My Jesus Valentine... a story of timing, grace, and confession.

When I was six years old, I decided to "give my heart to Jesus." My wonderfully Christian parents had told me all about this activity, and how I would be saved. In my six-year-old mind, all I thought this meant was that I would not go to hell. I had no concept of heaven, grace, or Christ himself. But lo, the phrase was "give your heart," so I stubbornly waited until Valentines day to be saved from the fiery depths of hades.

So it was on 2/14/1998 that I sat with my parents at the dinner table and prayed for Jesus Christ to come into my life and be my Lord and Savior.

Now, Romans 10:9 (NIV) says "If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." The reason I state the version of this scripture is because I feel strongly about the fragility of this verse. These words from Paul are instructions to the christians of the church of Rome on Jesus' plan for salvation. In my six-year-old mind, it seemed pretty darn important to me that I do this thing correctly. What if I said "The Lord is Jesus?" Surely then my salvation would only be half adhered, and would fall off in time like a poorly nailed painting.

This was not the only flaw in my understanding of salvation. Nowhere in this verse did it say "... and you will be saved for good," "you will be saved for SURE for sure," or "you will be saved for keepsies." I therefore found it to be most prudent to confess my sins and ask Jesus to save me every night, and every time I remembered that I could go to hell. I would spend long stretches of my childhood time worrying that if I were to die after sinning and before remembering to ask to be saved, surely I would be damned.

My middle name is Grace. I never bothered to ask what Grace meant, or to explore its implications by any means. It wasn't until I was 17 years old and worked at a summer camp that God's true love and gracious intentions for me were revealed. Like scales removed from my eyes, I understood that God would never love me more or less than He did at that very moment. Whether I had killed a man that morning or spent those same hours within the confines of a church, God's love for me would be the same. There was nothing I could ever do to earn God's favor. Rather than cleaning myself up and appearing as my strongest self before the Lord, I needed to come to him dirty and broken, weak and helpless. Only in my most honest and stripped state--revealing all my shame and filth in its full glory--only then could I receive the true Grace of God.

grace  '(grs): n.

1. A favor rendered by one who need not do so; indulgence.
2. Giving of immunity or exemption; a reprieve.

• a. Divine love and protection bestowed freely on people.
• b. Mercy; clemency.

Salvation is falls under definition one... God need not save me. Is God giving me a reprieve? Well if we look at Romans 3:23 it is undeniable that I have sinned. And if we look at 6:23 we know that what I deserve for my sin is eternal damnation, a life apart from God and all that is righteous and good. The only man who had never sinned was brutally slaughtered, submitting to and even choosing this fate, to take away the punishment I deserve. My ransom is paid.

Oh. I believe this as truth. I say it out loud all the time. Does this mean that... am I...

BOOM! Radical, free, amazing, jolting, life-altering Grace is MINE! I don't have to do anything else. I am saved! Praise God almighty. I am His creation of beauty, and He sees me as white as snow! I am His daughter, His princess. I stand before God and he sees me in the white robes that belong to Jesus. Despite all my wretched sin that I will continue to draw toward myself for the rest of my human life, I am a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. Praise Him! Praise Him forever!

Grace. Wow, how novel. Never knew.



I always wanted to get baptized on my 21st birthday... another of my sappy sentimental ideas. I wanted to wait until my adult life to take this step to ensure the decision to be of my own desire and will. But when my birthday plans didn't work out, I sort of let it go and figured I would do it eventually.

Now, all of a sudden, I hear Luke's voice saying, "So what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name!" (Acts 22:16)

I am getting baptized this Sunday.

I Sing Because I Have to: Confessions of a music major who hates performing and does not love music.

I sing because I have to. And not in the "I love music so much that I simply cannot remain silent and burst at the seams until my vocal folds are producing angelic, involuntary sounds!" sort of way. (Statement to be read in a soprano voice.)

I do music because it is, well, something I have always done. I was in choir at church when I was little because my mom thought I would be really cute as a singing, dancing angel in the Christmas program. I did choir at recess in elementary school because I wasn't athletic enough to play kickball and wanted to be saved the shame. I continued choir in middle school because I was not being academically challenged and did not need the extra study hall.

