The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living (16 page)

The show was harder than any other show I’d ever played. It was obvious to me that this was the most beautiful and saddest part of the winter. It was a season ending. Flyleaf would never be the same.

I knew that my time in Flyleaf was over. I mourned so many things that night.

I’m jealous of Rich for making it to heaven before me. I know he would tease me about it if I could talk to him.

“Haha! I know more about this place than you!” he’d say.

And although I can’t wait for Rich to show me around, I have to wait, because I am still breathing. I have to learn from the way Rich lived his life so fully, with faith and risk.

I must always remember that I will die, and I must remember this so that I can remember to
live.
Heaven is Rich’s new horizon, and until we get there we all have our own new horizons here on earth to explore.

Memento mori.

Memento vivere.

I
call my son Jack the Brave. I believe he has a gift of bravery even though the little guy seems to have been afraid of almost everything since he was born. The more I tell him he is brave, the braver I watch him become. He will say, “I scared, Momma” as we walk past a weird-looking mannequin in a store. I respond, “No, Jack isn’t scared. He is brave.” He will peek out from behind my legs where he is trying to hide and say, “I bave.” Then he will stare the thing down with courage, even though he is still really, really nervous about it. That’s when I just want to cheer for him. He always looks at me in those moments, to make sure that my face is telling him, “It’s all going to be okay.” It helps him tremendously to know I am not scared of the weird-looking, frozen, plastic person.

Sometimes Jack the Brave has bad days. With meltdown after meltdown he will hit and kick and throw things, trying to break stuff in his frustration. He will scream and cry, cry, cry. The easy thing would be to do whatever I can to just make him happy, so he will stop crying, stop having fits, stop throwing things. The easy thing would be for me to tiptoe around him, doing whatever I can to appease him and avoid a breakdown. It would be easier for me to stick him in a room by himself so he can destroy whatever he wants and have his rampaging way all alone. It would be easier to distract him and change the subject, ignoring the tantrum so neither he nor I will have to deal with his “issues.”

But I don’t believe any of these things represent the loving thing to do.

Listen, I’m not trying to give parenting advice. I’ve only been a mom for two and a half years. I have taken no classes and read very little on the subject. I’m just being vulnerable with you right now and talking about what goes on in my heart while trying to love my son. I care about Jack the Brave’s heart. I want to train his heart to be kind, loving, generous, self-controlled, patient, hopeful, and full of faith. I realize that these things must be in me in order for him to really get it. If I throw my grown-up version of a tantrum, I can’t be too shocked when I see him throw his two-year-old version. If I am always complaining, I can’t be surprised when he whines. So when I’m praying for Jack and trying to discipline his heart to develop good character, I pray for myself and work to discipline my own heart as well.

But disciplining a strong-willed two-year-old who is just as passionate as I am is hard work. Sometimes he consumes my focus for an entire day. Sometimes I feel like I have disciplined all day long. The whole day I search for ways to encourage Jack for the slightest sign of anything praiseworthy. I tell him, “If
you obey Mommy, and follow directions, if you stop pitching fits and whining, then we can have so much fun today.” I watch for moments of fun and seize them whenever they surface.

But some days we hardly have any fun. Sometimes he falls asleep in my arms, crying, saying, “Oh, Momma, I sawy. I sawy, Momma.”

“I forgive you, Jack,” I say. “I love you. Momma always loves you, Jack. I’m so proud of you. You are so brave. You are such a good boy.”

Finally, when he relaxes in my arms, and his breathing becomes slow and heavy, I lay him in his bed. When I look down at his sleeping face I am overwhelmed with love. He is my son. Even though we had a bad day, he possesses my heart—I love him with a crazy and deep love. I thank God it wasn’t the kind of bad day we used to have whenever he struggled with asthma as an infant. Those bad days were of a different sort: staying in the hospital with breathing treatments, IVs, and pneumonia, over and over. I’m thankful for Jack no matter what kind of day we have together: a bad day at a hospital, a bad day at home, or one of the many wonderful days we have. I love him so much.

You Are the Reason

My encounters with God have taught me how extravagant and high his love soars above earthly love. His love is infinitely greater in capacity, patience, and perfection. Even so, being a mom helps me to understand God’s love for me in a much deeper way. After a long day of discipline, meltdowns, disobedience, and fits, I look at my sleeping boy and love him so
completely
.
My hope for him is so full and beautiful.

