When You're Called To Surrender

The day was Saturday, May 26th, 2018.
Three days before the start of what is known as "tech week".
Thursday, five days away, was opening night.
And I had no voice.
This would be my first spring show with a mic.
I had roles with a name for the first time in a spring show, and I was assigned to every high harmony. In other words... That voice was kind of needed.
And yet, here I found myself... Stuck with a cold, and unable to sing a note.
At first... I cried. Not gonna lie. I was trying to keep a good attitude, but I just couldn't do it anymore.
God had been so kind to me this year. He had given me literally every role I had wanted and worked for, and more.
He had made dream after dream come true, and now here I was... Facing the possibility of having to give up those dreams.
Saturday evening, I went on vocal rest, only speaking every so often to see how the voice was doing; sent out a prayer request; and went into every home remedy I knew.
The more upset I got about the situation, the more miserable I became.
I told God more than once that I didn't know what He was doing, but I chose to surrender it anyway.
The more I cried out to Him (sometimes literally), the more comfort I would feel.
One time, I felt Him lay a verse that I had been reading daily for the past couple of weeks, on my heart.

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." -Isaiah 43:2

I realized that God was walking with me through this.
I realized that He was not entitled to heal me.
He had blessed me with these roles, and has so graciously let me live out my dreams every day this past year.
I realized that the worst case scenario would be that I couldn't sing for the shows, and my understudy would have to go on for me, leaving me to just do a dance number or two.
My understudy is an amazing woman of God, who is one of my closest friends, and someone I look up to greatly.
I wanted to mainly do these roles to give God the glory.
I found peace knowing that my understudy would be in it to do the same.
Though I would still be bummed if I couldn't go on, whatever happened, God would get the glory.
I had to humble myself, and really choose to trust God with this, not knowing if I would be able to live a dream I had been praying and working so hard for or not.
And so began tech week.
Still no voice.
I couldn’t hit my notes on Tuesday, couldn’t really do my character voices, had no energy whatsoever, and ended the night with a massive sinus headache.
Things were not looking very good, but I continued to pray anyway, and more than a few people told me they were praying for me as well.
Wednesday, I got a vision of a flag of healing waving above myself and the entire school.
That sounds really weird if you’re not into all that spirit stuff, but during my prayer time, I saw that in my spirit.
And then, I began to cough a clearing cough...
Super disgusting, I know, but the tissues and coughing were a wonderful sign because it was clearing me out.
I asked God for energy, and I felt it wash over me as I was getting ready to leave for day 2 of tech.
I was able to sing Wednesday. Still rough, but I did it. That was a miracle to me.
Then came opening night...
Still sick.
 Still clearing everything out the best I could.
Then I went to sing, not knowing what was about to happen...
I kid you not, it was almost like the cold had never even happened.
At the end of the night, when I took a bow, I thanked God for everything He had done.
He was not obligated to heal me.
But He did.
He wanted to see me live my dreams, giving it all to Him.
He is just so good.
To everyone who may be wrestling with surrender, I want to encourage you.
If you choose to love God more than this thing, hard as it may be...
He will never fail to give you the desires of your heart.
I promise you.
And those desires may not be the same desires you think they are, hard as that is to grasp.
But He knows you better than you know yourself, and He will never fail to give you more than you ever thought possible if you choose to live for Him.
And a God like that?...
That's a God I'm happy to surrender to. 

P.S. next week I will not be posting a blog, because I’m taking the week of June 3rd-10th offline as a week of worship. I will be back the 15th with a new blog!
‘Til then, may you have a wonderful two weeks, and I’ll see you around! Au revoir!