The Sacrifice For Passion!
Morning to all of you! Unfortunately I am kind of feeling under the weather today, so we will be having a day of rest, crafts and activities for little man and maybe possible writing, and playing my guitar. Speaking of my new guitar, it's amazing. There is such a full and vibrant sound that comes out of it as you play it compared to my other guitar. The other guitar that I have is a "Hohner". I use it to write music on. I can't say I have written a lot of songs for anyone else but myself and honestly this guitar has such a sweet sound that inspires me to write my own music! The guitar that I am talking about was given to me about 5 years ago. I had borrowed a friend of the hubbys guitar to learn how to play initially. I loved getting to borrow it because then that meant I didn't have to give my full commitment of playing it because I would end up having to give it back to him when he needed it. One day my husband told me to meet him at the music store and when I arrived there he pulled out this guitar case and I kind of flipped. I was thinking "o great he bought me one and now I have to commit to take the time to learn it". Although, he didn't buy it for me. He told me that a gentleman from his work approached him and said "God told me to give this to your wife". The guy had never met me, or even known that I had ever picked up a guitar in my life. When CW had told me that, I knew that I was suppose to learn to play and commit to doing it. Why would God give me something so beautiful and prompt me to learn how to play it? I didn't know, but all I did know was that God had given me that guitar and it was for a purpose. As I was learning to play I got quite frustrated and decided to take what I thought was the "easy route" and play the bass instead. I don't know why I thought that was the easy route, but for some reason the bass seemed less intimidating to me. Flashback of playing the bass was when I was pregnant. I remember having this huge belly and hiding it behind playing the bass at church. By looking at me up on stage you would have not guessed I was pregnant and then when we would go to get off stage, it was highly noticeable!
Anyways, this guitar I messed around with when I had time here and there. It wasn't up until after my son Traycen was born in 2011 that I really started to pick it up more often. The testimony of my son inspired me to pickup my guitar more and to start writing music, that's a story to share for another day! I would sit down and play the few chords I knew and just sing. I would record everything, and I have listened back to some of them and thought wow those are horrible, or some that were I think "pretty good". I wrote songs of my life and where I felt like I was going and what God was doing in my life. Shortly after that I even sang one of my songs to my best friend and my other dad. It was an accomplishment of showing off what God put inside of me and what he was stirring up in my heart.
So there you have it about that guitar, the one God gave me. The one that I probably won't ever get rid of because God gave me that and I know it's still for a purpose (of coarse until God tells me to give it to someone else or something, then I totally would). So, recently I have been going through some things that I just don't use anymore. One of the things I had been contemplating giving up was my nice Nikon camera. I stopped taking pictures a while ago after I was having some issues with my camera. I honestly didn't even feel like wanting to figure out what was going on and it was more of a headache for me to think about it and to go do photos of any sort! Although that was my thinking, I still wasn't sure I wanted to give up my camera because what if I wanted to use it and start taking photos again? Well God finally told me, get it gone! I didn't even have to question what He told me to do, I just did it. I sacrificed selling it knowing someone else could use it with more intent, motivation, inspiration and passion!
God has really been panning out in my life what I need and what I don't need whether this is material possessions or what not. I feel like God is showing me where the fullness of my passions are. I feel like He is wanting me to give that full attention to the passion that He has placed in front of me! That passion to me is music. Like I have said before, music consumes me. It's honestly everything to me. God has brought me so much healing, peace, love and more through music. I read this a while back and it ministered to me and my husband in more than one way (I'll tell you the more than one way at a later time).
"When we don't know where we are going, no road can get us there…anymore than running faster expedites a lost soul. Hard work, perseverance, and faithfulness are all noble attributes, but working harder on the wrong thing will never accomplish the right one. Refusing to give up when we are climbing the wrong mountain may seem bole but it's actually really dumb. Being faithful to the wrong people or the wrong career may help build our character but it won't fulfill our call. We live in a performance driven, rat race, and run on a "are we there yet" hamster wheel. We often expend huge amounts of time and effort with relatively nothing to show for it. The fact it, we get so buy racing the other rats, or trig to get a leg up on the hamsters in front of us, that we seldom pause long enough to ask ourlseves if all this activity actually has nothing to do with our diving destiny".
(Make sure you check out Kris Vallotton at KVMinistries.com)
After reading this a couple different times for different things in my life, I realized what I had done was right on. I had sacrificed fully giving up on one thing that I once had passion for but wasn't giving it my all anymore. Not more than a week and a half later I was with my other Cooped Up Mama Candace when my husband came to meet us because he had to show me something. Candace and I had been guessing throughout the morning what it was that he had bought. We first had dibbs on a live animal, because let's face it, he has done that before. My next guess was a piece of workout equipment because I knew he had mentioned something about it during that week. Little did I know what I was about to get! I opened the truck door to see another guitar case there. I was in shock thinking "huh, is that for me"? Absolutely it was for me, and as I opened it my mind was blown away. He had gone and picked out a guitar for me (with the help of a friend) and it wasn't just any guitar. It was beautiful. Take a look!
I don't know much about brand names of guitars ect. Like I said I am newer on this spectrum, but I do like them an the beauty of each and every one of them and the sounds they create. This is a Martin! It is real wood and it's beautiful. It is lightweight for me which is perfect because I am so gentle handed anyways. The sound that comes out of this guitar is immaculate! As I came to my senses of being in awe of this, the thoughts started rolling around; "I do not deserve this", "what was he thinking?", "I'll never be able to play this", and more. Why would my mind go there? Instantly it went from being in full gratification and in awe to questioning why my husband would be so nice and want to buy something so beautiful for me. STOP! This is where I had to shut off my head because I was letting the enemy turn something good into something I was questioning for no reason. I politely told my husband thank you and he reassured me without me even mentioning my thoughts to him that I deserved this. He was proud that I had stepped out in faith (thanks to some friends and other worshippers) to play guitar at church and to step it up.
God is so cool in all of this. I sacrificed giving up one thing that I do like and once had passion for and brought me something new that I can fulfill my passion with. I honestly feel that in every moment of life there is a story to be told behind something. God is working in and around you all the time. Open your eyes to see the goodness of His love in every moment whether that be in the good or the bad. So excited that I got to share this with you today. I hope you all enjoy your day. I also am throwing in some pictures of our fun time from that day of going to the Discovery Museum in Ft. Collins, Colorado. If you haven't been already, you must go. There is a wide variety of interactive play and learning for any age of kids!
Till next time, XOXO Cooped Up Cowboys Wife Kirste