This is my side of the family.
This is my older brother Matt and his wife Jen
These are Matty and Jen’s kids… Jackson Eli and Megan Elizabeth
This is my younger brother Ben and his wife Teresa
this is Benny and Teresa’s son… Zachary (he wanted his picture taken on this big rock… it’s a boy thing)
and this is my daddy…
and finally here’s the handsome heart throbs….
like I said. I’m proud.
that’s it.
Don’t fear my lost, misguided friends… she’s soon to return.
She’s working franticly to remove that blue bow from her husbands head.
No, not really… I’d love to tell you she’s off speaking at a large women’s conference with Beth Moore but yet… I cannot lie to you. My faithful 3 readers. Yes, she screwed up her account and is working dilligently around the clock to fix it. She has not bathed, not cooked, and couldn’t even tell you the names of her boys because she knows… you are lost without her. I did speak with her… and the only thing she could murmer (in her best daniel day lewis voice)… was ’stay alive… no matter what… I will find you!’
Many people have inquired, so let me set this straight to the 3 people that read my blog and you can tell people you heard it straight from his wife’s mouth. Trent has NO intentions of leaving Lifechurch Edmond Campus. Yes, they are changing the style of worship to try and engage and lead the church in a more active style of worship. Bryan Witham is the Youth Worship Leader and Trent believes in him whole heartedly. Marcy Jackson has stood by Trent’s side for years now and together they all three bring an energy to the room that is impossible to deny. Trent has never been a man who wanted to be stage center and will testify to this day that he is only there because that’s where God wants him. He still can’t believe he gets to lead worship for a living… it is his passion.
Now… as his wife, I’ll tell you the reason people are drawn to his worship is because it IS his passion. He has no other desire when he’s on that stage than to worship his God and lead the people to do the same. The first thing I remember about Trent when I first saw him was that I truly saw Jesus in his eyes. He loves his Lord and believes every word he sings with all that he is. It’s never about how great he sings, or how talented he is… every bit of what he does is all for one purpose… to see God’s smile. When someone resonates a love for Christ that passionately, you can’t help but want what he has. THAT is why people drive from all over to be led to a place of worship by him.
I myself did not know what it meant to “worship” when I first became a believer, which is the majority of what Lifechurch.tv is… a church of new believers. I attended that church for two years before I met Trent. When I first came to Lifechurch, the music really appealed to me and before that I was never a Christian Music type of girl. So the combination of Craig Groeshel’s style of applying biblical truths to today’s world mixed with Trent’s worship, I was sold. There was no turning back. I WANTED to know the words to these songs so that I could sing them from my heart. I was blessed enough to meet and become friends with Cindy Beall (who at the time was the campus pastor’s wife – we both had 6-year-old Noah’s) and so sitting with her (who she herself used to lead worship with her husband) I loved her freedom in worshiping her God. I learned that Worship is not just raising your hands in the air and singing. It’s coming to a place spiritually that it doesn’t matter if 1500 other people are in the room or 1 other person, because all your aware of is your God’s presence… and you are so overcome by Him, that it may bring you to your knees… peel a huge smile across your face… draw both hands in the air… spin you around in circles or whatever you feel at that time. It’s a form of self expression to your God. I’ve danced with him… I’ve raised my hands to him… I’ve dropped to my knees for him and it’s all done without thought, without hesitation. It’s the passion stirring inside that you just can’t deny. It brings you to a place of such joy, such freedom. I look forward to getting to worship every weekend and yes, I am very blessed that it is my husband that leads me there.
It’s not about the lights, it’s not about the music, it’s not about the smoke… it’s about the voices. I’ve always said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE and LOVE it when the music stops or drops so low and all I hear are the people singing. It’s elating. Gives me goosebumps everytime… and I know with all that I am, God is smiling.