I did show choir from seventh grade on because my sister did it. I wasn't great at blazing my own path due to social anxieties, and therefore found it easier to follow in her footsteps and be known as "Chelsea's little sister." I continued music in high school because it was the only way for me to have friends.

I made music my passion (again in the soprano voice) as high school progressed because these later teen years were meant to be used for self-discovery. Everyone was busy figuring out who they were and what they were good at, so I fell back on the comfortable option. I milked it for all it was worth--proclaiming to the world that music was a part of my very soul, my identity. (Did you know that I'm a soprano?)

I studied voice at Drake from the time I was a sophomore in high school, so when college decisions came along, it was a no-brainer. I knew my way around the campus, had met some of the faculty, and knew I could sing well enough to be accepted but not the star of the show. Do you see my ingrained, irrational fear of change surfacing in my decision making yet?

The facade cracked during the second semester of college (I was a music education major at this point.) I realized that I was on track to become a middle school band teacher somewhere in the middle of nowhere Iowa, most likely with a drinking problem and distinct lack of satisfaction in life. These fears were largely unsupported speculations, yet they plagued me until I changed my major to Music Business (...an even more ambiguous field of unstable careers.)

I also realized around this time that I hated performing. I despised it. It made my stomach churn and my hands shake. It inflamed my already present anxiety disorder to the point of paralysis.

I changed my major, yet again, the summer before my junior year. Having been dropped unceremoniously from the voice studio of the woman I had been studying with for five years for no reason other than my performance anxiety, I found myself at a distinctive fork in the road. It would have been very easy to quit and pick a new major, whittling away a lifetime of musical involvement into a compact and forgettable music minor. I could have walked away and chalked it all up to a series of cowardly decisions by a mediocre musician.

So why didn't I? It wasn't for a lack of options--I am, in fact, much better at many things other than music. I have excelled in writing, painting, leadership, public service, and communication more than I ever did in music and could have majored in any of these fields. No, alas, in coherence with my pattern of apathy and fear driven decision making, I did not change my major because doing so would have been scary, overwhelming, and honestly a lot of work that I just really didn't want to do. I, therefore, settled for a BA major in music and figured I would graduate on time and end up with a degree at least, even if I would never use it to acquire a job in the prescribed field.

Somehow, in the middle of this sob-story, music began to reveal truths of life to me. In a weird, ironic way, not being so good at music while immersed in it taught me how to handle some of the intricacies and challenges in life. I understood from early on that life has big risks and potential for big disappointments. I readily embraced hard work and pride in achievement and a finished product. I had a very realistic view of the challenges of working as a team toward an end goal bigger than oneself. I was faced with moral conundrums and the necessity for self-discipline. I learned the power of asking for help. I learned humility.

Without my knowledge, music did become my identity--although not in the anticipated way. Singing brought to light the things in life I stand for, the people I need to surround myself with, and the rocks I have to lean upon when trials come.

It was by sheer, dumb luck that I ended up where I should have been all along. I love the bachelors of music because of the emphasis on history and academia of music. I resonate with the controlled, writing-focused tasks and enjoy exploring the polarization and varying views within music scholarship. I love the fact that even as a mediocre musician and only slightly-above-average-due-to-uniqueness-of-vocal-quality singer, I can still impact the field. My brain, gut, extensive vocabulary, and unintentional years in the world of music all combine to make me a notable scholarly researcher and critic of music. Even though I never made all-state, never got any of the solos I tried out for, didn't make Drake choir my freshman year, am not a member of chamber choir, once got a D in ear training, am not in the opera, and have never ONCE in my life been brought to tears strictly by a musical performance--I still can function well as a wannabe musicologist and find enjoyment in the process.

I will still say that I do not love music. I love my fiancé, I love my dear friends, I love my family, and I love Jesus Christ. I might even love paint and coffee, but I do not love music. Instead, I have a deep respect and awe for music and a profound curiosity for its intangibility, fluidity, spectrum, uses, and influence. I have a kinship with music and musicians, a nostalgia attached to performance garb and back-stage bonding. Even though music has not functioned as the cliché "passion" you are meant to pursue in college, I do not regret my collegiate path whatsoever and am actually quite excited to earn my BA in music degree.

