Brave Surrender Read online

  A couple of months later, in early December, I was standing in the back of one of the classrooms when the worship pastor walked by. He stopped, got a funny look on his face, and walked back over to me. “Do you want to sing?” he asked.

  With wide eyes, I said, “Yes.”

  “Good,” he said. “Go look at the schedule posted on the wall and see when I’m leading next. You can sing with me.”

  I knew this had to be some sort of miracle. I didn’t know a single leader in ministry who would walk up to a stranger and ask them to jump on the stage with them. I walked over to the posted schedule to see when he was leading next, and to my complete surprise it was December 19—my birthday! What a gift! I could almost see Jesus’ face with a giant grin on it.

  In addition to singing backup on Sunday mornings, I started singing with the worship bands for the school of ministry and youth group. However, I quickly discovered that stepping on stage didn’t automatically mean stepping into freedom and confidence as a worship leader. When I watched my friend Chris Quilala, whom I had met when I first came to youth group while attending Simpson, lead the youth worship team at our weekly gatherings and at the summer Jesus Culture conference, I saw a level of ease and comfort in the leadership position that I just didn’t have yet.

  I preferred singing backup because I could hide to some degree. The first time I was asked to lead a song for a Sunday morning main service, I completely messed up in the middle of it, ran off the stage sobbing, and swore I would never do it again. But I felt Jesus urging me to keep trying to grow as a worship leader, asking, “Do you trust Me?”

  One of my struggles was that I felt so much reverence for God and didn’t want to deface worship with any kind of selfish ambition or performance. How was I to keep completely focused on God while standing on a stage under bright lights in front of thousands of people? This felt like a huge problem for me, especially because I always felt such deep passion bubbling in my spirit and longing to emerge in worship. I was afraid that if I let all that passion out, I would not only make a fool of myself, but also somehow defile what felt so sacred to me. I was scared to have another moment like the one in my childhood when I “didn’t know when to stop.” What if I get so passionate in worship that I offend people? I kept trusting my leadership and taking steps forward, but I had a lot of uncertainty.

  After my integration healing happened toward the end of my second year of ministry school and the power of the lies from the past was broken, I started stepping into a new level of freedom in every area of life, including leading worship. When ministry school ended, I decided to remain in Redding and continue working as a nanny, helping Banning with the youth group and the summer Jesus Culture conferences, and singing on the worship team whenever I was scheduled or asked.

  Though I had already completed two years of counseling, I decided to start seeing a new counselor to help me as I stepped into this new season of wholeness and growth. I recognized that many of the ways I had learned to interact with people and respond to situations in childhood were unhealthy and needed to be replaced, so I discussed various situations or problems popping up in my life with my counselor, and he coached me through effective ways to communicate, make my needs known, draw boundaries, and respond. I loved learning and growing and felt very happy to be in such a healed place.

  However, there was something even deeper that I needed to learn to walk in—a new habit of believing, thinking, and behaving that governed all these healthy relational behaviors I was trying to learn. I needed to learn to live out consistent, abiding trust in Jesus. Though I had been learning to trust Him ever since I had given my life to Him in high school, and especially during the two years of ministry school, my childhood habits of self-protection were still deeply ingrained in my thinking and behavior.

  It was one thing for those fractured parts, during a counseling session, to make the choice to surrender their job of self-protection and choose to trust Jesus to do it instead. It was another to learn how to build a lifestyle of trusting Him as I navigated the often scary and painful challenges and mysteries of life, ministry, and relationships. But I knew that if I was to live with a free heart and no walls, I would have to figure out how to do this. I also realized that despite surrendering, I still had a powerful need for control, which was going to be the real issue to work through.

  Growing in this lifestyle of trust took time. There was no overnight transformation, just baby steps (and stumbling, falling, and getting back up again) to practice courage in being the new Kim—the confident leader, the vulnerable friend, and the trusting daughter who knew her Father wanted the gifts in her to come out and bless people. But with every choice to believe I was who He said I was, the more I became that person.

  However, eventually I reached a point, as I neared the end of my fourth year in Redding, where I felt God stirring something in my heart. As I prayed and talked to Him about it, I realized that the passion I longed to express in worship was still locked up inside me—and He wanted it to come out. He also showed me that it would not be unlocked in Redding—the keys were not in this church or in this city.

  This meant a transition was coming. I would need to leave the place that had become so familiar and comfortable. However, whenever I prayed about this transition and felt sure that God was telling me it was time to move on, I never got a clear picture of where or to what He was calling me. Questions plagued me. What if I’m wrong? What if I decide to leave and then miss out on something amazing or a really great opportunity? What if I make a wrong choice and end up somewhere that makes me miserable? After all the hills of trust I had summited in the previous four years, it felt like God had now led me to a mountain, and I didn’t know if I was ready to start climbing.

  Pennies and Promises

  It’s so easy to become stuck and somewhat frozen in time when you aren’t getting a clear word from God about what’s next, only a prompting in your heart to keep walking. I saw others in my own circle of friends who also felt they were supposed to do something different but didn’t know what, and who then allowed fear to just keep them standing still. As I pondered this and talked to Jesus about it during my devotional times, I began to hear His still small voice whispering to my heart, “Step out. You can trust Me.”

