It's time...

Sometimes I write things, but then they are just too personal and I sit on them a while until God prompts me to share them.  Corsars vowed to be transparent on our radical obedience journey, but sometimes the transparency is too much for our humanness.  But here you go.  I wrote this about a year ago and I'm finally feeling it's time to share it.  May God use it to bless you, encourage you, urge you on to feeling His presence.  He works all things together for GOOD:




Today I'm going to write a story, but it's not fully my own story.  It's the story of a young lady who has been fighting a big fight for the past 2 years.  She is an overcomer and she is my hero.  Her name is Alexandria Corsar. She has given me permission to write this on her behalf.

Radically following God's call on our life is something that has not been easy on our family.  I've been pretty honest about it since we started this journey.  Even though we made sure both our children were "on board" with our decision to uproot our life and come to seminary at God's call, there was still some fall out.  Some of this fallout has been so incredibly painful that I haven't wanted
to share it...until now.  But I am a firm believer that the fall out was all still part of God's sovereign plan to make my children even stronger than they were before.  One thing we have learned is to see God's hand in everything!  His hand is just as evident in sunny times as it is in the dark times.  

My daughter, Alex, has always been a strong human being.  "Strong-willed"  is what it is called in some contexts of personality.  That was a part of her that we had to come to grips with how to handle when she was just a newborn and had her own ideas of scheduling and sleeping!  She likes to do things her own way and she is 100% an individual.  The phrase "marching to the beat of her own drum" was a phrase created just for Alex!  It's really NOT easy to parent a child with this personality type, but through much prayer, research, reading, counseling, and more prayer we feel we have a pretty good handle on it now.  But this story is not about us...it's about her.  Our little fighter!  

We got to North Carolina the summer of 2013.  Finding good friends took a really long time.  She met a few friends at church to hang out with, but had a hard time going deep into those friendships.  She was longing for the friendships she had left behind.  She then began to spiral into a deep depression causing us to need to pull her out of school and homeschool her for 8th grade.  This fed the isolation she was feeling, but it did offer much time for us to talk about what God was doing in her life.  The overwhelmingness of life and the sadness of what had been taken from her took a toll on her teenage soul causing her to engage in self-harm.  At this point, we had to put her into counseling and watch her like a hawk.  Michael and I had never spent more time on our knees than we did during this year and half of this trial.  Every. single. day was a fight for her soul.  God was allowing her to tread this extremely dark valley and our  flashlights seem to lose their light at times as we tried to help her navigate.  She had a wonderful, godly counselor who helped her finally get to the other side of this darkness.  AS I type this, though, the wind is literally knocked out of my lungs as I remember back to these extremely dark times.  Fighting to hold on to my daughter, all while trying to encourage my husband to remain steadfast in God's call on our family's life.  I felt torn between two things I hated at the moment.  I hated her dark moment which I felt was caused by God's call and moving us away.  So, I was not a fan of either incident at the time.  Yet, through it all, God constantly showed Himself and reminded us that He was there.  He was our God through ALL OF IT.

Through much time spent in God's presence, my baby girl has overcome.  She courageously decided to go to high school this past year, even though I wanted to keep her homeschooled to make sure she was okay!  She pushed herself out of her comfort zone and she went soaring!  She made friends...still none as fabulous as her  North Dakota friends, but she is still waiting for God to bring those relationships to her.  She has learned to wait on God's perfect timing.  She has learned faith and confidence in herself placed there by the Creator of her soul.  She is discovering her gift of song and waiting for God to use her testimony to reach others in her shoes.  She realizes that God is writing a most amazing testimony of His faithfulness to her in her life.  The spiritual warfare is great, but she is dead set on Who will always win the battle for her soul.

We were driving yesterday and a song came on the radio.  She screamed, "Mom!  This is MY song.  It's literally perfect and says everything abut me!" As we listened to it, and she sang it loudly with such confidence, I struggled to keep my car between the lines as I cried tears of joy.  Here are the words to HER song.  They are perfect.

Like a small boat, On the ocean

Sending big waves, into motion

Like how a single word, can make a heart open

I might only have one match, But I can make an explosion.

And all those things I didn't say, Wrecking balls inside my brain.

I will scream them loud tonight, Can you hear my voice this time.

This is my fight song, Take back my life song.