My dad always says to me that if you're lucky, the thing you learn most about in college is yourself.
Music was the avenue for this self enlightenment to happen for me in college. Music gave me the courage I needed to explore other "scary" things I am drawn to; such as writing, painting, yoga, worship, building a family, and discipleship. Who knows where my paycheck will end up coming from, and who cares? One way or another, I will follow my gut and God will provide. I have a new courage, thanks to music, to pursue whatever moves me and to let the rest fall into place.

I will always be grateful to music and will continue to make it for the rest of my life. True, you will never see me on stage as an opera star or read my critical review of the New York Philharmonic.
However, you better believe that you will hear me singing lullabies to my children, humming silly made-up songs, worshiping my God, and otherwise following the love in my life--wherever it may take me.

Total Gratitude

Today I am in complete and total awe of God's goodness to me. He created me beautiful, a being founded in His image. He wanted me to be like Him, so that I could readily see and accept His power, glory, beauty, and grace. My soft hands show the juxtaposition of His that were roughly worked and brutally nailed to a cross. My mutilated and sinful soul is a mirror into the holiness that is Christ. My unknowing eyes reflect the knower of all things, the creator of infinity.

The Lord gave me a wicked sense of curiosity. I look at the world and instantly want to tear into why things are the way they are, who people are to their very core. I have a distaste for smalltalk and search for conversations that uncover what people believe in tips of their toes and depths of their souls. I thirst for words, text, speeches, research, sermons, music, art, and anything else that can show me the God that I serve.

He has blessed me with the spiritual gift of prophesy; that I can look into a situation and know what needs to be done. I seek justice with ferocity and speak up under all circumstances. My fists fly with precision and my words are strong and steady. He lets the spirit flow through me so that I can be but a humble and broken tool for his work.

He forgives me when my gifts cut others with the double edged sword, the way I can hurt with my best intentions. He wipes away moments where I trip into being overly convictive and too harsh. He breaks my spirit when I begin to grow pride.


He gave me wild hair and big eyes. He gave me a funny button nose and ears that are two different levels. He gave me a body that doesn't hold me back or limit me to any disabilities. I can run, laugh, sing very loudly and with lots of heart. I am flexible, healthy, energetic, and youthful. He gave me little fingers to wear my engagement ring with awe. I have dexterity and can play a piano and tie my shoes without help. I can grip a paintbrush and change my very world with the depths of colors. He gave me freckles and beauty marks and perfect little imperfections.

My life on earth has not been held back by poverty, disability, government, phobias, persecution, or chronic illness. He has provided me a bed, a roof, a sense of home. I have never been without and I have never been hungry. I have never lined up outside of a soup kitchen or asked for change on a subway. I have never sat in a classroom and not been able to read or comprehend the words on the board. I have never been cold in the winter or worn clothes that were not clean. The Lord has given me a bounty and it is with sovereignty that He takes away.  He heals my illnesses and treats my mental disorders as moments where he can shine through my mortality.


He sees my weaknesses as opportunities for Him to be glorified. He allows me to suffer so that I can understand compassion. He allows pain in my life so that I will look toward Heaven. He allows me to feel confused, hurt, and betrayed so that I will know that He is the way, the truth, and the life. He lets me be ostracized, excluded, and completely alone so that I will know that this world is not where I belong.

I brag for my King.

I brag for my King, that I am one of His children. He has paid for my ransom, and chose me long before I was born. He sent Christ to be hung on a tree specifically for my very life. I will never have a reason to give up on life, because God is my very reason to live. He promises with the strongest covenant known and unknown to man that he will NEVER leave me or forsake me.

I am HIS. I belong to my sweet Messiah. I belong to God, my Lord, my Father, my Creator, Yahweh, Yeshua, the Prince of Peace, Elohim, the Light, El-Shiddai.

May my voice will never be silenced with songs of His worship. May my hands never stop doing His labor. May my arms never stop embracing others in love. May my eyes never stop looking toward my home, my heaven.

May my lips never cease whispering my gratitude.