The Anatomy of Worship, Part 3: It's Not About Appearances.

This will be a relatively short post, as I haven't been doing a lot of delving this week (uh oh), but I had a revelation this morning about worship that I thought I'd share. . .

I had decided that I would listen to Jon Foreman this morning during my housework. He's such an amazing artist and his worship songs are so new and refreshing to me. I love listening to him! He has a song on his worship album entitled "Instead of a Show". I usually skip that song, not because I don't think it's relevant to worship, but because it's just never been one of my favorites,. I didn't skip it today, however, and while listening to the lyrics I was struck with the thought that God is not impressed with our worship.

Whuuuuuuuuut?!

I know. . . I thought the same thing.

It wasn't as though I was under the impression that every time I raised my hands or jumped around that God was looking down at me from Heaven like, "Oh, yes! That Shelby is such a talented Worshiper! I'm impressed with her skills! I give her a 10 out of 10!" No. I never consciously thought that. . . But I'm sure somewhere in the back of my mind, I figured that He was at least pleased with me for the way I was worshiping. I mean, I was impressed with my humbleness in lifting my hands (even though EVERYONE was raising their hands too).

God's not looking for a show though! God is not looking to be entertained by our worship! In fact, unless you feel lead by the Holy Spirit to lift your hands or dance or whatever, then that's all a show! God doesn't look at man on the outside like we do. He sees past the exterior and gets straight to the Heart. He sees right away if our Hearts are pure before Him and sincere in our worshiping of Him. The show we put on for others in our worship isn't even noticed by the Lord, which is why it's important to prepare our Hearts before Him for worship. Whether we're in a church or alone in the living room, out Hearts are what we need to sing and dance and praise Him!  And then through the sincere worship in our Hearts, we can praise him outwardly, honestly, with our hands and voices. . .

But You Don't Know Me. (No You Don't Know Me)

You judge me because you don't know me, 

And you won't get to know me because you think you already do.

I've done some bad things in my past. Somethings that only the Lord and I know about, somethings that everyone knows about, somethings that only my family and close friends know about. . . All of them I've asked forgiveness from. I've repented in tears for them, but to this day, I still suffer the repercussions of them. I have my own regrets and when someone reminds me of the things that I have done, I relive the whole experience and once again beat myself up over it.

Although I give the advice to move on and get over things to others, I don't really follow that path all the time. I dwell on what I've done in the past too much. Not because I have some unrepented sin or haven't been forgiven by God, but because I'm reminded of my sins through the way others treat me. They still treat me like the girl who use to cut and who rebelled terribly against her parents. Who loved the darkness. They still bring up things about the Lord to me, like I haven't already poured myself out to Him. I just don't know what I have to do to prove myself to them. To show them that I have changed. The life that I live now is not a farce and I love the Lord! I love my life! I love everything that He has blessed me with! I love my family! I'm generally a happy person, but I feel like everyone sees me through an opaque veil that they refuse to remove and see me for who I am now. I've tried desperately to show that I've become someone else.

I've prayed that something in them will soften towards me and they'll stop judging what I've done and instead see how I am now. I've spent hour in tears, on my face, because I feel like I have sunk too far in everyone's sight to ever rise again or be thought well of. I don't know what I have to do to make everyone know who I am now. It sucks being looked down on. It's so hard to try to live your life for the Lord when you see everyone else regarding you as someone who's so far away from God that they ask people to pray for my salvation. It makes me wonder why I try, and I have to turn back to Him and ask Him to forgive me and keep me going regardless of what other people think of me.

I have no happy conclusion to this blog. I feel extremely sad right now. My heart is so broken and I feel like I've come to the edge of giving up and the slightest push will send me falling over. I need prayer. I need to know what the Lord wants me to do. If you can just take a minute to give a quick prayer for me and for the ones that have been viewing me in past tense form, I'd be forever grateful. I just don't want to feel condemned anymore. We're suppose to feel free in Christ, but I'm letting this bind me when I should know better. So, just pray. . .

