, “Yes. Yes He has.” And I meant it. I walked out of the Subway crying hard, laughing and smiling all at once. I laid my head on the steering wheel of my car and just cried, thanking God for how incredibly cool He is that He grabbed me in a Subway.

It was the most undecorated Christ moment I’ve ever had. No lights, no music, no preacher, no church camp, no church. But the Almighty God holding me in a cold Subway in a town nobody’s ever heard of in Texas. It was the most REAL and INTENSE and the freest moment. And it was the first time I saw my God as He is; LOVING.

I realized later no one has EVER asked me that. Such a simple question broke me. It broke down everything I’d been holding up for the past few months. Holding it together so I would look good in front of God. But my eyes were opened unto the fact that I will never be perfect. God sees straight through those styrofoam walls I built and a simple question could penetrate like a fiery arrow.

I take for granted that even though I think my life is not going well God is STILL GOOD. To ME! I deserve NOTHING He has bestowed on me. But He gives. He loves. ME. YOU! US!! Jesus reached out to me today to let me know He knows EXACTLY where I am at ALL times and I am NEVER alone. That He loves me and He is always good to me.

Truly amazing.

“Oh how He loves us.” -david crowder band.