So rest assured Trent’s not going anywhere. This weekend, realign, and worship like a child…dance… laugh… love… as though He’s standing right beside you… because He is. J
My friend commented me today to say thank you. I don’t know why I find that funny, it is me that should be thanking her… her email caused me to crack the bindings on The Good Book for the first time in over a month and I spent all morning in it. Felt good. Thank you, Jen.
What’s the longest time you’ve gone that you can remember without being in The Word?
Let me be real transparent here on why I haven’t been blogging. Besides the fact that I’ve been crazy busy with kids on Spring Break and creating worship videos…My blog started out sharing biblical truths and turned into a journal of sorts. I love sharing my life and days but I want it to have some meaning as well. In the move, I misplaced my Created to be His Help Meet book. Welp… I’ve found it. I’ll be blogging on that soon.
A good friend of mine emailed me today, crying out for help. Talk about transparency. She spent the morning reading Cindy Beall, Mandy, Natalie, Shanna Crawford and my blogs and wants what we all have, JESUS! This is a quote directly from her. It was after I read her email, that I thought to myself… it’s so funny how God uses people to reach other people… people they don’t even know they are reaching… and he uses people no matter where they are, in their walk with Him. I wanted to tell her I haven’t cracked open my bible for a month now. I still have regular talks with Him but how can I truly get to know Him better and witness if I don’t read and study the Truth. I worship with him every weekend, but I haven’ t sought Him out in over a month. I thank him every morning on the way to work for the beautiful things he creates in my every day and ask of his protection over my family yet I won’t take 10 minutes of my beautifully created day to seek Him out. I want to know Him better. I want to know His stories. It was my happiest times… and I’m ready to make the time again. I miss it. But all that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
I’m spiraling down hill fast into the depths beyond my own knowledge. Am I scared? Yes. Am I scared? No. My eyes are open. I’m watching my life pass me by. My conscious is vigilant, but it’s as though I’m lost in a comatose state and lack the ability to counter. That’s the scary part, when will I wake up? When will I take charge of my own forthcomings? When is it my time? When do I say enough? That’s the part I’m ready for. The change. The time where I can sit back in my life and say, this is where I want to be. I’m not an ignorant person. Is love that strong that it can influence every aspect of my life? It manipulates my manner in which I relate to my only son. It rules my checkbook. It wakes me up in the morning and tells me everyday, this is going to be a good day, or sorry, not today. It holds a day long to the very last minute to arrange time for those that have requested time with great notice. It never lets go until you feel like there is nothing left of you.
My friend didn’t write this. I did. I wrote the above passage in my journal about 3 years ago. I was in the lowest state of my life. I knew I was there, and I knew something had to change. It wasn’t long after that, I gave my life to Christ and let me tell you… I’m sitting back in my life right now looking around, saying ‘this is where I want to be.’ It took my writing it out and seeing that the only one who was going to change the direction my life was heading, was me. It sounds simple… but it took me quite some time to get there. When I made the decision, I MADE the decision. All in. I’m talking erasing phone numbers from my phone and if the phone rang and a name didn’t pop up, I didn’t answer it. I would have disconnected the number had I not had a terminally ill mother who had that number on every emergency contact list. I burned old photo’s of a girl I didn’t want to be anymore. I turned off the TV. I started filling up that time with Truth. I got rid of everything I felt like was eroding my life right in front of my eyes, and that included people who didn’t understand. I was ok with them not understanding…because…. I did. I decided, I was going to live for me. It was the best decision of my life.
