stay the path – Sarah Faith

a new record

well. i didn’t really know what else to title this… nothing cryptic, no keeping the cat in the bag…. but we’re working on another record.

a few months ago, it was very clear to me that it was time for me to lay music down and i cancelled all of the live performances on my calendar. to be honest with you, i’m not still not quite sure how i did that. i was texting through tears the entire time. it made no sense to me how i could so clearly feel in my gut that this was the right thing to do. but i just knew it’s what had to be done. i knew it was time.

at the time, i had zero motivation to play one note on a guitar. not a single bit of inspiration coursed through my veins. i hadn’t recorded a note in months, probably not since i released Come Alive… i thought it was gone. i mean, i really thought…. “good goin’, kid. you taught yourself another useless skill…” after all, that’s sometimes what it feels like to have built a photography business in Michigan for five years only to shut it down completely for music. just meandering along, teaching myself random skills that i later abandon for unknown reasons…

i can really be a jerk to myself sometimes… i’m working on it.

a few weeks ago… another nudge. i started getting weird sporadic inspiration for songs, verses and choruses and chord progressions started coming randomly into my mind. i’d be doing something like laundry or taking a walk and another song would make its way into my mind… i think i probably ignored it at first because even if i did flesh out the entire song, i didn’t know what the heck i would do with it.

finally i had enough… the ideas wouldn’t leave me alone. so i started writing a couple of them in my Google Docs like i’ve always done — “idea” with the date. a few of them just stuck in my head, bouncing around and around, almost begging me to write them. eventually, the sentiment came… “write another record.” what? where is this coming from…?

“write another record, Sarah. write a Christian blues rock record.” such a clear direction. pretty hard to ignore. and crazy sounding, might i add… how on Earth am i gonna make THAT!? (from the heart… that’s how…)

so i’ve been diving in. that’s the news. i’m making another record. and it dives harder into blues, rock, some jazz and funk, more guitar, more instruments than i’ve ever experimented with… but i’m very excited to see what comes from this. i’m writing it with my buddy Josh Tobias, which, if you haven’t heard his stuff, i’d love for you to go take a listen. dude is mega talented. i’ve written some of my most favorite songs with Josh — it’s been really fun inviting him into this project.

fun short story on that: i told him i felt compelled to write another record and felt pretty strongly that he was supposed to be writing this with me. his immediate response was, “i’m in. say when.” turns out, he’s apparently been wanting to write something like this for a while so being asked to be part of this is hopefully as much of a gift to him as it is to me.

i think you’re gonna like this stuff. i know i say that every time, but if you’ve been following the evolution of my musicianship at all, this is going to be something i’m super proud of. there’s some killer emotions, themes, sentiments, and inspiration being collected and fleshed out for this one, and i’m hoping it’s going to inspire you in a bunch of ways.

i wanna write this record “in the gap” so to speak. i’m writing it for the person who’s going through it but knows there’s something more to life than their valleys. i’m not writing this from the top of the mountain. i’m not writing this about a life lived without trial or tribulation — that wouldn’t be a story i know anything about. i’m writing this for the person who, like me, finds themselves in some pretty desolate lows and knows relief is possible, but sometimes it seems like it’s far more common for others, or just out of reach. it’s for the person that needs something to hold on to and needs to figure out who this Jesus guy is because He might just be the last and only hope.

i won’t say much more right now… but i just wanted you to know. something’s coming, and i hope you’ll stick around and give it a listen.

♥, SF

U-Turn

Story Time: i was in my car headed to Nashville on Tuesday morning. just like i do most Tuesday mornings because there’s a women’s bible study that i’ve been participating in since probably January or February.

my car needed gas because i would have never made it to Nashville on the 23 miles left in the tank, and as i pulled over in the right lane to turn into the gas station, i heard a Very Clear message in my mind, heart, soul, spirit…. “get gas and go home.”

what…? are you serious? but i’m going to bible study. isn’t that what i’m supposed to be doing? but it was so clear, i cannot even explain it.

