This Pilgrim's Progrss

In the 2002 Briarcrest Christian High School Yearbook under my senior picture you'll find this for my senior quote, 

"A Christian can sing, though alone, when Christ doth give him the joy of his heart."

John Bunyan included this in the footnotes of his book "The Pilgrim's Progress" which was required reading for my senior year of High School, if I remember correctly. Maybe it was our junior year ... it's been 13 years so forgive me for not remembering it just right. I do know that we had to memorize and recite the general prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" for senior English. Just for fun here is part of it: 

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,

After our grade memorized that one of my guy friends whom I had know since 5th grade started calling me "maken melodye" and every day in psychology class greeted me by that name. Little did we know that a year later he and his best friend, another guy from our class, would be tragically killed in a car wreck 2 months after we all started our freshman year of college. I will always remember David walking into class with that big smile on his face, dropping his back pack on the floor, easing his tall frame into the desk in front of me and saying "what up maken melodye?" 

Getting back to the Bunyan quote though, I remember wondering what my classmates would think of me for choosing that as my senior quote. Some chose something funny, most chose Bible verses and it was really a given that I would chose a scripture as well but when I read that line it spoke to my heart for several reasons. The most obvious one would be that it mentions singing ... I mean my name is Melody and I do love to sing. The second reason is that it speaks to the relationship one has with the Lord in regards to singing. I have always viewed my voice as His and His alone. It's why I will not devote my time to singing secular music. I want to sing songs that first of all minister and bless the Lord. Then I want to sing songs that will point others to Him. There are some wonderful secular songs out there but I believe my time and talents are better spent on songs that are founded on Christianity and lift up the name of Jesus. This is just my conviction, how He has led me and I am happy to submit. The third and final reason that this line spoke to me was the word alone.

All throughout Junior High and High School I felt so alone. One would think that going to a private Christian school that it's like being with your church youth group all day but it's not. I was so naive. In elementary school I went to school at an extended campus of Briarcrest. We only had one class for our grade. I loved it. I wasn't spending every weekend with the girls from my class but there was much more inclusion since we were the only girls there. We might have had a class of 25 and it was probably more girls than guys. Yes, you had the more studious ones, the athletic ones, the loners and those in the middle but we all fit in our class. Then it came time to go the main campus for Junior High (7th and 8th grade). We mixed in with the other students coming out of the other 6th grade elementary classes (they had several more classes to our 1) and our little tight knit community of 25 or so fell apart as it should have. We each found new sets of friends, while maintaining some of the old friendships, and a new identity in this new grade. Each year the same thing happened. On and on it went. 

I had 2 of my cousins plus my brother in the grades ahead of me. We were all back on one campus again. My brother was only ahead of me by one year so most of his grade knew me. Then he played football and I was known by most of the football team ... known as in "that's Mullins a.k.a. MoMo's little sister ... no one better mess with her." Yay me. Ha. I was known among the football team as "Little MoMo". I was known by some of the guys in my grade as "Lody" because Melody was a mouthful. One guy started calling me "D" because he often heard me emphasize that my name was "MeloDY not Melanie". Others called me "Mel" but most called me "Melody". I had pretty much found my community in the concert choir but I wasn't a musical theater person. I wasn't popular. I wasn't athletic. I wasn't smart. I often found myself quietly and sometimes publicly making stands for my faith in my private Christian school. I was alone.

At the church that my father pastored we were without a youth pastor until my junior year of high school. A deacon stepped in from my 8th grade year until then and led our group. We were small. When our former youth pastor left, under less than pleasant circumstances, there was a mass exodus of the youth. So as an 8th grader I was one of the oldest girls in the youth group. It remained that way until I graduated. I took on leadership at an early age. In many ways you can say it was thrown upon me but in many other ways I loved it. So by day I was alone at school and alive at church on the weekends. But I was immature in my leadership. I thought a lot of it was about being bossy and expecting them to just follow my awesome pathetic example. 