  The Lord began to remind me of story after story from the previous few years in which I could see the faithfulness of God and trust His voice inside me. One of my favorites was the time my phone broke during my second year of ministry school.

  I was living in a small, second-floor apartment with a friend who was also attending the school. We both worked part-time jobs because of our school schedule, and I struggled to make ends meet, often supplementing my groceries with donations from the church pantry. I had a landline telephone that I used to stay connected to my family, usually calling collect. One day I picked up my phone and realized it wasn’t working. I knew I had paid the bill. I unplugged it and plugged it back in, but it wouldn’t turn on. Feeling hopeless, I started crying. It was my only means of communication with my family, and I couldn’t afford to replace it.

  Suddenly I felt Holy Spirit show me a picture. I saw inside the body of the phone, and I saw myself inserting a penny into a very particular spot. What a weird picture! Deciding I had nothing to lose, I grabbed a penny and opened the phone. The wires and various electronic components looked just like what I had seen in my mind. I saw the spot where I needed to slide the penny. I slid it in carefully and then put the phone back together, set it on the base, took a deep breath, and held up the receiver to my ear. A dial tone! It worked—and that phone never had a problem again. To this day, I have no idea why the penny worked. All I know is that God proved He can be trusted to bring solutions to my problems. He loves to take care of me.

  Another story God reminded me of was the time I had budgeted all my money, down to the last cent, and had seventy dollars of food money for an entire month. As I was driving to school, I saw a haggard-looking man standing o
n the side of the road, holding a sign announcing he needed food for his family. I felt convicted to do something and decided I wanted to help him. I pulled over and asked him if I could buy him groceries. He said yes, so I told him to get in my car and I would drive him to the grocery store right up the road. (Side note: my mom hates this part of the story! What was I thinking? A young, single girl inviting a strange man into her car? I was trying to focus on following the voice of Jesus, but this should include the voice of wisdom too!)

  When we went into the grocery store, the man grabbed a cart, went straight to the baby section, and picked out a small package of diapers, formula, and baby food. Then he went and got milk, meat, and a few cans of soup. My heart broke to think that he had a baby he was struggling to feed and was in a position to need this help. When I paid for the items in his cart, the total came to seventy dollars—all the money I had. After we walked out, I prayed for him, and he thanked me over and over, with tears streaming down his face. Only when I drove away to school did I start to wonder how I was going to eat that month.

  After class that day, I got home to find a message on my answering machine from my grandma. “Hi Kim! Papa and I were praying for you today, and we felt like we were supposed to deposit some money in your bank account. So we went down to the bank and deposited seventy dollars into your account. We love you!”

  I burst into tears. My Jesus, the One who doesn’t abandon me, had again taken such good care of me.

  More stories filled my mind as I thought about trusting God. It was almost as if God was asking, “Have I not proven Myself faithful?”

  It was this history of His faithfulness that finally gave me the courage to leave Redding. A few people in my church didn’t think it was a great idea, but I stuck to my guns. I was determined to trust Jesus and step out into unknown waters. I was ready for something to shift inside of me.

  Finding the Spontaneous

  In the end, God stirred in my heart an awareness that it was time to leave, but He let me decide where to go first. I chose to move back to Oregon to live with my grandparents, who lived in a town near my biological dad. I hadn’t yet gotten to spend quality time getting to know him on the other side of healing, like I had with the other members of my family, and I wanted to do that.

  I got a part-time job at a retail store, and I loved being with my grandparents again. I visited my dad and attended a local church, where I made a couple of friends. It didn’t seem like anything significant was happening—but I felt peace. God was with me and doing something inside me, and I decided I didn’t need to understand it all. I was doing my best to relinquish my need for control and just let Him be God in my life. It seemed that perhaps this time was not about “doing” as much as it was about just “being.” It was a nice reprieve from all the heart work and ministry I had been doing, and it was nice to spend some time with my dad while living from a more healed and whole place. This was a short season that seemed to quiet everything inside my mind and soul and make room for what was coming next.

  After a few months in Oregon, I was ready to move on again. I wanted to go places where I had heard God was doing something amazing. I didn’t know what I was looking for or what I needed—I just wanted to sit in those environments and see if God would do something amazing in me, particularly when it came to unlocking that thing inside me connected to worship.

  I first went to Kansas City, where there is a ministry called the International House of Prayer. They have ongoing prayer and worship twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I sat in on a few different prayer sessions there. It was a special time with Jesus, but I felt like I was supposed to keep moving, so I headed to Charlotte, North Carolina. I had a friend there, Molly Williams, who led worship at a church called MorningStar Fellowship Church, and she invited me to stay for a while and join the worship team as a background singer.