I say all this because I really feel like my friend is where I was…. or in the vicinity. See, where I had never experienced His forgiveness and His grace, she already knows Christ. She knows the freedom. She’s just lost her way. She’s angry. Really angry, and hasn’t let go of that anger. She lost the father of her children in an accident a couple of years ago and I’m not sure she’s ever really worked through it. She lost it. She turned to drugs… men… and anything that would take away the pain. She rebeled against all she had known…all of this while trying to be a mother to two young children. I believe she wants to change, she just doesn’t know how to get there… and I don’t know if I’m the person to get her there. I know God brought me into her life, and for that I’ll be forever thankful… I wonder… did he bring me into her life to walk beside her and be her friend along her journey… or to take her by the hand and lead her there. I guess time will only tell. Pray for my friend. Only God can fulfill her and make her love herself as much as He does and He can only do that if she allows Him. Irony… at it’s finest. Love is a choice. Right now, she’s choosing not to love herself. When she see’s the way Christ loves her, and accepts His love again, it will seep from her own pores. A glowing countenance. If you’re reading this. I love you. I’m here for you. Always.
Let me tell you about my Tres and I. We’ve been bff’s since we were 7-years-old. One of my mom’s favorite stories is how she used to pull in the circle drive at elementary school in Cashion, America to pick me and my brothers up from school and she’d always think Tres was me. ALWAYS. Anyway, so we’ve been through a lot of life together. We’ve been through school, boyfriends, moves, marriages, multiple child births, drinking binges, eating binges, recreational drug use, divorces, moves out of state, multiple funerals of friends, family and pets, one of us even tried to end our life and wound up drinking a charcoal milkshake in the ER.
So yeah, you could say our 20’s were a extremly wild. When I turned 30, I decided, as I had been feeling for quite awhile now that there was something more to life than what I had experienced so far… something was missing from my life. So I went to church with my friend Brooke, Lifechurch.tv in Edmond, and I never looked back. As most people experience, I sat in that theatre seat and the worship music was nothing I had ever seen before. I didn’t know the words, but it moved me enough to WANT to learn. During the message, I felt like Craig, our pastor, was looking right at me. It was a place I wanted to be and full of people I wanted to be surrounded by and be like. I left all that I had known behind. I erased all numbers from my phone, except the ones I knew would understand this new path I was heading down… I left Tres’ in there. That’s one thing about a true bff, no matter the choices you make, the paths you choose… a true bff is right there through it all. Those cheesy cards ring true if you’ve ever had someone like that. Someone that is ready to pull on their boots and go kick someone’s butt when you hurt. Someone who will eat cheesecake and pizza with you during pregnancy. Someone who’s on the phone with you until wee hours in the morning when you don’t even know what you want to say, you just don’t want to be alone. Someone who will open their home when you have no where else to go. Someone who will come pick you up at a moments notice, no questions asked. Someone who will scream her head off at you and cry with you and laugh with you while sitting in the ER. Someone you call while you’re sitting on the pot, just cuz you’re bored. Someone who never forgets your birthday. Someone you laugh so hard, you cry, with. Someone who will tell you there’s a bat in the cave (you got a boog). Someone who you’ve experienced every emotion known to man with.
So here’s where I put God in this small little box…here’s how small my faith was. I never thought Tres would one day head down that same path. She was just so ‘believing means seeing and touching’. So I would pray for she and my older brother, who are both AMAZING people, but people who don’t have a personal relationship with Christ. Organized religion has pushed many away. But it happened. Tracy and Russ (her husband) showed up at the Christmas experience last year and that’s when everything changed. I was SO blown away. She’s writing about it (her link is right here to the right ‘Tres’ blog’). She’s tithing, she’s wanting to know more. That’s all He wants. He wants us to grow our relationship with Him, so we can share with the rest of the world. She’s an EMT so she’s even gotten to witness to a woman in the back of the ambulance who tried to commit suicide. I’m so extremely humbled by the whole thing.
Aside from my husband, Tres is the best thing that ever happened to me. I am blessed to have had her in my life for 26 years now and I always said, when we grow old, we’re gonna be like Grumpy Old Men only with saggy…. you get the idea. Or I see a lot of Ms. Clarice and Weezer in us too.
If there is someone in your life that you think will never seek that personal relationship with Christ… don’t stop praying. Believe. Let Him prove you wrong. He will.
