The Hardest Words To Sing

When I was little, I used to cry when the ball would drop on New Year's Eve.  Everyone else would be saying "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!" and blowing horns and celebrating, and I'd be sitting there bawling my eyes out.  When this first started to happen, I remember that my mom would say "what on earth is wrong with you?"  And I would say "I miss the old year!!"  It was actually quite hilarious and entertaining for my family members.

Now that I'm grown [?], I find myself getting emotional during ball-drops for a totally different reason.  New Year's Eve is usually a time when people reflect on the past twelve months, make resolutions [boo resolutions] and reflect on their successes and failures.  For me, New Year's Eve since 2002 has meant looking back at the past twelve months and being overwhelmed with gratitude for God bringing me through another year.  I find myself thinking about the difficulties and trials that I faced, and realizing that God has brought me through every single one - and that I'm standing on my feet in my right mind at the end of another year as a living testimony.  There's always a point during a NYE service where I can do nothing but stand and allow tears to fall as I become overwhelmed by the faithfulness of God.

2010 was a very difficult year, and a very incredible year.  I still haven't written my 2010 "reflection note" - hopefully that will come soon - but some of the highlights and lowlights were:

• Returning to Israel for the second time and falling even more in love with the Beautiful Land
• Planning & executing a young adult conference, missions trip and retreat all in the same year
• The death of my grandfather & other family-related struggles
• Seeing breakthroughs happen in the BTKIDS ministry
• Co-leading an amazing but unbelievably difficult missions trip to the Philippines
• Sue adopting baby Levi from Ethiopia
• Experiencing an entire year of health-related problems that are still unresolved
• Meeting and starting a relationship with an incredible man :)

These were the memories that were pouring through my mind as I sat at the Brooklyn Tabernacle for their 7PM and 10PM New Year's Eve service, but especially the last two.  The most amazing blessing and the most difficult challenge of 2010 were going with me into 2011 - figuratively and literally, as one was sitting next to me and the other was affecting my body fairly strongly even at that moment.  What was so interesting was how the two services affected me in totally different ways, and how God spoke to me through both of them. 

At the 7PM, I was so filled with joy and excitement and gratitude that I thought I might start flying while Onaje was singing!  Miguel tactfully and thoughtfully switched spots with me mid-worship so that I could stand on the end of a row [yeah, I definitely need the end of a row], and my hands couldn't be lifted high enough.  I wanted to scream and shout and dance, which I did with a level of restraint appropriate for a BT service :)  Yes, I was remembering the struggles and I knew that I still had problems going into 2011, but my spirit was so encouraged and revived in God's presence.  I remember at the end of the service just whispering "I love you Jesus" over and over, and I could literally almost hear him saying, "I love you too, Amy" right back to me.  The sense of closeness to the Lord and the peace of His presence was overwhelming.  I couldn't wait for the 10PM service to do it all over again.

But the 10PM service was quite different.  For some reason, between services, I lost that sense of God's presence.  My mind started being attacked.  My body started to experience another wave of pain.  Fear started to creep into my mind and my heart.  And I suddenly experienced the near-loss of my voice right at the beginning of worship.  Fighting the temptation to start the "why, God"s - I reminded myself that I couldn't control the circumstances I was facing, but I could control how I responded to them.  I forced myself to lift my hands, sing when I could, praise God and thank Him regardless of what I was feeling - and I felt God speaking to me and saying, "these two services are a reflection of 2010 and will be a reflection of 2011.  You will have amazing, joyful moments when you feel so close to Me and you will worship from depths that you never thought possible.  But there will also be moments when you feel nothing - when you feel as though I've forgotten you and abandoned you, and when your heart and mind and body are broken.  But in all times and in all things, I will be faithful to you and I will uphold you and give you everything you need."  Despite the struggles and difficulties, I felt encouraged that I was fighting the good fight at that moment and not allowing my emotions to dictate my worship.

Until Joanne Brown stepped up to the microphone and began to sing More Than Enough.

I knew it was coming the minute I heard those opening chords.  I knew that I was about to come face-to-face with God over the main issue that was burdening my heart, and I didn't want to.  There have been songs throughout the years that I have had a VERY difficult time singing.  When I was battling with an extremely intense period of mental warfare, I found myself physically unable to sing the last line of the second verse of I Bless Your Name:

Some midnight hour, if you should find
You're in a prison in your mind
Sing out in praise, defy those chains
And they will fall in Jesus' name.

I'd get to that line and have to stop singing, because I felt that I was singing out and defying - but the chains weren't falling.  It took years before I could finally sing that line by faith, and then later by sight.

This past year, it was the song Healer - and I couldn't bring myself to sing "You heal all my disease," because I felt like I was telling a lie... He hadn't healed my disease.  I felt hypocritical singing "I believe You're my healer" when I was battling daily with whether or not God even wanted to heal me.  And God eventually showed me that the song wasn't about an act of healing, it was about a Person and about my trust in Him to "hold my world in His hands" as I waited for my healing.

And then, on a similar note, I got to More Than Enough.  I've been believing God and trusting Him for healing [and other things] for a long time now, and those things haven't happened yet.  And as this song started to play, my mind flashed back to a scene in the movie Facing the Giants where one of the characters desperately wanted to have a child and wasn't able to do so.  She had just come out of the doctor's office where she had, again, been told that she wasn't pregnant - and she stood by her car, crying, and said to God, "Even if You never give me a child, I will still love You."  Flash forward to the last day of 2010 as I'm sitting in my seat at BT, listening to Joanne begin to sing "Jehovah Rapha... You're my healer and by Your stripes, I have been set free."  And I felt God speak to my heart and say, "even if I never heal you on this side of heaven, will you still love Me?"

My breath caught, and tears began to roll involuntarily.  To consider what God was asking me was almost too painful.  I knew He wasn't telling me that He wasn't going to heal me - He was simply checking to see where my heart was... and it was struggling.  To live the rest of my life without being healed?  To never be able to just eat regularly like a normal person and not have to worry about what something might do to my stomach?  I sat and cried and battled - and it wasn't just the healing although that was first and foremost.  It was also, "what if I took away the man sitting beside you?  Would you still love Me?"  And, "what if I called you to leave your family, friends, everything and go to a remote part of the world to experience persecution and suffering for My name so that those who have never heard the gospel could hear it?"  In our minds, we always say "yes, Lord, I'd do anything for You" - but when we're confronted with the reality of those moments, it can easily become a different story.

The song continued, and I wrestled like I haven't wrestled in a long time.  Could I really sing, in spirit and in truth, the words "You are more than enough for me?"  Was 'just God' enough if I never received the miracles that I was praying for?  God was calling me to bring my own will and desires - even Godly ones and ones that are in line with His Word - under the subjection of His perfect sovereignty.  I didn't want to do that.  I wanted control.  I wanted to know what was going to happen with me, when and how I was going to be healed, what was to be the outcome of this relationship, how 2011 was going to operate - and God was calling me to let go of all of it.  And I thought of that woman in Facing the Giants, and how she was able to say through her tears, "even if You never give me a child - I will still love You."  And by the end of the song, through an incredible amount of pain, God gave me the grace to say, "Lord, even if You never heal me - I will still love You.  Even if You take away everything and everyone that I love - I will still love You.  Even if You 'slay me,' as Job said - I will still love You."

And on the last few lines, I lifted my hands and sang:

You are more than enough
More than enough
More than enough for me.

 

I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.'... That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

-The Apostle Paul [2 Corinthians 12:7-10]