  At MorningStar I met a fellow worship leader and friend of Molly’s named Suzy Wills (now Suzy Yaraei). Suzy was the freest person I had ever seen in my life. She was not only a talented vocalist, but she led worship with such deep passion, freedom, and sensitivity to Holy Spirit. Usually at some point during whatever song she was leading, she would burst into a spontaneous song, going completely off script. She didn’t care what anyone thought, and she was determined to lead people into the same freedom she herself exuded.

  I felt like most of the time I was onstage, I just watched Suzy with awe and wonder. How does she just start singing something spontaneously, and it’s exactly what needs to be said in the moment? Watching and listening to her, it was very clear she had walked through the fire with Jesus many times and had a trust and love for Him that was unwavering. I could identify with her, almost as if we had similar scars. But I longed for the freedom she was walking in.

  One evening I was singing background vocals with Molly and Suzy during a worship set when there was a momentary lull. The band was playing, but no one was singing. My heart started racing, and I could feel Molly’s eyes burrowing into me! Suddenly her hand was on my back, gently pushing me forward as she said in her thick Southern accent, “Sing something. You got something.”

  All I could think was, No, I do not. I shook my head at her, eyes wide as saucers. But then I opened my mouth, and suddenly, from somewhere deep in my spirit, a song came out. The words just flowed out like it was a song that had been trapped inside for a long time. As the words came out, Molly and Suzy both started crying.

  “You can have all of me,” I sang. “You can have every part of me . . .”

  It wasn’t as though words appeared in my mind, causing me to read a script. It was more like a fountain had been turned on, and all I did was open my mouth to let it out. It was a bubbling up of heartfelt emotions, transformed into lyrics and melody. Even the melody came out pretty easily. The band kept playing the same chord progression over and over, so that helped with anticipating where the music would go and then following it.

  I could feel Jesus—His presence, pleasure, and excitement in that moment. And as the room responded to what was being sung, I could see the way Holy Spirit was using it to bring glory to Him. People were joining in with what I was singing, lifting their hands, crying, and singing out their own words to Jesus. It was as if we were all being swept away in the overflow of that fountain.

  I had a lot of questions that night, and Molly and Suzy were happy to teach me, pray for me, and encourage me. They talked about the importance of the band staying on the same chord progression when you sing out spontaneously so that you can settle into a melody. They talked about how you can help bring breakthrough to a moment in worship when you step out boldly and lead in freedom. They also taught me how helpful it is to find phrases that can be repeated so that the people you are leading can catch on to them and sing along with you.

  I knew I had stepped into something new that had forever changed me as a worshiper and worship leader. Suzy and Molly kept pushing me out of my comfort zone and encouraging me. Molly taught me how to have some backbone and jump out into the middle of a song with boldness. I learned it was okay to make mistakes, and nobody is expected to be perfect.

  This is the beauty of worship. It’s not a performance. It’s just a bunch of God’s kids coming together to worship Him. And like any loving father, He loves the affection and attention we give Him. I also learned how beautiful it is when I do engage my emotions. Suzy helped me see that I can express big emotions in worship and live outside of the box, just like Jesus. It was through watching Suzy that I could feel the painful memory of a little girl thinking she was “too much” because she “didn’t know when to stop” fading away. On a scale of one to ten in freedom and expression, Suzy was always an eleven, and we all loved her for it. To this day I tell people that everything I learned about worship leading, I learned from Suzy and Molly during my season in Charlotte.

  I had been gone from Redding for a bit more than a year when something inside me said it was time to go back. Whatever it was that had b
een locked up now felt open wide and ready for whatever Jesus was going to do. There was no checklist that had been completed or any accomplishment I could point to. It was just a feeling of being settled and of anticipation mixed together. I had stayed connected with Banning while I was away, and the Jesus Culture conference was ready to begin. He asked me if I would help Chris Quilala lead worship at it. I surprised myself by excitedly saying I would. My lack of fear proved that something had shifted in me.

  That first time I led at Jesus Culture was eye-opening for everyone! A wild and untamed passion came surging out of me while leading. I was fearless and bold as I danced, sang, shouted, and held nothing back in worshiping Jesus. I wasn’t afraid to address the crowd and encourage them to step out in freedom as well. And to my sheer delight, spontaneous worship just flowed out of me.

  When I walked off the stage, so many people who had known me before I left said, “Kim, what happened to you?” Everyone could see and feel the change. It was hard to verbalize a response to their questions though. I had felt like I needed to be unlocked and went out in search of the key. Sure enough, something had opened up inside me on that journey, and I came home a different person. I was just as excited and confused about it as everyone else!

  The more I stepped out in worship, boldly making declarations about what I felt God was doing in us and saying to us, the more my confidence and faith grew. I didn’t fear mistakes, and spontaneously singing was becoming easier and easier. A new authority came with my new level of freedom. The passion and joy that came bursting out of me with every lyric ignited the hearts of those I was leading.

  Once after a worship set, a lady came up to me and said, “We just needed permission.” I realized that everything I had fought for became something into which I could lead others. They just needed to see passion in worship displayed to know what it could be. I learned to press through in worship toward greater freedom and breakthrough, and people would follow me there. I soon learned that all my private victories could be translated into communal victories as I led.