I have been reminiscing the last few days, and thought that I would gab a little about where the title of my blog came from and why I use it. :)
If you are familiar with my story, you know I have experienced abuse and other crappy things in my life. That being said, if you know my story you also probably read about the healing power of God and the miraculous things He has done and continues to do in my life.
I have also mentioned before that I LOVE music. It affects me the way few other things do. Just today, Chase asked what song I was playing in my head. He can tell because I play piano all the time and don't realize it. My fingers just move (they play piano soooo much better in my head than I ever could really play, but anyway) and my head is always in song.
Music is huge.

I had heard the song Held a few times before but really only knew the chorus a little. I had never paid that much attention to it.

Then a few years ago I took my girls to a "Revolve" conference ( I DO NOT suggest you go, although the first year we went it was GREAT! The second year was awful and we haven't been back....anyway long story!)
Natalie Grant is a Christian Contemporary singer and she gave her testimony of coming out of anorexia and other issues she had and how God brought her out of it. Amazing testimony...and then she sang Held.

At that point, I had really turned a corner and was coming to grips with Who God really is and how much He loved me regardless of what I had been taught about myself or believed about myself. He saw fit to choose me! He asked ME to come into His family! He wanted ME to spend time with Him! And all that time I thought that He looked the other way or let things happen to me because I  was bad or thought that He didn't care or else He would have stopped it...I was finding that He was holding me the whole time. He wept with me and felt all the pain and anger I felt.
It was only because of Him that I even survived. He held ME.
She sang the song and on one of the choruses she stopped singing and had the audience sing the chorus. I love being in the midst of thousands of people singing...there is nothing like it. I think it is just a small glimpse of how singing will be in heaven (not that that is all we will do though....anyway that is for a different post!)
The voices of thousands and thousands of teenage girls filled the air...

"This is what it means to be held, 
how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life 
and you survive. 
This is what it means to be loved 
and to know that the promise was when everything fell-we'd be held." 

Yeah, I am not going to lie-I bawled....just the realization hit me that the God I then knew was sooooo completely different than the one I grew up knowing. God had been busy ripping the lies rooted in my heart, and He carefully planted His truth in it's place. It was so freeing standing there trying to sing through the tears. They were such happy tears! I felt the weight of the world lift off my shoulders and it was replaced with freedom, and a peace that passes my understanding. He held me. :)

That song continued to be one of my favorites and pointed me back to that day when Christ gave me His hindsight view of my life...
And then I met Jen.
Jen is one of my very dearest friends and I can't even tell you how much I love her and her family. Our backgrounds are a bit similar and we are polar opposites so we really hit it off. lol
Her story of healing comes from losing her second son. Jacob only lived around 24 hours but he left a permanent mark on his home. He is dearly missed and loved and while I didn't know them when they went through this awful time in their lives, I feel like I know Jacob too. I love that little boy who would have been about Chastity's age. I can't wait to actually meet him and to find out all about him!
The last time Jen had heard the song "Held" was at Jacob's funeral. She had never listened to it since. It was far too painful.
The second year I took the teen girls to the "Revolve" conference, I warned Jen that we were probably going to hear that song. She said she was nervous but she would just deal with it as best she could. I expected Natalie Grant to give her testimony again and lead into the song, and instead the ended the first night with the song. Both Jen and I were surprised by the timing, but she stayed anyway. And we sat and I held her hand while she sang
"Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling.
Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair.