I Think This Means I'll Be Singing A lot This Year

I remember sitting in Young Women's one Sunday being completely overwhelmed with the fact that I didn't know how the Lord answered my prayers. 

Whatever the lesson was on, I'm assuming prayer but it couldve just been my mind wandering, I just remember sitting and feeling completely disappointed. 

I felt like my prayers were not being answered to the extent of.. well.. everyone else.

This happened a couple other times throughout high school and then briefly afterward.. And to be honest, it most likely will happen many more times throughout my life. 

The natural man has a tendency to forget, so I am hoping that by writing this down I am increasing my chances of actually remembering.. 

The answer to how my prayers are actually answered didn't really come until Christmas of 2008.

It will be a Christmas I always remember, and not for the typical reasons of what I received that year but rather for what I learned in the time that followed. 

I specifically remember being in the shower the day after Christmas, having a bunch of questions and so many uncertainties and all I wanted to do was sing a certain spiritual song. 

I don't even remember the song, but whatever it was, it was supposedly a song that would just take me away for the time I was in there. 

For whatever reason, I could not remember the words. I could remember bits and pieces, hum the main melody, but I could not remember how it started and you cannot just sing a song to escape if you cant sing it from the beginning. 

And with me, I always just know songs. 

I have always had the ability to learn lyrics just by listening to a radio song once. But especially with spiritual songs.. I always just know them and can sing them without even thinking about it. Certainly not this time though. 

There was only one song that kept coming to my mind, clouding my memory so that I couldnt think of anything else.

I kept trying to push it away because it wasn't the song I was in the mood for.. but finally.. 

I just started singing it.

And it answered everything for me. 

I literally sobbed my eyes out in the shower that day.

And then I had more answers than I could hold on to, the main one being that my prayers are answered through song.

And they always have been.

I guess it just dawned on me that day in particular.

So here I was this morning, doing my daily accounting work for the family, making sure that everything was in tact and where it needed to be. 

In the process of all of that, however, we didn't get the best of news.

The finances that we were planning on for the coming Spring semester will not be here until Summer.

I hope you can put two and two together as to how this could be a problem.

So I started to panic, making tons of phone calls, expressing my panic to Mr. Robert, trying my best not to cry because I am supposedly a big girl now.

Of course, the phone calls don't really calm fears when you are told you will get a call back.

And the expressing to my dear sweet Husband didn't exactly help either because he seems to always have that faith thing down pat.

And the crying didn't really even happen because of the "big girl" thought that kept creeping in.

You cannot really muster up tears when you are secretly telling yourself it would do no good.

So, instead, I just decided to take a shower.

And what do you think happened?

Even before I got in the shower, I was looking at our "Master Big Fridge Calendar" and going over the next few weeks and realized I was singing one of my favorite Church songs without really thinking about it. 

I got in the shower and I just kept singing the song until I finished. 

It wasn't until the last little verse that I started to cry.

The next song did the same thing..  and then the next.. and the next..

"I wish, I dream, I hope for things that I can't see. I try, I pray, finding my way through this test of faith. And when my best is not enough.. He reaches down and lifts me up.."

"Every lonely hour, every tear that falls, every weakness and temptation He has felt it all..."

"You have a song to sing, you have a story to tell, there is a destiny that only you can fulfill. Though you are wandering, if you put your trust in Me, I'll give you a song to sing."

"His hands can always calm the wind, and the sea will calm at His command. He stands when all else falls... I know He's stronger than the storm."

It is so overwhelming to be able to sit and know that you are loved, that He knows what is going on in your life, and that He is ready and willing to help.

I don't care how much you think you know that fact.. Every time it will hit you harder than the time before.

It is so incredibly powerful to be able to feel that kind of peace. 

I knew going into this year that it would be a hard one, and if there is one thing that I want to be able to get out of it, it would be the increase in my knowing that my Savior loves me and knows me by name.

If nothing else.. if everything fails miserably.. I just want to have a stronger testimony of that love.

I want to have that faith based thing down pat, just like my Husband.

Songs have a deep meaning to me and certainly hold a special place in my heart. 

They bring me so much comfort and honestly answer things in ways that nothing else can.

So just keep singing Elyse.

Sing when you need to know what to do next, as silly as that may sound..

Just sing.

Sing anything at all.

He truly does answer my prayers.

I think this means I'll be singing a lot this year.