Until next time,
Shelby~

The Anatomy of Worship, Part Two: My Mocking Voice

It's so hard for me to even listen to worship music when I'm writing this blog. Phrases like, "Behold the Man upon the cross, my sin upon His shoulders. Ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers" and "I'm forgiven, because You were forsaken. I'm accepted, You were condemned", make me choke on whatever beverage I happen to be drinking. I get this enormous tug in my heart, like there's a hidden string in there being jerked tightly. I feel tears coming to my eyes.

I'm not a crier. I don't cry when I get hurt, or when someone's being a jerk to me (most of the time), but whenever I hear what I did with my sin and my wicked heart to the Savior, it literally feels like a piece of me dies at that moment. During worship, I've had visions of myself spitting on Him and slapping His face, already beaten beyond recognition. I've seen myself jeering with the rest of the World at His broken, bleeding body nailed to the cross, adding to the humiliation that He had already suffered. His blood leaving stains on me as I've mocked Him. Oh, Jesus, I can't even begin to imagine what you went through.

As if the physical pain wasn't already enough, He had all the sins of the World on Him. Have you ever thought about that? I mean really thought about it? Those 9 hours He hung with unbearable pain coursing through His sinless body, He took on the sin on every single person who has ever lived and ever will live. Every single lie ever told, every murder ever committed, every rebellious act, every sexual sin, every evil thought, every bit of hatred that mankind has ever felt for one another and for Him. He took it on for those who would come to love Him, and even for the ones who would reject Him all their lived. I can't fathom what that must have been like. I know what it feels like to have one unrepentant sin weighing down on me, and man, it hurts so badly. But that one sin (though it's still sin) cannot compare to having the sin of every individual ever created put upon You. Willingly, I might add!

In the moments I hear the sad reminder of what my sin has done, I break down. I have lain prostrate on my face before the Lord, because my legs are too weak to stand. I can't help but feel ashamed. Tears of sorrow bleed down my face for what I've done. No matter how "little" my sin may have seemed, it crucified my Lord. But then. . .

I'm reminded that He loves me. I know, I know. It sounds simple and cliched. . . But He loves me! The one who spat on Him by willingly sinning. The one who shares in the blame for why He came to Earth in the first place. The one who rejected Him over and over and over and over and over. . . When He felt all my sin on Him, He thought of me, individually, and He didn't feel anger towards me or resentment for having created me. He felt compassion on me and a longing to save my soul from Hell, because He loves me! Oh, my beautiful Savior! I can't imagine loving someone that much! How can I, as a pitiful sinner myself, not forgive someone for their slight offenses against me, when Jesus forgave me for doing all THAT against Him and came out loving me still?

All of this to say, that one thing that I have discovered about worship this week, is that it leads to repentance. I have come before the Lord hard-hearted and bitter, but it never fails. . . when I open my heart to Him in worship, I come out with a sense of freedom and a greater love than I had felt for Him earlier. He is loving and forgiving and compassionate, and I daily long to be reminded of that.

Continue praying for me as I keep discovering what the Lord has for me in this quest of worship. I don't know if any of you have a worship time when you have your quiet time, but I strongly suggest that you start. Reading the Word and prayer is important, but nothing really opens the heart to God more than standing, hands raised, to Him in complete surrender. If you decide to start doing this, please, leave me a comment and let me know how it goes and what the Lord has shown you in your worship time. Also, if you know of anyone who might be interested in reading my blog, feel free to share this with them over Facebook or Twitter or whatever internet social site has corrupted your life. . . (Just kidding.) Until next time, love in Jesus. <3

(To be continued. . .)  

The Anatomy of Worship: Part One

So, last night I was talking to my sister, Season, and she asked me when I was going to start posting on my blog again. I had actually forgotten about it, and even though I think she meant my music blog, I'm going to write on this one instead, because I actually have something to talk about on here.

I've started to have my own little worship session in the morning, because Jeremiah decided that he wants me to get up at the buttcrack of dawn with him and make him coffee (Bad idea, by the way, since I have turned into the most anti-morning person on the earth and usually make the coffee so strong that it's unbearable to drink). I figured that it would be a good opportunity to finally spend time with the Lord rather than getting up at 11 and being lazy about spending time with Him. . . And about everything else, which has turned my house once again into a hazardous mess.

