so today we put in our window units… oh the glory of living in a building built in the 1800’s. the glory of humidity and leaky roofing, hooray for april showers.
a few years ago my man said to me something that i guess has become a bit of a motto in our home. he said, “sal, jobs don’t pay the bills, God pays the bills.” boy have we ever been tested on that philosophy. living in this old building and looking around at everything that needs to be done can be overwhelming, especially when it rains, but all we can do is take everything as it comes… deal with it all one step at a time. ha, it sounds like i’m in some 12 step program. come to think of it my life looks a whole heck of a lot like it.
- admit that you’re powerless (not in control) and you can’t do it on your own — check.
- that a Power greater than me can restore me — check
- make a decision to turn my will over to God — check check (cession volition – i’ll explain in a sec)
- make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves — check (as He reveals it to me of course)
- confess your sins one to another – done that
- be ready to have God entirely remove my shortcomings (YES please!)
- humbly ask Him to (all the time)
- make a list of all people i’ve harmed and be willing to make amends (and vice versa – to forgive others)
- make direct amends with people (unless it will cause harm) forgive and release
- be quick to forgive and repent as the Lord brings stuff up (boy does He ever)
- pray and meditate on Him to have Him make me more like Him – asking for His will to be done in my life – check
- being awakened by His Spirit, carry the message of hope and healing to all the world. – check check check-a-roo
So yeah – my life is basically a 12 step program.
ok, so Cession Volition… at one time i was doing music under the name of Cession Volition, have an album (yet to be completed) named Cession Volition with a song on it called Cession Volition. Cession meaning the act of yielding to another. Volition – the capability of conscious choice, decision, and intention; the will. So Cession Volition means the act of surrendering, yielding my will to another – to God. And the last season of my life was nothing but that – to learn what it really means to surrender to Him… to learn what it looks like in my every day life. trust me – it hasn’t been fun. lots of days my attitude was the equivalent of my 4 year old balling up his fists by his side and declaring I WON’T DO IT!! and the Father stood by sayin, “Ok, we’ll see about that.” He knows that life surrendered to Him, no matter how infuriating it seems to me at the time, is a billion times better than life without Him. And once i got past the whole motivation for obedience being fear of Hell, I started to slowly understand what it was He was inviting me to all along. Life. Inheritance. Real Freedom – not what we all think in our juvenile mindsets freedom is, getting to do whatever we want whenever we want. because in truth, we CAN do whatever, whenever… it just won’t take us where our heart longs to go.
so all that is to say, from my chair by this window, looking out into the woods quickly being overtaken by the overgrowth of spring, i say it’s better to be here, (surrendered to His way for me) even with the humidity and construction dust and leaks in the roof and large chunks of income being held back by large corporations who don’t give a rats butt about our financial situation or the fact that they owe us money… it’s better to be here, swallowed up in the peace that beats down the flailings of my mind, of the way i think things should be accomplished. peace from being smack dab in the middle of His way of doing things. and no, i don’t always get it… but yes it’s better than anything i could come up with on my own.
i think i’ve graduated to step 12 by this point in my life (thank you God). i know there will always be a working list that God will pull out every now and again and show me the next place that had previously been unseen that needs work… but I’m happy to say I am not in the middle of the black hole of life’s introspection anymore – my spirit is awakened and my hand is to the plow. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Sparrow Song Studios 