Shout To The Lord

 This weekend I watched “A Week Away” on Netflix.

If you were raised on contemporary Christian music in the 90’s then this will hit you RIGHT in the feels. Think High School Musical meets Christian Youth Camp (there’s even paintball and a blob!).

Yes, it’s a musical…BUT the unexpected twist is that the music is dripping with nostalgia from artists like Steven Curtis Chapman and Amy Grant. (Y’all, I died…it was so epically cheesy and amazing.)

This walk down memory lane inspired me to scrounge Spotify for the music of my youth. I’m now armed with a playlist that my 17 year old self would have DIED for.  (And I don’t even have to have a 5 disc CD changer!)

Listening to these tunes on repeat today has made my heart happy. Each song reminds me of cruising around Panama City, Florida in my blue Geo Prism with all the windows rolled down.  For me, it sounds like summer camp with World Changers, and Vanilla Malts from Sonic, concerts in our small town civic center (where the floor almost collapsed) and the endless miles that we put on Big Red and Old Blue (our church busses).

One song hit me especially hard. Just like smells can trigger strong memories, so can music.  And this one nearly knocked me on my butt.

It was 1997. Summer. Somewhere between Peoria, Illinois and Panama City, Florida.

Our youth group had joined with World Changers and had spent the week working on homes, replacing roofs, loving on people and their pets, taking showers in a trailer, and sleeping on the floor. We were getting ready to head home, and were visiting a local church.

The song “Shout To The Lord” had been chasing me all summer. I felt like it was EVERYWHERE.

But on this day, God revealed himself to me through this song in a way like he had never before.

You see, I wasn’t in a good place.  I was an awkward teenager (I mean, I’ve still not grown out of my awkward phase). I had just come out of a nearly year long relationship with a boy I genuinely thought I was going to marry. (Y’all, it wasn’t a pretty breakup…) Did I mention that he was in my youth group?  Uggh. Kill. Me. Now.

Additionally, things weren’t going super well in my family. There were some legal issues with my little brother (and that’s his story…not mine). All of these circumstances had left me feeling isolated and alone. I didn’t feel like I was “part of the group” (I know, typical teenage girl). I was lonely and just needed someone to SEE me. And no one did.

But God.

In a church of thousands, he bent down from heaven and held my sad little heart in his hands.

He reminded me that in everything he is holy, and he is present, and he is aware and not a single thing in the universe can compare to him.

As I sang that chorus from the depths of my soul I was telling my Jesus and my savior that there is none like him. In that moment he was my comfort and my shelter and a tower of refuge and strength.

As tears streamed down my face I promised that with every breath and all that I am I would never stop praising him because nothing compares to the promises that I have in him.

This moment – this meeting with Jesus in the valley would carry me through the next 8-12 months as God called my family away from the church we had attended my entire life. Once again Jesus held my broken heart in his hands as we dealt with rumors started by people that we thought were friends and a new loneliness as it became clear that we had just been another family in the pew, rather than people who were invited into the church community’s lives.

It sustained me as I attempted to find myself in this new group of youth (and even through never really feeling like I belonged there either).

What I didn’t realize at the time, and what 17 year old me could have never foreseen, was that this moment where God clearly lifted my eyes to him was a process that would be repeated frequently over the next two decades.

Each time I began drowning in my circumstances he reminded me of the promise that I made to sing for joy at the work of his hands and praise the wonders of his mighty love.