Anyway! This morning during my worship, I felt this desire to really look into "the heart of worship". All these different thoughts on worship kept going through my head. Like, why is it OK for some people to raise their hands and worship, when others just stand there with their hymnals and act like they're in line for the firing squad? Or why is it fine for some people to dance and cry out to the Lord when they worship and others sing no louder than a whisper? What makes worship sincere?

Clearly, the easy answer is simply that it's all a heart issue. If your heart is pure before God, then however you worship, without going against the Word (like I think that if you started howling or stripping or anything like that it would probably be a little out of line. . . Yeah. . .), that God doesn't care if you raise your hands or merely sit there in awe of Him. I could be wrong about this, and that's why I want to delve a little bit deeper into the issue of worship and see what God has to say about it.

Over the past few weeks, I've almost felt like a new believer and it's like, I feel like I should just know these things, but I don't. It's kind of a blow to my pride to realize that I don't have all the answers and it really makes me want to get my hands dirty and get into the Word and ask God to give me a better understanding of Him and Jesus and what true, pure, no strings attached worship really is. Pray for me as I start this journey, because I have been know not to follow through with things quite frequently, and this is something I really want to get beyond the surface with.

(To be continued. . .)

Asher Hanley, the Spine Snuggler.

I am getting terrible at posting. I have so many things that I want to write about, but every time I sit down to try and say what I want to, it comes out all wrong. It's so much easier to talk about them to another person. (Maybe I should get a camera and start a vlog. . ?)

Anyway, since I've written last, we've discovered that our little baby is, in fact, a little man. . . well, boy. All my thoughts about having a girl were flushed down the toilet and I had to come up with all new thoughts and ideas. My mind is so up and down sometimes though, it wasn't hard to change everything from pink (or purple in my case, since pink isn't my forte) to blue. I'll probably be better with a boy anyway. I haven't been around too many baby girls, so maybe having a boy is more of a blessing than just a different gender. Plus, Jeremiah and I didn't have to fight over names with a boy (because I was NOT going to name my child Chloe, and he refused to accept Felicity. Men.)

Asher Hanely is the name we decided on. Asher is from the Bible, but one of the rare amazing Bible names that no one ever uses, and it means happy and blessed. Hanley means. . . Something about a hill. . . The middle name wasn't as important in meaning to me. I just think it's unique. The important thing is that Jeremiah and I both love it. I didn't think Jeremiah liked it at first, but when he started naming all his video game characters Asher and started referring to my belly as Asher, I realized that he liked it a lot more than he was letting on.

So, even though I'm officially 4 months, 2 weeks, and 1 day along today, I'm barely showing. I mean, for those who've known me for a long time and know I'm pregnant, they can tell, but if you're not really paying attention, I look like I almost have a flat stomach. I was really worried about this; thinking that I should probably be showing a lot more than I am; till I talked to my lovely friend Nicole, who just had a baby last year. She carried really small and when I told her about me, she asked if I was having lower back pain. I have some random back pain, and it's all Asher's fault. He's a major spine snuggler. I've felt him move quite a bit over the past couple of days, which has been amazing, don't get me wrong. . . But it's always accompanied by the slight ache in my back.

I could have some major complaints about it, but I just keep thinking, pretty soon he'll be some grown boy and won't want to snuggle with me anymore (Yeah, it's in the far future, but it'll come faster than I think.) Therefore, I'm going to enjoy this closeness while I can. I have plenty of other things to complain about that go along with me being pregnant. . . Like my pandemic worthy  breakout of eczema or the fact that I had to cut off my constant coffee drinking. I think for now though, I'm going to be happy with the snuggling.

I Hate Washing Dishes!!

