My Social Media-less Life

This blog has been a few years in the works… since even before I had this blog. The Lord finally gave me the release to write it, so we get to see how this goes together.

My brother and I grew up in a Christian household. Our parents got saved when we were both very young, and we subsequently gave our lives to Jesus as well.

And then we became teenagers with friends who were not as serious about their relationships with Jesus— if they had any at all— as we had been at one point.

Very few of you reading this have been a part of my life for longer than the life of this blog, but let’s just say my 20s started out rough because I was not following Jesus. The same goes for my brother. I rededicated my life to Jesus within about 2 years whereas my brother just kind of pretended that everything was alright without really fixing anything.

After our dad died, my brother really struggled with anger and unforgiveness… (I promise I’m not trying to tell his story, but it is important to MY story, and everything I’m saying is something he would tell anyone if they asked him about his testimony)

Fast forward from June 2015 when our dad died to April 2020 shortly after my mom moved to Kansas City with her second husband… and my brother and mom had a falling out. There were A LOT of contributing factors, and as anyone with a wild family story that includes suicides and second marriages might guess, those two things were some of the bigger factors. My sister-in-law was also pregnant with her fourth child and there were simply a lot of emotions and a lot of people in my mom’s almost-too-small house.

Now comes my part of the story…

After this fallout with my family, I had some serious doubts about whether their relationship would ever mend… but then one night during a prayer and worship service at my church (via streaming because Covid), we did the song “I Speak Jesus” by Here Be Lions (at the time, they were the only band that had done it since it’s their song… 😛 ), and I remember when we got to the verse, “Shout Jesus from the mountain/ Jesus in the streets/ Jesus in the darkness over every enemy/ Jesus for my family/ I speak the holy name, Jesus.”

I have never believed a line in a song so hard. And from that moment on, I had something of a connection with that song. I grabbed onto the line, “Jesus for my family” and I continued to “shout it” and believe wholeness for my mother and brother, and for my sister-in-law and nephews and niece as well.

(If I remember correctly, we had been doing the song for a small amount of time before it was officially released to the general public, but don’t quote me on that… it feels like the song has been around since 2017, but of course I can find no record proving that… so we’ll go with what I can confirm)

Throughout the summer of 2020, the Lord started doing a wonder in my brother and sister-in-law and they also started streaming my church. And my mom and brother started talking again without it getting too awkward. And then I got to witness my brother and my mom’s husband apologize AND forgive each other for their behaviors toward each other and the rest of the family. And as soon as we had in-person services again, the entire family came to church.

For a little while, we didn’t do “I Speak Jesus” as much in church, but it was starting to get bigger on the radio and our own worship team was releasing a lot of new music for their own album so we did a lot of those songs instead. So I basically forgot about the whole ordeal for a while.

And then one random church service, we did “I Speak Jesus” again, and of course, as we hit the line “Jesus for my family,” I immediately felt the Lord speak to me:

“Look at your family.”

And that’s all He had to say. At the time, my whole family wasn’t sitting with me, but I knew what He meant. And I was so excited and overwhelmed I almost cried… but instead I just got really excited.

Fast forward one more time…

This past Sunday, I was sitting with my sister-in-law, my two oldest nephews, one of their friends and my bestest friend, Esther. During worship, we did “I Speak Jesus” and again the Lord spoke to me as we came up to the bridge and the line “Jesus for my family”:

“This is what I’ve done for you.”

For the very first time ever, I started crying during worship. I had to take my glasses off because the tears were making them slippery on my nose. My nephews were a little confused as to what was happening, but I’m sure they could see the glisten in my eyes.

You guys, if Jesus never did another thing for me, He saved my life and the lives of my whole family. All I’ve ever wanted was a family that was whole and serving Him, and He gave that to me. And He’s the One Who gets all the glory. I just stood on a promise that someone was able to write into a song in such a way that I could grab onto it and make it my own.