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“Don’t cry.” I said to myself. I’m not much of a public crier.

I heard my friends’ laughter, and so I turned and waved goodbye. I stood there for a bit, watching them walk off.

I fumbled for my car keys, as I felt tears creeping down my face. The dam that held them there finally crashed.

I started the car, put the iPod on shuffle and began the long drive home.

Do you ever have those moments where your iPod is playing the perfect music for that one moment? Well this was one of those moments.

Coldplay’s, “Fix You” came on and nostalgia dripped out my speakers.

Nearly five years ago, the summer before college, I was driving home from a late  night with these same friends. I don’t remember much about that night, but just that I laughed so hard my stomach was sore.  I remember thinking I had better hurry, because I had curfew.

As I speed back to my house, “Fix You” came on. I hummed along for a bit. But suddenly, it was one of those moments that you know you need to soak in. Like, if you don’t capture this in your mind, you will forget it. Lose it. So I embraced it.

I rolled down my windows as I crossed over Lake Ray Hubbard and I turned up the stereo. I let my left hand fly free out the window. I smiled and thought of how God had blessed me with such great friends. That He was about to take us on a great adventure in college. That this was only the beginning to something bigger in our lives.

You see, life is not what I thought it would be at twenty-three.  I am doing nothing with the degree I worked for. I have traveled to unthinkable places. Have had so many experiences and broken hearts. So much life has happened in those five years.

My two best friends, sisters really, are now married and going on great adventures in life.

A few of us met up together for dinner before my dear friend Andrea and her husband left for Philly. We laughed, and shared one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. But that night, I don’t think it was the food that made it so great, but rather the company. As we had our final sips of Illy coffee and still laughing about something when I couldn’t help but think that this was a little shadow of what heaven might look like.

But as I walked back to my car, I couldn’t help but be a little sad. Part of me was sad that I was being left behind. That this was it, that I would never see them again. That I wouldn’t have grand nights like that night.

But as Chris Martin crooned in my car stereo, a smile crept on my face. I got a flashback to five years ago, when we were departing for college. I knew that this was another one of those moments that I should soak in, remember.

I rolled the windows down and left my left hand fly free in the warm summer air as I drove down I-75.

But I knew that my friends moving to different places, wasn’t a goodbye. But rather, it was another beginning to a new stage in our lives. This was just the Diaspora.

Happy Weekend.

If you like an artist or song, please go and support them.

But I have made us all a nice little Summer Mix to help maybe you down with good tunes.

Enjoy

Thu-thump. Thu-thump.

A long pause.

Thu-thump.

The heartbeat comes in slow. A few unsure beats at first, but eventually it grows stronger.

Pins and needles prick down my spine.  A wave of feeling rushes down as blood returns to my limbs.

Warmth. Something strange that I hadn’t felt in so long.

I try to move, but I feel like I am tied down, like I am in one of those dreams where you are trying to run, but have lead in your shoes.

I can hear muffled voices around me. I don’t know what they are saying, but I recognize them.

A voice louder than all the rest speaks. One that is ancient, deep and yet full of warmth. When this voice speaks, my heart is brought back to life, healed. When this voice speaks, I am reminded of who I am.

“Rise, my child.” He says.

Then suddenly, oxygen floods my lungs, clenching at the sides of my hospital bed with white knuckles.

A white-hot burning light flashes before my eyes.

And then I am alive.

——-

The funny thing about comas is that you never really realize that you’re in one. Time elapses by. Day after day, but you don’t know that you aren’t in the present.

You see, I was in a sort of coma.

For a majority of the past year I lived in the future. In my mind I was always a few states away. Always a step ahead of myself. But funny how our best laid plans always seem to fail.

God was calling me to a greater journey and a greater plan, but I had the grabbed the pen and was trying to write my own story. I was never truly present, or satisfied where God had me.

When that bittersweet day happened in December, I was scared. To me, all of my hopes had been shattered. That my perfect story had just been burned to pieces. I began to slowly slip deeper and deeper into a coma.

I wasn’t myself. I forgot who I was and the world around me faded to grey. It was like I was living in the fog, flying blind.

I cried out for a God who would come and heal my broken heart. A heart that was bleeding and I was unable to do anything about it. I tried again and again to make everything better.

Each day I cried out for Him to heal me.  But as the days turned into months, the coma overtook me.

I was robbed of my joy, my identity and no longer lived for the future … because it was gone. I now lived in the past. Reliving memories that should have been forgotten. Walking old streets where love no longer lived. The past was a horrible place to dwell.

