The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living (13 page)

Then Rich had started to talk to me about God. He asked me questions about what we believed and seemed surprised by my answers. He mentioned that it was strange to meet religious people who didn’t seem judgmental like other religious people he knew.

“I don’t like to say I am religious because it lumps me in with a bunch of people that I don’t understand,” I’d said. “Instead I just really love Jesus.”

He’d tilted his head up and smiled at that, like he had been thinking of just that idea and wondering about the difference.

“We should talk more about this sometime.”

“Yes!” I’d answered. “I’d love to. It’s my favorite topic.”

“Cool!” he said. “Let me know when you are playing again. I’d love to help you guys out when I can.”

And so it was Rich at the soundboards once again for South by Southwest. We were all ecstatic that Rich was available to help us out during our set. This was the most important show we had ever played, and Rich made us sound a thousand times better than we really were. And when we played, I could tell from Monika’s long, tangled mass of full-bodied hair that was flailing around and her rock horns swung over her head that something about our show was definitely winning her over. We all felt like something exciting was about to happen.

The most encouraging person in the audience was Jared’s grandpa, Pop. He stood up above everyone, leaning on the guardrail with his rock fist up the entire set.
Pop thinks we rock
, I thought to myself.
What else really matters?
It made me smile like a goofball.

After the show, Monika, the RCA rep, and a representative from BMI offered to buy us a Stubb’s barbecue dinner. We sat there and learned about the music industry from these excited, beautiful women who loved our inexperienced little band. We only played because it was fun, and I think they loved that about us. It made them giddy. And their giddiness made us giddy.

I looked around the table at the guys—teenagers, most of them. I was so thankful to get to do this with them. I knew we were going to be a family for a while after this, and I loved
them all so much. I couldn’t think of a better group of humble guys to start this adventure with. I wondered what they were thinking. I wondered if they knew what I knew. I wondered if they knew that we were beginning an amazing journey that was going to change all our lives in so many great ways.

W
e sat around the conference table in the New York City office for Octone Records with about twelve people who would make up our future record label. Our lawyer and manager were with us. By this time we had discovered that the name Passerby was already trademarked by another artist, and so we had changed the name of our band to Flyleaf. We discussed our vision for Flyleaf and the difference between being freely artistic in our music and being universally acceptable. We discussed the ways we’d have to compromise artistically in order to reach a bigger audience.

Suddenly the subject shifted from artistic compromise to the question of how much of a role our faith would play in Flyleaf music. They wanted to know if we were looking to be a Christian band, or simply Christians who were in a band.

For some reason my ears got very hot at this moment and I heard a crazy ringing coming from my brain and filling my ears. I had no idea what was happening except that I was talking, and I knew I was talking about Jesus and hell and music and worship, and about how people need to know that there is hope for them in the face of their deepest hopelessness and pain. I knew that everyone was staring at me, completely engrossed in what I was saying about these things, yet I have no idea what it was that I actually said. But afterward, Octone seemed to still be on board with wanting to sign us.

The reason we wanted a label that would market us to radio that had no regard for Jesus at all, and the reason we wanted to tour with bands who were atheistic and blasphemous in their lyrics, was because that’s where I would find a hopeless girl like myself looking for her real purpose—someone like my sixteen-year-old self who had tremendous pain in her heart and was overwhelmingly tired of living the life she was living.

I wanted with all my heart to go to those places that are an eerie foreshadow of hell—and pull people out.

Singing to Shadows

The club was hot and dark. It smelled like stale beer and cigarettes. A couple screamed at each other in one corner. Two girls made out in another corner. A kid with bloodshot eyes and a goofy smile, who couldn’t have been older than fourteen, stood front and center, smoking a cigarette, wearing a shirt with the words “F-Y’all” on the front and “I’m from Texas” on the back. His girlfriend absentmindedly twisted her
dark dreadlocks while staring at the blonde girl beside her in disgust. You could see the “Give-me-one-reason-to-slap-you-please-I-can’t-wait” look on her face as her eyes burned a hole in the back of the blonde’s head. The blonde girl was much too big to be wearing the tight little tube top she had on, and her tiny shorts looked more like underwear. Her high heels provided just enough height for her to see above the stage. She laughed loudly at every male around her who said anything at all, whether it was funny or not.

It was one of our first big shows in Houston.

The opening band had already finished their set. The sound system had cut out for so long that the frustrated lead singer had convinced the crowd to hold their middle fingers in the air and chant profanities at the sound guy. A guy in a leather jacket held his four-year-old son on his shoulder during the chant and laughed to find his mini version of himself holding up his tiny middle fingers proudly and chanting along with the audience. Many people around the boy held up their beers and smiled big at the little guy, who basked joyfully in the approval of the crowd around him.

The guys were already starting the feedback on their guitars. I was standing off on the side of the stage, feeling like I always did before we started our set: like I was going to puke. As I stepped out into the spotlight, the crowd started yelling. They were always a little surprised to see a girl lead singer at a rock show. Some booed right away, some whistled and cheered. On cue, a loud-mouthed dude in the back yelled at me, over the audience, “Take off yer shirt!”

The blonde in the front seized her opportunity, climbed up on the guardrail, turned to the audience, and answered the drunk dude’s request. Then she turned to our sixteen-year-old guitar player to share her open secrets with him. For her and his heart’s sake, Jared tried his best to keep his eyes
on his pedal board. I closed my eyes and prayed for God to seize my voice and sing his love and truth over all of them.

“I will break . . . into your thoughts . . . with what’s written on my heart.”