The Bible says that to God a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. I believe even after we
spend a lifetime sinning and being deceived, confused, angry, heartbroken, and hateful, and after we have made a reckless mess of our lives, God looks at us with love. He has an even deeper love, patience, and hope for us, his creation, than any mom could ever have for her child. His love is so much better than ours. His love for us is perfect. There is no one outside of that love. There is no one God would reject, only those who might reject him.

A girl named Taylor wrote me an email a few years ago. She sounded so much like myself at her age. She was depressed, confused, cutting, and suicidal. She said that Flyleaf’s music had helped her through, but she still struggled. I had never met her before, but as I read her email, I was overwhelmed with love for her. I love her because the God I love created her. It was obvious she had no idea how valuable she was. She didn’t understand the perfect love God has for her. I wrote her a letter in response to her email to tell her God loves her and has a great plan for her life.

Taylor wanted me to share what I wrote with you, because much of what I said to her I also want to say to you.

Hi Taylor!

Are you fourteen? You sound a lot older. Thank you for your message. I’m sorry I missed it earlier. It never gets old hearing the way God does miracles in people’s lives. We prayed our music would speak his healing, freedom, and deliverance to people—salvation only God can bring to people.

You remind me of myself when I was your age in a lot of ways. I’m so glad God spoke to your heart when you heard my story. He loves you and has a plan for your life
that is so far beyond what you can imagine for yourself. I don’t mean fame, or success the way the world thinks of it. But it could be a moment with your firstborn in your arms when you realize he or she wouldn’t be alive if God hadn’t rescued you, or a moment with a girl whose life was saved because you were brave enough to share your story.

There is a daily purpose for your life that is so important. Some days it is just to learn about God. Sometimes it is to pray for someone and move mountains with your faith. Some days it is to say “Hi” to someone who needs to know they aren’t invisible. Your very breath moves the air and as long as it does that, you are changing the world.

I pray you would not settle for less than fulfilling God’s highest purpose for your life in every way. I pray you would know what it means to have wisdom, love, and the power of God, to bring healing, freedom, and truth to everyone you come in contact with. Even if it’s just by your presence, carrying God’s Spirit with you and changing the atmosphere by just being there.

I pray you would heal from all the injustices that happened in your life. I pray you would fight for justice for others and help bring victory to them. I pray you would know how the enemy of your soul fears your faith in God. The enemy knows how your faith will rip people out of his hands of death and place them into Christ’s hands of life. He knows God made you and that you reflect the character and beauty of God. He knows if you trust Jesus and follow him as Lord, you will be one of the ones who will judge angels in eternity, and cast demons out by the power of Jesus’s name on earth.

You are a powerful work of God’s art, Taylor. You have no idea the amazing plans God has for your life.
Don’t settle for cheap imitations. Not in romance, not in art, not in influence. Don’t settle, just because you can’t imagine how much greater and fuller you could be if you would trust God with your life. I’m only a girl who said yes to God. No different than you, except that I put my trust in him and have given him all that I was and am every day. Today I try to give him all that I am, and trust him. Because of that, I am choosing not to limit my life and my gifts to my own generic plans for myself.

God is so kind, Taylor. His love is the only true love. That’s why every other imitation of it leaves us empty. That’s why our hearts burn within us every time we hear someone tell us with sincerity, “God loves you.” God made us so he could love us. We will feel restless and empty, and always come up short, if we try to find purpose anywhere else.

Thank you for listening to our music. Thank you for paying attention to the lyrics. I pray God gives you the words to help people understand the love and wisdom of God in ways they never did before, through your poems. I pray you would use your gift of words for God’s glory and that they would save people from death, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Amen!

God has given Taylor a gift of words. She uses her words to tell stories and write poems that make people feel deeply. She had used this gift to write many sad, hopeless poems. I encouraged her to not settle for limiting her gift in a way that will only bring her glory. I encouraged her to use her gift to
bring glory to God. So she wrote a poem that still brings me life when I read it.

We make empty wishes upon stars that have already begun to burn away,

We add false color to hair that has already begun to grey.

We place lively spring flowers at the feet of the dead,

And we only voice our most meaningful words on our deathbeds.