“don’t go. get gas and go home.”

so that’s what i did. that’s exactly what i did. i didn’t fight it. i didn’t understand it – i did NOT understand it. i still don’t. sitting here on my front porch writing this, i still am not quite sure that i understand what the heck it was all about, but i really feel like i’m getting to a place where i don’t have to understand it.

i don’t have to understand why He’s leading me in the way that He is, but i’m not gonna stay in the business of asking why. it’s very human to want to understand the plan, know the path, know where it’s leading… but we’re not promised that. we were never told that He was going to reveal the goal to us – matter of fact, people that claim to know exACTly where they’re ultimately going are usually deceived.

here’s something scary to write: i have no idea where i am going. and i can feel Him shifting. moving. inspiring. introducing new possibilities. opening my eyes to a BUNCH of things. and a lot of it makes Absolutely Zero Sense.

and that HAS to be ok. that has GOT to be ok.

the more i fight it, the more upset i get… because guess what?! He’s not gonna quit moving in His way. He’s not gonna change His mind. He will just keep shifting me, refining me, sharpening me, until me “want to” aligns with the “want to” He has for me.

so i made the U-Turn. i got gas. i got in my car. and i went back home. i couldn’t explain it – it was a really weird re-entry into the house after i had just told Matthew i would see him in a few hours. but oh well. i just… listened. that’s all. it was that simple.

i died to myself. a lot of me wanted to push through and still go to the bible study. but for reasons i may never be able to articulate, my spirit wasn’t signing off on that. and it wasn’t budging. i asked “what?” like… eight times. no change. no budge. no sway. just kept saying “don’t go.”

and what happened after that? was i worried about what people were gonna think? no. i wasn’t. i had this overwhelming PEACE and all i had to do was LISTEN. all i had to do was just NOT DO WHATEVER I WANTED and listen to my soul gently telling me to reconsider.

that’s what i’m after. i’m relentlessly pursuing that peace. that’s how i know i’m on the right track. inner peace. outer conflict, sure, whatever, but the inner peace is undeniable.

try it. i’m dying to know what you think and how you feel when you listen to that still small voice, whether it makes sense or not.

i also wanna know – are you one of those people that HAS to have stuff make sense? how are you working to break out of that need? i’m working on it, too.

the horse just loves to run

i listened to Cody Asbury’s new album in the car this morning and i found myself getting really down with so many of the lyrics but one of them stuck out to me more than others:

“the jockey lives for racing, the horse just loves to run”

you could probably take these words a number of ways, but here’s my interpretation – i get excited about racing just like any human, but what i really wanna be like is the horse. win or lose, i just want to love to run. i want to have my blinders on and be so excited about where i’m going that i don’t have to care about the interpretation of the result. i don’t even have to worry about winning or not because to enjoy the journey is to win. the win or loss is subjective. how can you lose when you’re enjoying where you’re at, blooming where you’re planted? where’s the loss in that?

i don’t even want to worry about the finish line. i just want to be in the moment. running, doing, being, breathing, loving, enjoying, serving, giving – whatever it is that i need to do to run the race right now, that’s what i want to focus on. i’m not worried about the next lap. i’m not even worried about the next turn. i want “step by step” and “little by little” to be my largest concerns.

i think it’s when we are faithful with little that we are trusted with more. i think that we have to do the “little by little” first because running the entire race at once would be entirely overwhelming, not to mention the lack of sense it makes. people, we have to live one moment, one minute at a time, because we literally cannot live in two minutes at once. that’s as “nuts and bolts” as we can get… it can’t be about the next moment until we finish this one. and we also don’t get to be mad at time for passing so quickly if all we’re going to do is wish for the next chapter.

have you ever tried to read the instructions on how to build something or the entire recipe on how to cook something and realize that trying to memorize all the steps 1-10 at once is pretty impossible…? sometimes i get ahead of myself and think that i’m going to be able to follow like… four steps at once. and i’m always wrong. that never works. and the same is true for whatever path we’re on. there’s directions, but sometimes it’s as simple as, “run.” are you looking for something more complicated than that? do you think you need more information than that? sometimes we don’t get more information than that. no further instructions, no reasons why, and it doesn’t make any sense to us.

for example. i fired this blog back up about 12 weeks ago or so… i still don’t know why. you reading this right now is definitely part of the reason, but beyond that, i’m not really sure. maybe it’s not deeper than that. but i keep feeling compelled to write it. so here i am writing. and dang it, i am loving it. if there’s no further purpose, then ok, because the horse just loves to run.

i hope i allow that sentiment to bleed over into whatever i’m doing. and i hope you do to. i hope not everything you do today or this week “needs” a purpose, so to speak. i hope you can find a way to do something just because you love it. just because you’re a human who gets to breathe air into your lungs and do things for the enjoyment of being alive. not because it gains you anything, not because it “moves the needle” or whatever. just because you can. these are little moments in life that i believe we could use a lot more of.

in what ways can you just “love to run” in your life today?