pursuing god – Sarah Faith

what if i miss out

this is a question i have wrestled with so much in my life. what am i meant for, and what if i miss it? what if the signs are plain as day and i’m too busy, too occupied, just too blind to see the clear sign in front of my face telling me which way to go?

we even have a name for it: FOMO. Fear. Of. Missing. Out.

but on what?

that list is LOONNGGGGGGGG. i can think of 10 things right now that i’m afraid of missing out on.

ok so, backstory… in August 2019, i moved to Nashville to be a musician. i was in a cover band in Michigan before coming to Tennessee and i was in a massage and i heard the Lord tell me to run. i was trying to decide if i was going to come or not, if it made sense or not… i mean, i was leaving everything i had ever known and loved in an instant. off a whim. a silly little gut feeling i had one time. some people know they’re supposed to come to Nashville. i didn’t! i thought it one time out of the blue because i was in the back of a van of dudes with my band traveling down to perform a show. and i felt it in my chest. so i went with it. so blindly.

here i am almost exactly 5 years later, here i am writing this to you… in a season where again i’ve got this feeling. this nudge. this call. and i really don’t know what to do with it. i’ve had it for a while. i’ve been going along to get along. and yesterday morning, i couldn’t do it anymore.

i had been feeling pulled to attend a Thursday evening recurring meeting. i told Matthew about it and his response was “just go this week, then.” so yesterday as i was thinking about the week, i made a mental note to myself that i was going to follow through on that decision Matthew and i had made and i was going to go. the only problem was that i remembered that i had an obligation on the calendar that night already. a show at a local bar.

when i tell you i was met INSTANTLY by the Lord, i mean it. like. INSTANTLY. SMACK. but it wasn’t violent. it wasn’t angry. it wasn’t intrusive. it simply invited me and said, “you get to choose. you can do either one, and you get to choose.” so in that moment i made a choice and i knew it wasn’t going to be easy, because i am NOT the girl that goes back on her commitments… but i sent a text message. “i’m really sorry, and i hope this reaches you well, but i need to pull the show from the calendar on Thursday” *send* then i sat there.

i looked at my calendar. i noticed i had three more dates on the calendar with this same venue. and i sent a second message: “and i am so appreciative of the space you’ve given me on your stage, allowing me to share music with your community, but i need to cancel all further shows as well.” *send*

then i sat there again. wondering what i was doing. this is So. Not. Me. and that’s how i know it’s God. because none of this would ever cross my mind if i was doing all of these things my way. i am the muscle, the grit, the strength, the force, the don’t stop until it happens. i am her. but not this time. this time i’m being asked to surrender. to give it up. to lay it down. and i’ve been asked dozens of times over the past months… and i finally reached a point where there were two conflicting things that had me in such a tight spot where the choice one way or another felt so defining… it is so obvious to me that the scheduling conflict on Thursday night was no coincidence. and there is not a single person in Heaven or on Earth that’s truly “mad” at me for choosing either way… i just knew i had to make a choice.

i got to the next date on the calendar which was an obligation i made just two weeks ago, if that, to a close friend of mine. i paused. i didn’t want to disappoint him. this is a dude that’s believed in me since the day i met him. i appreciate him and his friendship Soooo much… but i knew i had to keep going. so i sent a similar message: “hey, i hope you’re having a lovely day. i’m sending you a message i never would have thought i would be sending you. i need to pull that date on the calendar we just talked about. i’m feeling called away from music for right now, and i have to listen.”

i felt sad. i felt heavy. but if i’m 100% honest, i also started to feel free.

a couple shows in October – cancelled. one that i was very excited to be a part of! one that was for the city of Clarksville, do you know how excited i was when i was invited to play that stage?! so excited. i was getting ready to put a full band together for a couple of these shows. there’s almost quite literally NOTHING in the world i love more than performing original music with a full band.

but i knew. i just knew. i was being called to surrender it all. not hanging on to any of it for myself. giving it all to Him. allowing him the space.

funny thing was… i would get to a date that i didn’t think i would be able to let go of… sit for a second… and send the message. once all the messages were sent, the first song that popped into my head was, “i will make room for you… to do whatever you want to. to do whatever you want to.”

it’s true. and ruthlessly so. i am feeling called to make room for whatever God wants to do next. even i don’t really know what that means, but if He’s calling me to lay down something that i love so much that i would move my entire life from Michigan to Tennessee to follow a dream, i have to believe that we’re going somewhere with this.

i hope that reading this gives you hope. i hope it helps you decide. i hope you see a choice you need to make and it’s a little easier because you KNOW that if He’s going to call you to give up something you really, truly love… He’s going to have something waiting for you that’s going to blow your mind. there’s a graphic that i’ve seen in the past couple weeks… which… now that i think about it… the timing of that is pretty crazy… it was literally days ago. there’s a girl that has her teddy bear behind her back and Jesus is asking for it. she’s unwilling to give it up because she loves it so much.

what she doesn’t know is Jesus has a teddy bear about 5x the size waiting behind His back for her. and all He’s asking is for me to trust Him. it’s the least i can do. He gave his life for me. He died for me. He saved me. He rescued me. He’s saved me more times than i can even count, are you kidding me? He’s been through every trench with me and guided me to every mountain top i’ve had the pleasure of reaching. He’s got this. and He’s got you, too. He’s just waiting on your surrender. <3

our wedding story

once upon a time, a boy messaged a girl on Instagram about songwriter’s rounds in Nashville, she responded, and now we’re here…