Then I screamed with all my heart about wanting to break off every chain of death that held people’s hearts captive to addictions, hatred, violence, greed, depression, suicide, self-hate, and on and on.

On this very typical show night, I was, as I always am when I stand on stage, overtaken with the deepest love for this group of people. They were strangers to me, but God had known them all since he formed them in their mother’s bellies. It was God’s love for them that poured out of my gut as I sang. There was no other reason for me to love them with such aching desperation. I wanted to hug them all at once, so I prayed for God to do what I couldn’t.

At one point I saw the blonde girl start to cry. I knew she’d never felt love like this. I knew God was speaking to her and I was praying she would respond and believe that she was more valuable than she had ever understood before.

After the show was over, I was standing beside the merchandise booth where we sold our music and T-shirts, and I saw her. She was stunning up close. Her eyes were a beautiful translucent aqua color I’ve never seen anywhere else. They sparkled as she talked to me.

“There was something so different about y’all’s band. I just loved it,” she said through a welcoming smile.

“I was praying for you,” I said. “I prayed for God to speak to your heart while we played.” I was overwhelmed with love and joy as I spoke to her.

Her face twisted to a look of disgust. “God?” She cussed. “Are you religious?” Now she was rolling her eyes and mocking me.

“No,” I said, lowering my head. “I wouldn’t consider myself religious.”

“Well, that’s good. I didn’t come here to get preached at.”

Then she pulled down her top and asked me to sign her chest.

“We don’t sign chests. I’m sorry. But I’ll sign your arm,” I said, and went to sign her arm. She quickly pulled her arm away. She cussed me again.

“No, forget you, with yer old holier-than-thou crap,” she said as she walked off, hating me.

I loved her so much. She reminded me of me. We didn’t share everything in common, but her hatred for Christians sounded like the way I used to hate them.

It wasn’t time to talk to our audience about God yet. I should have paid attention to what time it was for her and just showed her love and acceptance, even though she may still have been mad about our “not signing boobs” policy. But this was a good example of what Flyleaf could do and what it couldn’t. We were not gospel preachers. We weren’t trying to save souls; God had only put it in us to save lives for now. Later I heard stories of many people coming to faith in Christ during our set at a secular show, even though we had said nothing about God. It was clear that it was not time for us to talk about God. We could only pray that the Spirit would speak for himself as we played.

And then we could pray that God would send others into the lives of these people who would continue to love them and show them that they were made for more than trying to satisfy their insatiable flesh and blood.

But I knew that if God ever showed me it was time for me to speak, I would. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for God pulling me out of my old life. So I was willing to shut up and sing in a dark club full of dying people, just as much as I was willing to tell my story about him whenever he called me to. Ever since I woke up the day after I almost took my own life, I knew my life was no longer my own. It belonged to the God who saved me.

A Restless, Thirsty Spirit

For ten years we continued to play concerts for stadiums full of thirsty people—people who had accepted that their main purpose in life was to spend their lives trying to nurse their flesh (that is never satisfied), just like I did.

We think we’re not thirsty when we are drinking.

We think we’re satisfied when we get applause.

We think we’ve arrived when we are making out and feel in love with someone, or when we find something resembling “joy” and laughter when we are high.

We feel purpose as we fight with our lovers for justice and understanding, or when we fight with the girl who needs a slap in the face.

We feel purpose and justice in our violence.

We think we’re liberating our children from the weights of society by teaching them to “tell it like it is” and to be just like our restless selves.

We think one day we will retire from work so we can finally rest in this place of recreation and entertainment.

We think,
If we could only listen
to music and go to concerts, beaches, and on mountain vacations
, and have holidays, then we would be at peace and
rest.

We think our restlessness would be stilled and we’d find satisfaction.

All these things touched the flesh of our audience, as it had touched me my whole life—they feel
alive
and
real
and
almost full
.

And then Flyleaf hits the stage. I can sense the crowd feeling as I had for so long; I can feel them begin to ache inside. The feedback churns and hearts soar. But for what? And then I begin to sing. All at once I’m singing from a vast place of love and adoration for God and I’m speaking into hearts longing for more. Those hearts belong to people . . .

They feel enchanted.

They sense a roar from their own spirit rising up as I scream love and hope.

What
was that? Was that my spirit? I have one of
those in me? I thought I was full . . .

But then, their epiphany.

Wait, I’m
hungry
. I crave. And I’
ve been drinking like a fish yet I’m still
thirsty. Is there more to me than flesh and bones?
What is aching in me right now?

We play and scream our hearts out. The audience feels their spirits quake; their hearts are enlightened.

We’ve opened a door inside of them. It leads to the spirit world by way of God worship—through a sound system, through prayers calling him to descend on our praises.

They feel it. The prayers, the worship, the wind blowing through their spirit doorway. They just don’t know what to call it.

They realize that the physical things that bothered them before are small compared to this spiritual plane they are standing on during our concert.

They meet us in a spiritual place when we play. We show them, “You are not really satisfied with the flesh. You are thirsty for the spirit. And that is what we are leading you to: a well of living water to satisfy your spirit.”

They respond: “Yes, we
are
thirsty. None of this stuff is satisfying me.”

We play our last chord.

We walk off the stage.

We have said nothing about God.

We have only prayed the people in the audience won’t die.

We leave them aware of their thirst, saying they are thirsty.

We abandon them in an ocean, praying they don’t dehydrate themselves to death drinking the salt water they see in every direction. Sometimes they hate us for not being good enough gods to be God for them afterward. But we aren’t omnipresent and we can’t stay.