My mind was just like the winter that seemed to never leave Texas, full of death and dying.

But then something happened.  After months of wrestling with the angels and facing down my demons … One day the fog lifted. As if with the changing of Winter to Spring, my heart was healed.

The world around me mirrored my heart. Flowers slowly climbed their way out of the cold, hard ground. The bare arms of the trees began to slip into their green leaves.  Spring had come to Texas as well as to my heart. Life flooded my veins.

It was like my very first Spring. I had forgotten what leaves looked like on trees, what the soft blades of grass felt like under my bare feet.   It was like how the sky always looks bluer, and the sun seems to shine more bright after it has rained.

You see, He was wooing me. He was calling me to come back, to find my true identity as His child, His beloved. To discover a greater and better path that He has for me.

Like Jesus called to the paralytic man after He healed him, “Arise, pick up your mat and walk.”

So that is what I am doing, I am getting up and walking to Him.

I believe He has called me awake from my coma. Ya I still hurt from time to time. But I have a Healing Hand against my side. He has brought life to my veins and has lifted the fog.

The Spring breeze flows into my car, pulling at the ends of my hair. The golden-orange beams of the sunset shine through, making my hair look even more red. I smile as Explosions in the Sky drums on off my radio. The trees sway with their arms full of leaves. I breathe in deep and exhale as a smile sweeps across my face.

That is what this is for me  … my first breath after a coma.

Spring time has come to Texas and is beautiful outside. But God has also caused Spring to come in my heart, where things are starting to bloom and live is flooding back into my veins.

So here is a little mix I made just for you all to enjoy.

But some of the worst memories come from that age. Being shot down by the opposite sex for the first time. Not making the sports team. Being made fun of for being in the band because of the horrid outfits. Not making the cheerleading team. Crummy teachers who pick on you.

Trust me, I tried to forget a lot of my middle school years.

You see, I was a nerd. I know that might seem hard for you to believe but, it’s true. Very few people can witness to this.

I was a tomboy. My shorts had to go past my knee, shirts could not be form fitting WHAT so ever. Not to mention my obsession with wildlife. I was a passionate supporter of saving the whales and the wolves. The idea of flirting with boys never crossed my mind. I would rather beat them in a game of soccer.

But as 7^th and 8^th grade came around, something clicked. (Probably hormones) But my mom swears it was hear never ending prayer that God would let her daughter be feminine. But I suddenly became aware of the way I looked and boys.

My entire world revolved around the way my hair looked that day. I remember so many fights with my mom over what to wear to school. I started hanging out with more girls than boys, which only fed my clothing/hair obsession. I was a pendulum that swung to the complete opposite direction.

But I remember the moment God got a hold of me and my selfish ways.

It was at middle school camp that I felt the true presence of God.  I don’t remember what the message was about, or what the devotionals where over. But I remember suddenly feeling the weight of my sin and crying out to God, then immediately feeling that carried away.

Many people make faces at me when I tell them that I help out with middle schoolers at the church. A lot of people think that middle schoolers are a waste of effort, because they will never “get it” spiritually. But because God got to me at that age,  is why I passionately pursue to tell them about God. Because I know God can speak to people, no matter the age.

I recently lead at a Disciple Now, where groups of kids stay in a church members home and a leader teaches them. I did a brief lesson over having a quiet time with the Lord. I shared with them about what mine looks like and showed them how to journal prayers and what they learned.

They had never heard of the idea of reading their Bible, let alone journaling prayers. I was astonished. How had they never heard of this?!

I let them go in different areas of the house and simply let them have their own quiet time with the Lord.

When I asked them their favorite time of the entire weekend, you know what they said? It wasn’t the silly games we played, or the crazy fun things, it was the quiet times we had.

That is the reason I lead middle school. To teach them about their walk with the Lord, to point them to God when things get tough. Because girls know how other girls are at that age.

Because I want these girls to look back at their lives, and not repress their middle school memories. To look back and think, that was when I met God.

My eyes snapped open. Tongues of fire raged around me, burning every part of me they touch. Every nerve in my body screamed with pain.

“Father! Get me out of here!” I screamed. The sound of my own voice was drowned against the noise of the fire.  I felt small and alone.

At first there was silence. But I felt a familiar voice say deep into my soul, “Be still, my child. The pain will be worth it in the end. I am refining you.”

I always thought I had a heart of “pure gold.” Life always seemed to go right as I planned. But the past year has been one full of disappointments, death and heartbreak.