Ladies and gents, I abhor washing dishes. I would almost rather do anything than dishes. Not only do they make my hands all dry and my eczema run rampant, but they never end! I swear, it literally takes me an hour to get them all done every morning and then another half hour after dinner. I can't even breathe a sigh of relief when I go to bed at night, because I know that I'll have a million more to do in the morning, since a bowl and spoon are not sufficient enough for Jeremiah to have his breakfast in in the morning. He has to dirty a million spoons and cups and bowls, so I have another sink full in the morning! I've tried leaving the empty dishwasher open for him in the morning, so he'll get the hint and load it himself. To no avail. How hard is it to load a dishwasher, Jere?! Seriously?!

So, between the million dishes I've been washing today, I've had to sweep and mop and clean the bathroom to sparkly perfection. . . My parents are coming here tomorrow, and it's a 3 hour drive from their house to ours, so I'd like it to look gorgeous. Which is difficult for me to accomplish, since I'm not the tidiest person. Yes, I like a clean house, but I don't freak out if there's a few DVDs or books left lying around. I don't mind the wash cloth draped over the sink or the bills left out on the counter, so I won't forget to pay them. But, this is my mom we're talking about here, and she pretty much runs a clutter free house. Heaven knows how she does it. (I can barely keep up with all these stupid dishes!)

One of the reasons I'm so determined to have a flawless house, is because I'm pretty sure my mom is expecting to walk in on less than a clean house. I'm going to show that I can make a immaculate house though, and then I'll let it fall apart again once my parents and little sister go back home. But, maybe I'll love a spotless house and keep it that way. (It would be spotless if I didn't have so many dishes!! Gah!!)

That's the Way You Want To Play It, Huh?

So, last night, things got kicked up a notch. I'm not going to say that what happened was definitely something demonic, per se, but it was totally something to get me shaken up with all the fear that's be recently thrust upon me. . . It was really late. I couldn't sleep, but that's a normalcy for me. I often go through bouts of insomnia, so it wasn't something that I read into or wondered about. I just got out of bed and came into the dining room to get on my laptop.

I didn't feel like I'd been sitting there for long (but according to Jeremiah, I'd been out of bed from 11 to 3:30), when I just started to get the feeling that there was someone watching me, which wasn't really possibly for someone to do without being seen, I thought, given the very close quarters and sparse furniture in our house. Then I remembered the lack of blinds on our kitchen window. Oh, yeah. . . That.

I tried not to think about it and just kept on what I was doing; not looking up from my computer, because ignoring always makes annoying and/or creepy things go away, right? Well, obviously whatever this was didn't get bored with my lack of response and, like an obnoxious little kid, just tried to get my attention more. It (he, her, whatever the heck "it" was) started making soft, quick tapping noises on the window. At first, I was just like, "Whatever, it's probably some stupid bug hitting the window trying to get inside where the light is." I still didn't look up however, and my over active, not always very practical mind started to create all these images of what could be standing between that bare window and me. . . And I'm pretty imaginative, so you get the idea that what I was conjuring up wasn't some cute little bunny. . . More like Donnie Darko. Something to that extent.

I kept my head down and turned up the volume on my laptop. I was just going to ignore it and not let something that was probably nothing scare me back to the bedroom. But, the tapping started to get louder. I couldn't take it anymore, so without looking at the window, I rose from my chair and turned to switch off the dining room light. The moment my fingers touched the switch, however, two INCREDIBLY LOUD knocks came from the window. Too loud for some little animal or insect to make, unless they had a fist at least as big as mine. I jumped and (I'm ashamed to say) ran into the bedroom where I crashed open the door and jumped directly on top of my poor sleeping husband, who had to get up in 2 and a half hours. (I know some of you think that's funny, but when you're up late in your blindless kitchen in the middle of the night with no light on outside and some demon or whatever pounds on your window, you'll feel differently.)

