Music saved me.

I’m joining the synchroblog for the release of A Christian Survival Guide: A Lifeline to Faith and Growth by answering the prompt: ‘What saved my faith?’ Check out the end of this post to find out how you can get involved.

~~~

I was never massively academic. Maths and science were a hard slog, PE was my living nightmare, history was boring but music…..ahhh music……saved me much embarrassment  with my grades whilst growing up. I was learning the flute, wasn’t too bad at it, but I loved being surrounded by music. The radio would keep me company as I got ready to go out of the house each morning and I would insist my Dad put the radio on when he picked me up from school.

At church I could often only engage in the music. I found the sermons hard to concentrate on but during worship I could feel myself engaging in a conversation with God. I loved opportunities for ‘Big’ worship at annual events and loved the opportunity to learn new songs.

~~~

I began to take my music seriously. A year out after college, working a small part time job allowed me  time to practice for hours at at time. I also began to teach which I loved, all giving me a good stand to start my Bmus in Music at the University the following year.

I would love to say that my time at university was the best time of my life, that music continued to be my escape, but it wasn’t. I was deeply unhappy and it was here that I was first diagnosed with depression. Suddenly the thing that had helped me to feel so free in life became my prison. I left my course at the beginning of the third year and was too afraid to play music again for a long time. I had failed and neither my faith nor my music had saved me.

~~~

A few years later, I was married and more involved in the life of our church than ever before. It felt at time like my husband and I lived and breathed that place. I tried to cling on there, to cling on to my faith but it all became very painful and lonely and my husband and I made the utterly heartbreaking (and yes it really was heartbreaking) decision to leave the church. My faith, already in a vulnerable place, dissolved to nothingness almost overnight and for the best part of a year my husband and I were church free. The proper response here would be to say that we were miserable that year, that live felt empty, but this was not the case. For the first time in a long time I felt free!

But still, but still the music.

~~~

We found ourselves visiting a friends church that he had recently become minister of, a good 40 miles away from home. The worship! Oh, to be back in room with people worshiping- I felt the pain of having abandoned my faith, and here began the journey of me starting afresh in my faith.  I felt like we had arrived home. In fact we had. A few months later we packed up our home and our lives and moved to the place we now call home.

Without music  I am not sure where my faith would currently be.

Music saved me.

~~~

What saved your faith? Write your own post answering that question and then visit www.edcyzewski.com to learn how you can join the synchroblog or to read additional posts to celebrate the release of Ed’s book A Christian Survival Guide, which is discounted on Amazon this week.