In 2022 and 2023, God has been faithful. I have learned a lot and had the blessing of some trips to see weddings and family. I’ve grown a lot. It’s also been pretty difficult. 

Early 2022 I had recurring incidents of throwing out my back at work at my the café I worked at. I was also having strong flare-ups of Fibromyalgia fatigue and pain. The health concerns prompted me to pray into and decide on a next step. Indeed, I made the choice to leave the barista job out of health necessity, but also to some degree of faith that God would provide for me financially by some other means and show me my next steps.

I firstly gave myself whole-heartedly to a delivery of music in two online concerts. I did a little marketing with my brothers’ help and made it an event. The concerts were well received. It felt amazing, though very costly on an emotional level. It was very vulnerable for me. My music and poetry is so entangled with my heart; I had written it in the crucible of my 20’s. My writing has redemptive intention – even in the lament and expressed disillusionment – but the grief points were still too real to me. I had a few panic attacks leading up to the concerts. Delivering my story through the songs and poetry felt like pulling a javelin out of it’s wound in my chest chest, holding it up in the air, saying “Blessed be the name of the Lord”, and collapsing.

In the aftermath, I intuited that I was still too fragile to do this – “this” as in that exact set – on a regular basis. Secondly, I intuited that I wasn’t set up at that moment, to make music my living. This is not to say that I gave up, or am giving up on music an important part of my life or vocation. It’s just to make an observation of where I was at at the time.

Fibromyalgia flare-ups, the back issue, and some degree of mental illness continued to impair me. Without music as a viable income option at the time, and still having the problem of unemployment, I committed my limited capacity to finding an alternative employment option.

While I continued to do pre-production sessions to develop my music album for a while, I finally put it aside completely when securing an alternative income and manging health issues seemed to be priority. 

On the health side, promted by my Father, I made pretty dramatic diet changes. In summary I now do intermittent fasting, minimize sugar, and mind lectin consumption. It has helped and I have steadier energy. 

I committed to narrating audiobooks as I had the gear and tech already, and it seemed to align with my skill-set. I steered into fiction and learned how to create different voices. I taught myself a bunch different accents (or a working version of them). I’ve narrated three fantasy adventures so far. I think they’re awesome. I’ll provide some links. 🙂

As I was finishing the first book, I developed a very debilitating nerve pain issue. My right arm and shoulder became very inflamed and lost strength. I pushed through significant pain and a feeling of panic to finish editing the audiobook. (Don’t do this! Listen your pain. Respect your body.)

It was a very distressing experience. I was already so impaired by other health issues, and now my right arm – my means of subsistence and achievement – was failing me. Typing, playing piano, and old-fashioned writing on paper aggravated the pain rapidly.

A physiotherapist I saw convinced me that while the pain was in my shoulder, arm, and wrist, the issue was in my neck. As I’ve rehabilitated it over the last 10 months, the pain seems to have “centralized” to it’s source, which is a good thing; I feel the pain partly in my neck now. Yay!

Since November I’ve been figuring out how to live with this neck-arm issue. I have a stand-up desk – that was a game-changer. By instruction of a Occupational Therapist specializing in pain management, I don’t work until the pain is blaring anymore. Recovery demands that I not push through pain. I take a lot of breaks. I take NSAIDs as needed.

I also was prescribed Lyrica. It seems to be diminishing inflammation in my arm and, critically, also diminishing Fibromyalgia pain.

I finished the second and third audiobooks at the pace I could afford. My neck-arm issue has gradually improved, but I have to be very careful.

I’m staring school at Vancouver Community college for their music diploma. The presence of my neck-arm issue concerns me as to whether I will be able to do the classes, which will of course demand some writing or typing, or playing piano.

I however have some assurance that God is encouraging me to stay the course and simply be wise with my body. While my neck-arm issue remains alarming at times, my Fibromyalgia issue has receded remarkably, probably due to Lyrica. I’ve been doing a lot of physical exercise to rehabilitate my neck and shoulder. The amount of exercise I’ve been able to do this month without the Fibromyalgia pain flaring up is remarkable. It would have been unthinkable two months ago. I celebrate this, really, though I’m still actively concerned about the neck-arm issue.

I’m going to school for music to increase my confidence as a musician and fill in holes where I’m missing skills. This was actually always the plan. While I was still at CBC doing the Biblical Studies undergrad, I planned to finish it and then do a music program. It’s taken a long time to get my health to a place where I feel I can go back to school, but I am believing that this is the time. I will take it slow, and feel out how much pressure my body can handle at this point.

I’d love prayer for the preservation of my strength in this endeavor. I’d love your prayer for the healing of my neck-arm issue. I praise God for how dramatically the Fibromyalgia pain and fatigue flare-ups have seemed to diminished in the last two months.

I should report also that my mental health has continued to calcify into something like stability. I’m actually so much less… threatened, on an identity level, it’s amazing. At least in comparison to my state before, I’m confoundingly free. God has given an un-threatened authenticity that I did not know was possible. 

God is securing my foundations. I believe I am taking the next step.

Ironically, despite the frustrating delays, I hold my album looser now. I believe God has given me gifts. I think he’s also wanted to confirm within me that his affection does not depend on my application of those gifts. My album will not justify me before God. It will also not vindicate me before men. Indeed for a length of time, when less secure, I “needed” to release my album, in order to prove that my life isn’t a waste. It was ashamed of how utterly I had collapsed and lost capacity for embarrassing number of years. I needed to compensate for lost time and lost face.

I know now, however, that the album – and my gifts in total – are just gifts, and not the means of winning back dignity and worth. My album is just a gift, and it’ll come out God so enables me to release it.

I think it’ll be awesome, but it will not justify my existence, or secure my value. I’m already justified and valued. That’s partly what the album is about: releasing the need to justify one’s existence by performance and falling into the dignity that comes by grace alone. This falling, in my case, felt terrifying but it’s been worth it.

That being said. I am sorry for the delay. Some of you have invested in me financially, and I have not so far been able to deliver to you the result. Thank you for the grace. I am hoping for next summer as a delivery time. My capacity remains very limited by the shoulder issue, but it is resolving. The Fibromyalgia issue has resolved remarkably, and that’s been the primary issue for 5 years. 

The trajectory is good.  Yes. Moving forward.