I forgot how much i love to sing! Ok, you're probably thinkin', "huh?" but i've grown up in the church singing my heart out...my whole life I feel like God put oppertunities to share throuh song, in my path with school, grads and stuff and programs through choir and music at our church, I felt like God entrusted me with a gift and i always just loved to sing! In the van, at home, in the backyard, now with my kids. Only now i feel like it's ok to sing again. Obviously God used this period in my life to teach me a set of completely different lessons and i am so grateful He did. This period of crisis taught me to LISTEN...around every corner, or every turn of events, there were so many things we just did not know. How treatments were going to go, how quickly Colin would recover, who was going to help us care for the boys and how we were going to make it all work. I learned very early on, with my wanting to figure it all out fast kind of nature, God was forcing me to sit and LISTEN and WAIT on Him to work it all out and make it all happen. HIS plan was what was important...not the plan i worked out perfectly in my head for how i thought things were supposed to go. By beginning to learn this hard lesson, i also felt like i just couldn't open up to singing in anywhere more public than alone, in my car on the trips to and from Calgary. I never lost my love to sing, but my singing was my pleading prayers to God through worshiping in my car. If i was headed to Calgary, i would plead for God to keep the boys safe and to bless those who were caring for them...to get my head in the game to being a cargiver to my husband....then on the way back home, if Colin wasn't able to be with me, i would plead for God to keep Colin and heal him from this aweful disaster of a situation which was our life at that point. Singing is such a personal part of how i'm able to share my heart, but i was really trying to soak in the lessons of listening and hearing where God was wanting to use us through it all. Even if we were able to be at church, i just couldn't actually make an audible tune...i was silenced by actually listening to the words of those songs, the one's you grow up singing week after week...they lose their meaning..but i was learning to love the meaning of those songs, and God was showing me how beautiful music can be, if we quiet ourselves long enough to listen. Along with loving to sing, i'm finding it in me once again to praise...Praise is a powerful thing, it has this amazing way of bringing healing and release to my exhausted soul...it empowers me that through Christ, i can keep running, i am able to keep going because this life hasn't stopped for us. God has something, and i'm slowly realizing that it's ok to want or believe that God is going to bring good, and He already has, but that we can thrive and grow and be excited that God has not forgotten about us here! His plans for Colin have been carried out...but there are still plans in the works for us here, and i'm learning that it's ok to be excited for that...ok, i admit that again, my picture is probably WAY off of what God will actually bring about, and that scares me a little, having gone through the past year..BUT...God is a good God, and i have to TRUST that HE is guiding me....HE hasn't steered me wrong yet...i have no reason NOT to trust HIM..so i'm jumping in and holding on for dear life for what's next!

The song by Christy Nokels, "Healing is in Your Hands" says;
No mountain, no valley, no gain or loss we know, can keep us from Your love
No sickness, no secret, no chain is strong enough, to keep us from Your love
How high, how wide, no matter where I am, healing is in Your Hands
How Deep, how strong, now by Your grace I stand, Healing is in Your Hands
Our present, our future, our past is in Your hands, we're covered by Your Blood
In all things, we know that, we are more than conquerors, we're covered by Your Blood!
These rich words, are words that have brought me such healing and promise and passion to keep seeking and keep drawing on a God who has vowed to love and protect me since time began! I pray that these words, no matter where you are in life, can give you that same rich meaning and promise, and that you can find praise and healing wherever you are!
Sweet Dreams!
Luv, Melissa