You see, I never really had a reason to doubt God. But the very moment I was tossed into these situations, my faith faltered and swayed. Questions like, “Why me?”, “What did I do wrong?”.

I spent late nights weeping (No not crying. Crying is soft, with little tears. Weeping wrenches your whole body into exhaustion) over things I have lost, plans gone wrong.

One late teary night, I called up a dear friend for guidance and encouragement.

She spoke 1 Peter over me:

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuiness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes thought it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ..”

Ok, so my trials are a bit different than what Peter went through, but they are trials nonetheless.

But as she spoke this scripture to me, I felt the Holy Spirit tugging at my heart at the phrase “ tested by fire”.  Being ignorant, I put the phrase away in the back of my mind for a later date.

But God has a funny way of speaking to you through your friends.

I drove down to College Station to visit my best friend and her husband, a great place to get away from it all. We had just cooked an amazing meal of spaghetti and artichokes and her husband prayed over the food, but the prayer was more over me.

He prayed that I would treasure this time of refinement. That I would come out a whole new person with a faith on fire.

That was like a 2X4 to my head. God obviously was trying to teach me that He was refining me through all of this. The next day I began my study of refinement. I guess these are those findings/reflections.

Refine: 1. To reduce to a pure state

2. to free from moral perfection

3.to improve by pruning or polishing

4. to free from what is coarse, vulgar or uncouth

I scoured the internet for terms, and even tried to do research on the actual refining process. I came up with nothing.

All that I know is fine metals aren’t always pure. They have flecks of imperfections in them and the only way to get them out is to place them into a ridiculously hot fire. The only thing that is able to survive this fire are the most pure parts of the metals.

I searched for all the times the word “refined” was used in the Bible and came up with A LOT. But I read everyone of them.

For example, Pslams 66:10, God allows the Israelites to be “crushed” by a burden, to be overcome by a foreign enemy. They went through “fire and water”. But God didn’t simply refine them and bring them out. He brought them to a place of abundance, a place full of blessing. God heard their prayer and responded.

Isaiah 48:10, talks about how God tries in the fire/furnace of affliction for HIS glory.  Again in Isaiah 1:25, He smelts away the impurities and then RESTORES us.

A lot of the verses had the similar message, God allows this stuff to happen, molds us, takes out the sin, the shame, those little thoughts and habits we have that aren’t pure, and then polishes us, restores us for HIS glory.

But I never realized I was in the fire in the first place. I was so wrapped up in the pain and the hurt to realize the end result of God’s glory in all of what was happening.

A lot of my prayers in those first few weeks where, “God, get me out of this fire. Please.”

But now I realize that he doing a work in me. Refining isn’t a fuzzy, feel good, happy process. It’s burning, melting the imperfections slowly.

So now, rather than praying for the fire to go away, I simply pray for God’s hand to squeeze during it all. Because after this is all done, I will shine like silver.

I grabbed my knit hat and pulled it over my head. My lion’s mane for hair puffed out under it. I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.

Snow drifted from the grey-blanketed sky. I looked up as snowflakes kissed my cheeks. I smiled a little thinking that this is your type of weather.

Before I could think of you further, I shoved my hand in my pocket and ran for the car.  I’ve been driving a lot lately, back and forth to friend’s houses. It seems to be a sort of therapy for me. But I feel like no amount of music, or car drives can help me get over this feeling.

I drove around for a while, but I eventually found myself in a place that was a familiar setting. My laptop sat on the countertop, a warm beverage was between my hands warming my fingertips and the hum over the other conversations droned in the coffee shop.

My fingers knew the keys and my mind flowed with words. A part of me seemed whole as I wrote.

You see, I’m a writer. No amount of design classes can take that away. Writing is my form of catharsis. Purging. Cleansing.

It was then I realized that I had gone astray somewhere.

I had my pride hurt a while back when I got turned down for my dream job. It was the ultimate goal of my college career. I tried to keep my head held high, and searched for other jobs. But the result was the same every time, I just wasn’t good enough.

As a result, I was convinced my writing was the problem. It was painful to try and write. So I left my keyboard and pen behind and picked up charcoal and art supplies. I found another part of who I am, an artist.

But focused all my efforts on my school and a long-distance relationship. Eventually, the two became idols that I clung on to.  To sum it up, our God is a jealous lover and I am glad for it.

He pried my fingers off of these idols and like a stubborn little child I whined and threw a tantrum. But what I am learning is that God himself is so much more than what I lost.

So, I am back. A totally different Lee Ann. Wounded yet healing. Searching how I can glorify God with what He has given me and I do believe that this is by writing. By catharsis.