OBVIOUSLY that’s extremely abbreviated, so lemme give you a few more details…

when Matthew had proposed in February (the day AFTER Valentine’s Day because ON Valentine’s Day would’ve been too cheesy, and he didn’t want to be cheesy), we knew we didn’t really want a long engagement. there were a couple reasons for this:
• Matthew would melt in a mid-summer occasion
• we’ve been talking about marriage basically since day one so why wait?
• we like to make things interesting…

so we decided to look at the calendar, skirt around baseball tournaments if at all possible, and make a choice.

i’ll admit, i did have a little bit of thought on the date because the day we started this whole thing was 12.1.21 and i think that’s kinda neat. so i thought 4.27.24 would be a cool wedding date / anniversary… never mind that it would mean planning a wedding in about 70ish days…. i left that part up to Jesus because an April wedding sounded good to us. and we sent up a double prayer for weather.

venue wise, we didn’t really have a clue where to start. we had considered somewhere local, but didn’t necessarily know of anything too picturesque, didn’t wanna spend $10K, and didn’t need anything too fancy… we’re super simple people and we wanted our wedding to reflect that.

in Tennessee, there are soooo many beautiful places, but lots of them are 3-4 hours away from where we live. that didn’t sound all that appealing… so i started looking for mountain-esque things which led me down a path toward a place called The Leeric Lodge… the views on this place… holyyyyyyy moly… and it wasn’t 4 hours away. i had no reason to believe they would have our date available on such short notice, but when i found out they did, i was pretty dang excited. we needed to work a few details out with them based on our tiny ceremony, but it all ended up getting sorted – than you, Jesus!

we stayed in an AirBnb not far from the venue with EVERYONE in the same house – Matthew and me, his parents and step parents, his sister + brother-in-law with their brand new baby, my parents, and our kids. it was DEFINITELY a house full and required some air mattresses, but it was honestly the best time, and i couldn’t have imagined a more perfect arrangement.

after the wedding, (for which we were granted absolutely PERFECT weather!!!), we opted for a family dinner in town before spending our last night in the AirBnb before loading everyone up in the morning and heading back home to Clarksville.

we decided to have our reception the following day, Sunday, at The Amsterdam Local where all our friends would be able to celebrate with us. We had a whole Table -Sized charcuterie spread, the most beautiful cake, mini bundt cakes, macarons, and lotssss of community. just really simple.

there were definitely a lot of hands-on details for this whole thing, but honestly, i don’t think we could have dreamed it any better. the biggest takeaways for the whole weekend is we are: 1) grateful for every single human that came to celebrate with us 2) unbelievably grateful for the weather and 3) sooo glad we kept it soooooo simple.

being a part of this family is such a blessing, and there’s no way to create a wedding day that encapsulates all the blessings this marriage will grow into and bring us in the years and years to come. so if there was any advice to give to anyone in a similar situation, i’d definitely say: keep your ceremony to the Absolute Must-Have VIP people, invite your close-to-the-vest circle to your reception, do it all really small and beautiful, and allow yourselves to really celebrate what God is going in the midst of the whole thing. don’t get too caught up in the details of one specific day because at the end of the day, you’re still going to be married. the details will be nothing but things you spent money on to a certain extent. make it count.

HUGE Thank You to:
– Leeric Lodge
– “The Hoot” AirBnb in Silver Point
– BHLDN Bridal (dress)
– Alterations by Hanna (amazziinnggg)
– Briggs Clothiers (custom suit)
– The Amsterdam Local ♥
– Kristen Paige Photography (THANK YOU!!!!!)
– Ellie Beans Cakes (yummmmm)
– Thistle Sweets
– Nothing Bundt Cakes
– Snap Dragon Wagon!!! (Jen…. don’t even get me started)
– Jesus for thinking putting us together was a good idea
– our families for driving all over the country for us
– our friends for loving us, supporting us, and celebrating with us

“‘Til the End, Forever + Again” ♥

engaged!

holy. crap. what a week!! something i have prayed for, hoped for, longed for happened and i am just… so grateful and ecstatic about it all.

taking it back back back… when you get divorced… rather… when i got divorced… i was stuck in this time space continuum of “well. what a waste that was. wonder if it’ll ever happen again…?” because we’ve got this weird relationship with “opportunity.” we’ve gotta catch it while it’s here because sometimes it just doesn’t come around twice.

i think that’s a load of crap.

when the opportunity came around this time, it was easy, effortless, light, and it was better. so i wanna just say… feel free to dump all your thoughts about the scarcity of opportunities straight in the toilet where they belong. and use the big flush. the one for #2.

he planned the cutest, most perfect engagement maybe ever. if you haven’t seen the video, go check it out on my social media pages. we were literally making homemade pizza that night. and then i was told we were going on a coffee date because our friend Collin had a gig, and i love Collin’s music, Collin as a human, and i love coffee dates with my babe.

i didn’t know that Collin’s gig was staged. i didn’t know that everyone in the shop knew what was about to happen. i had no clue that in the pocket of Matthew’s jacket was the most beautiful engagement ring i would ever see in my whole life. i just had no idea. which is probably why i showed up in a Canadian Tuxedo…

maybe one of the most perfect parts of the night, which was not planned whatsoever, was the undeniable God wink… the baristas write bible verses on the cardboard cup surround thingys at the beginning of the week. and they’re all different and randomly distributed. on this night, mine said , “Matthew 11:28” which reads, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” the week had been heavy with expectations on myself, music dreams, business dreams, etc… and in this moment, i was nearly on my face with gratitude for a Lord that loves us in this gentle, kind way.

and about 23 minutes later, i was grateful in a whole new way for the man that asked me to spend forever with him… how fitting that the book of Matthew would be so present in my hemisphere these last few weeks, and even on the night that he would propose.

there’s a lot of little winks like that in life if you’re not too in a hurry to notice them. have you had one lately?

♥, SF