Well, needless to say, Jeremiah woke up and since he's so sweet and forgiving for all the ridiculous things I do, he got up and looked outside for me. There was nothing there (of freaking course!) and we both went back to bed. I was shaking a little bit for quite awhile, but Jeremiah stayed up with me until I had calmed down and he lost a lot of sleep. (I'd better make a really good dinner tonight. >_< )

I finally fell sound asleep around 5 this morning (And just woke up at noon. Oops!), and now I'm really just sort of angry. I figured I'd wake up and rethink the incident and pass it off as nothing, but I can't do that and the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that there definitely was something or someone out there last night. If it was a person, then that's super creepy and what the heck was he doing pounding on my window at 3 in the morning?! But, if it was something demonic. . . well, it's not the first time I've dealt with demons, and that's the part that makes me mad. It's like, I feel like I'm at a good place right now. Not the best, because we can honestly all use a lot of growth in our spiritual lives and our walk with the Lord. But, the place I'm at is a lot better than the place I was before when I was having. . . ummm. . ? "Encounters", I guess, with demons in my past. (And I'd love to go into more detail about that, but that's why I hate personal blogging, because I get caught up in talking about my very long, very weird past and then I feel like I need to explain my whole life story, and then I get annoyed with talking about it and stop writing that blog forever and ever, amen. So, let's just say I was not in a good place between the ages of 16 and 18. . . Very. Bad. Years. Maybe I'll explain more later.)

But I guess that's why he's been bothering me so much. I mean, if Satan has you, he's not going to come and bang on your kitchen window in the middle of the night! He's going to leave you alone in the trap he's already got you in! But once you're following the Lord, he's going to do whatever he can to get you back. He knows your weak spots and he hits as hard as he can where he know it hurts worst. He's had me before in a place I never wanted to be at and I'm sure a heck NOT willing to go back there now. So, Satan, you can do your very worst, because my God is stronger and He's got my back. . .

Stick that in your juice box and suck it.

Satan Needs A New Hobby, Because Bugging Me Is Getting Annoying.

I hate starting blogs, to be honest, because I never finish them. Since starting my music blog though, I've committed myself. Like a mental patient, because sometimes I feel like I was stupid to commit. (But mental patients don't commit themselves, do they? Maybe I'm thinking of addicts. . . Anyway!) I did commit though, because I felt like this would be a good ministry for me. I've been trying to find a good way to serve the Lord, and I've never felt as led to do something like this before, but now that I've made that promise to Him to write it, I have to finish it. Or at least keep it up for as long as I can! 


It's been really hard. I've been going through a lot of spiritual warfare trying to write. I guess Satan doesn't want it written, which I suppose it's a good thing. But. . . That doesn't make it any easier on me. Or give me any comfort. It's really discouraging when I sit down to write and I hit the thickest writer's block that I have EVER hit. I'm a good writer. Like, for real! I love writing and it's just something that I've always done. So, having this happen to me now is a major pain and I have never been as mad at Satan as I am now. I really wish he'd just find another distraction. (Sorry, but that's just how I feel.) 


So, just besides the writer's block that often leaves me in tears of frustration (Dramatic, I know, but hey! I'm pregnant and we pregnant ladies have the right to be a little emotional, right?), I've been having the weirdest nightmares, which is very unusual for me; I haven't had a nightmare since I was 15 or 16. It sucks, not only because they are REALLY scary, but because my husband (Jeremiah) is such an incredibly sound sleeper, that even if I wake up shaking, he just lays there. (So, I do a lot of secretive snuggling. . . I think I use parentheses more than is proper.) I don't know where the nightmares are coming from. It's not like I get scared easily or disturbed easily. I've watched way too many scary movies than are good for me and they never have bothered me. I guess it's just another way that Satan's trying to get to me. 

I've been praying that the Lord will just take everything away, and telling Him that I'm not sure that I can do this. It may sound stupid and simple, but it's not! It's crazy! I never thought I'd be attacked by writing a blog! It's just the easiest thing, and yet, it's given me loads of unwanted comments and stress that I DO NOT need with the soon-to-be baby and being a stay at home wife and all that junk (good junk, but strenuous junk!) that goes with it. Then, I just have to keep reminding myself that God is not going to put more on my shoulders than I can carry, and if He knows I can bear this heavy of a load, then I should be confident and feel a peace that I CAN do it through Him! I don't right now, but I have a feeling that things are gonna be looking up soon. So, I'm going to "keep my chin up" (as one of my best friend's always advises me to do. Yes, if you read this, you know I'm talking about you, mister!) and just start trusting Him more.