Prove I'm alright song. My power's turned on,

Starting right now I'll be strong, I'll play my fight song

And I don't really care if nobody else believes

Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me.

Losing friends and I'm chasing sleep, Everybody's worried about me

In too deep, Say I'm in too deep, And it's been two years

I miss my home, But there's a fire burning in my bones, And I still believe

Now I've still got a lot of fight left in me.

This is her anthem.  Let me now share the words to MY anthem.

There are days I've taken more than I can give, And there are choices that I made

That I wouldn't make again.  I've had my share of laughter

Of tears and troubled times, This has been the story of my life.

I have won and I have lost, I got it right sometimes, but sometimes I did not

Life's been a journey, I've seen joy I've seen regret.

Oh, and You have been my God through all of it!

You were there when it all came down on me, And I was blinded by my fear

And I struggled to believe.  But in those unclear moments

You were the one keeping me strong, This is how my story's always gone.

And this is who You are, More constant than the stars up in the sky

All these years of our lives, I look back and I see You

Right now I still do, And I'm always going to

Put our anthems together and you see that we are more than conquerors through Christ who is ALWAYS there for us!

"Can anything EVER separate us from Christ's love?  Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted or are hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us!" (Romans 8:35,37)

He works all things for good...

You've heard the verse in Romans 8:28, "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."  It's one of those verses that we memorize and just assume is true...that God is working things together behind the scenes of things we can't see.  But this time, God allowed me a glimpse behind the curtain and it was DIVINE!  I absolutely love when He gives me the privilege to make my faith my eyes.

Ill try to write it so you can follow the chain, so keep up!  :) 

A little over a year ago, I heard a song on Air1 radio that I just loved!  The artist's name was David Dunn.  Not really a big name that is known, but I was intrigued by this one song being played, so I looked up his album on Amazon and put it on my wishlist in hopes to purchase it at some point.  Our family puts things on our wishlist every year to allow our family an opportunity to see what we'd like for birthdays and Christmas.  I put it on my wishlist and kind of forgot about it, actually. 

This year for Christmas, I got the album as a gift!  I was so excited to listen to all the songs on the CD!  Now mind you, my kids don't usually listen to the kind of stuff that mom likes.  When I put in Sidewalk Prophets or Mercy Me or even Chris Tomlin, they aren't as impressed as I am.  And also mind you, my daughter had been put through a very challenging time in a relationship that literally broke her into a million pieces right after Christmas.  Heartbreak, sadness, overwhelming feelings for a teenager. 

To help you with the chain, this is kind of where all things start working together for good!  My daughter struggles with depression and I was concerned for her well-being more than I ever had been before.  I was praying for God to take control and make sure she was going to be okay.  I had my  new CD playing in the car one day as we were driving somewhere and the song, "It is Well" came on.  It's not the "It is Well" that you might know from the old hymns.  It's a new song.  Take a listen here:

The words to this song hit her broken heart to the core!  She has played it over and over every day and God is using the words as a soothing balm to her soul.  She said, "Mom, I love this song!  It's like it was written just for me! Where did you find this guy?" As I listened to her sing the words, tears welled up in my eyes as I realized that God made sure I heard this album over a year ago so that it would be purchased for me for Christmas so as to heal her brokenness right after Christmas.  Do you follow the chain?  She has given her pain to the Great Physician who is also the Great Lyricist who can write songs to woo our souls.  She journals of her pain and tells me that God is in control.  Thank you, God, for orchestrating her healing for the pain you knew was coming well over a year ago.  What great love He has for us that He ALWAYS has provided a way of escape.

"When the heartache and the headaches take my breath away, When the sunshine and the moonlight burn my skin.  When the sadness overwhelms  us and the troubled water rises.  When the reason for my bleeding don't make sense.  I'm not in control!  When my world comes crashing in around my head and I feel like I've got nothing left.  I'm not in control.  It is well with my soul.

When oppression and depression have their way with me.  When the hurting and the healing feel the same.  When the sadness overwhelms us and the troubled water rises.  When the reason for my bleeding don't make sense. I'm not in control. It is well with my soul.  

In the sadness that is tearing at my soul.  I'll remember that you've ALWAYS HAD CONTROL. You're love is crystal clear!"

When your daughter is a poet, God sure inspires some great poetry in lyrics.  All things, good or bad, always work together for good.  Thank you, Jesus, for that promise.