In the middle of all of this I was becoming a young woman, hormones were taking over and I wanted a boyfriend so badly. It never happened which could only mean one thing ... it was me. There was something wrong with me. I even had a guy friend tell me one time that I just wasn't "the dating type of girl." I didn't know what that meant. I knew that being a "bigger" girl had to be a problem. I tried several different diet pills but none of them worked. I would walk for while at the park by my house and imagine my skinnier, sexier self but it never came to pass. I really had no sense of style. Thankfully, a woman in our church sold Mary Kay makeup and helped me get the right look otherwise that might have been a disaster as well. My parents didn't allow my brother and I to go to the dances at that time so that was a well known fact. Only one guy ever asked me. My best friend at the time and on going crush through school. He knew I wasn't allowed to go. I think I was a sophomore and we had a bit of a show down over it in the cafeteria. He asked me in front of our friends and I angrily told him no. He asked why and I told him I wasn't allowed to which he knew but he thought I was just saying it because I didn't want to go with him. I was mad because he made me admit the rules in front of my friends and they were all encouraging me to ask my parents but I didn't want to get my hopes up just to hear no. That was a miserable moment because more than anything at that point I wanted to be his date to the homecoming dance. (I was finally allowed to go to the dances my junior year and on a side note my little sister got to go to every dance from 8th grade on. LOL!)

Now let me say that my parents loved us children immensely, more than life itself. They still do. They did what they thought was best and as all parents do they learned as well as lightened up over the years of parenting. They are really a lot of fun especially now that the pressure of raising us is over. Hahaha. But balancing full time ministry, my mom's full time job plus church pianist position, raising three kids and keeping up with those activities is an enormous task. They were and are still incredibly involved in our lives. As we are now adults they are as involved as we allow them to be but as kids they were at everything. I have mentioned before that my dad only missed one of my brother's football games in his entire football "career" for a ministry event. Sundays were sacred in our house but so were Friday nights. And the only time my parents' missed one of my choir concerts was when my brother's senior football banquet was horribly scheduled on the same night. But when the choir performed the same concert in chapel a day later guess who's parents were in attendance? Mine. I have amazing parents. I have an amazing family. But I still felt alone.

Even though I was saved at the age of 9, I didn't start truly living for the Lord until I was 17. Before that I struggled in my walk and dealt with horrible low self-esteem. And yes, the low self-esteem was all tied up into vanity. I wasn't what the guys wanted. I wasn't what the magazines said I should look like. I was big boned, average height, average looking girl. There were many nights I would lay in bed and wonder what it would be like if it were just over. Suicide. Even now as I type that word shame fills my heart but I did ... I thought about it. I knew how I would do it. Yet, I knew I could never go through with it because I thought about my precious parents and how devastated they would be. I thought about how angry my brother and sister would be. I knew it was selfish to take my life and I was also so selfish because there was so much more that I wanted to experience in this life. I also knew I had a purpose in this life. Even though Satan kept telling me that I would be better off I was selfish enough to want my first kiss. Kind of a dumb reason to not want to die but seriously it was one of those petty little things that kept me wanting to move forward through the loneliness into a season of change. Then the summer of 2001, the Lord met me on a beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama and confirmed that I had given my heart to Him at the age of 9 but now it was time to live for Him. It was indeed time to die to self and live. Live abundantly. 

In the interest of full disclosure, while I know many teenagers are dealing with depression and anxiety these days I believe more than anything I was going through spiritual oppression as a teenager (my parents never knew the extent of this) but once I came under the Lordship of Jesus Christ those strongholds were broken. I also believe more than ever our teens are under spiritual warfare and that Satan truly believes if he can destroy them as teens then he has less work to do when they become adults. Please pray for our young people, especially those who profess Christ as their Savior and Lord. They need us to stand in the gap for them!

If I had to sum my senior year of high school up in one word I would say it was abundant. The Lord opened up the storehouses of Heaven and poured out His blessings on me that year. I haven't experienced anything like it since. Which is not to say that He hasn't blessed me since but the way the Lord specifically blessed that year is something that I will never forget or cease to be amazed at. Is my walk with Christ perfect? No. Do I still have days where my self-esteem is pretty much non-existent? Yes. Does it matter? No. Not really. I am working more and more to remind myself that 

"..For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7b

Am I content with where God has me? Yes! I love my little home, my life, my family, my friends and my church. Do I still have days where I fell alone? Yes. But I am learning to recognize that for what it is ... my heart and soul's need to curl up at the foot of the cross. To soak in the Word of God and rest in His fellowship. My prayer is that this hymn will be on the tip of my tongue on those days ...

"Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace." - Helen H. Lemmel

I think my 17 or 18 year old self was wiser than I knew for you see "a Christian can sing, though alone, when Christ doth give him the joy of his heart."

I love you all!

Blessings ...

- Melody Faith

PS: If you are reading this and can relate to my story, I would love to hear from you. If you are a teenager who is struggling I would love to encourage you and pray for you. Please feel free to leave a comment. If you need help then I will gladly do my best to get you in contact with those who can offer further and more extensive help. You are not alone.