Why is it that we try so hard to paint colors onto things that have already faded away,

Yet we never open our eyes to see the bright hues of today?

When I open my eyes to the bright hues of today, I think of you. I want you to know you are beautiful. I want you to see the beauty of life around you. I want you to fulfill the highest heights for which you were created.

Do you realize God created you? You are his idea, a reflection of God’s glory.

The God I love created you. While I still have today on this earth to love, I want to love you, dear reader. I want you to know that no matter who you are, no matter what you believe, no matter what you do or what you have done, God loves you.

I am alive because God loves me and sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross for my sins.

I am alive, and Christ is The Reason.

God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life—life to the
full
. Christ died so you could live, because he loves you.

You
are The Reason.

You and I were made to be lovers of God. There is no other love greater. There is nothing else that will give us more life.

Y
ou and I are traveling on different paths. Though we may share similar experiences and enjoy the same things, each of us is unique. My journey took many turns and dips and crashes. But each bend in the road of life—each dip and crash—adds a little bit more beauty to us as people. Those experiences and scars left by themselves will certainly fester and turn an ugly color, turning us ugly. But God took my experiences and crashes and turned them into something surprising, something magnificent:
joy
.

God made you for a purpose. It is important and beautiful. Your life is a gift to you and to the world around you. We settle for so much less than we are created for when we give our lives to money, work, pride, drugs, abuse, suicide, dreams, family, friends, and lovers. God made us to be his alone.

C. S. Lewis wrote:

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because
he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
1

I love that, and it’s so true! I don’t want to settle for mud pies. I want to experience God in all his glory. I want his desires to become my desires.

When we give God our lives, we become our truest selves, and we are able to find our greatest purpose and fulfill our highest callings. It’s only in God that humanity’s restless soul can be satisfied, because humanity was made by God to be his bride. He is the greatest love of our lives. He is our true love. He is all we are ever searching for.

He is the reason we breathe and our only place of true rest and peace. He is our Father, our Creator, our lover, and our best friend. We are alive to be loved by God. He’s made us alive by sending his Son Jesus to die for all our sins so that we can be forgiven and made whole again. Jesus rose from the dead and overcame death so that, in Christ, we too will overcome death when we die. After he rose from the dead, Jesus sat down in heaven at the right hand of the Father, where he now intercedes for all of us.

But he didn’t leave us orphans. He sent us his Holy Spirit to live in our hearts, every day, all the time, so we would never have to be alone or without him. All we have to do is repent of our sins and give up all that we have settled for that is so much less than we were created for, and he will forgive us. Then, as we invite him to be the Lord of our lives, we will begin to find the fullness of life, peace, joy, hope, and faith that we are made for. We are made to be his alone.

Here’s a song I wrote that describes everything I’ve just told you. I sing it to God often after I share my story. Maybe you could sing it to him too.

The
Reason

All my life I searched for something,

To satisfy the longing in my heart

and every time I’d come away emptier than before

And now I finally see
the reason

It’s because I was made to be yours alone

You formed my heart with your own hands

But I just could not understand

That if I gave
you my life,

I’d be healed by your grace

I was made for your love

And gave others your
place

I spent my days giving my heart away

To anything new

Only to ache from the poison of my

Temporary muse

There were times I’d cry myself to sleep at night

Only to wake up

Wishing that I didn’t

And now I finally see
the reason

’Cause I was made to be yours alone

You formed my heart with your own hands

But I just could not
understand

That if I gave you my life

I’d
be healed by your grace

I was made for your
love

And gave others your place

Thank you for never giving up on me

When I looked to everything else and lived so selfishly

You bled and you died to be with me,

Why would you do something like that for someone like me?

Now I finally see
the reason

Because I was made to be yours alone.

You formed my heart with your own hands

And now I finally
understand

And I give you my life

And I’m
healed by your grace

I was made for your love
that no one can replace

This is it,

I won
’t miss

Everything I am made for . . .

To be yours

I’m all yours . . .

Now that you know a little about my story, and me, I look forward to talking with you again through another book—I have all kinds of ideas!—and through my blog and through social media. My husband, Josh, and I have also written new music, including songs inspired by this book! Though we’re all on unique paths, the beauty of this life is that we can encourage each other, be there for each other in different ways, and love one another through everything.

__________________