The Gospel

Playlist. 

The majority of my six years at Starbucks, required me to get up at 4 am to open the store by 4:30.  I was always the perky gal ready to rock and roll, run my bar, and bring smiles to many, which would, at times, annoy my very sleepy coworkers. Sometimes, I'd go so far as even to dance and sing while I merrily made a production line of caffeinated delights. I loved my job and I met so many wonderful people there.

Music has always held a special place in my heart and let me tell you -- it got to a certain point at my old Starbucks, my coworkers would hide this cd from me.

Just now I remembered the title, and just now I wept over this keyboard to see yet another means He was at work, by the title alone. 

It was at Starbucks the seeds for my love of Gospel music were planted.  First I fell in love with Otis Redding.  Then it was Ray Charles.  Doo Wop.  The music, the rhythm, always got me -- it even affected my child, who took her first steps to "Ive got a Woman."  But it was the gospel roots I grew to love most.

No matter what soul or R&B group from the 1950's it was, I always went back to Gospel, much to my family and friend's astonished curiosity.  I wasn't a Christian, but I was a Goth girl (not the generic HOt Topic, Marilyn Manson Goth, but Old School Bauhaus Goth) who wore black everyday, real Victorian corsets and bustles, who slowly turned more to Pin Up and Rockabilly as my love of gospel grew.  I even admitted it was weird.

 You see, I outplayed this CD in the Starbucks I opened, after returning from Italy in 2001.  This is also the store that sits caddywompus (yes, that is a word) from Prestonwood Baptist Church, otherwise known as the Bapdidome or the Jesus Bowl, depending on the circle you run with.  It is  the very church I mention in my video I feared as I watched being built. Why?

The Christians were coming.

No one in the service industry ever wants to work on a Sunday.  It's true.  Straight out of church, where they supposedly learn to live like Jesus -- and their behavior is exasperating for the most part, not even lined with the courteous gesture of eye contact in conversation as you are about to serve them. 

And yet, Jesus washed people's feet. 

Allow me to use the words of Tim Sinclair from his book Branded to best describe the camp I sat in as an agnostic tossed in the tides of religious people, hiding under a banner of self righteousness and practicing external religion:

Fortunately or unfortunately, the world is watching, and our ridiculous actions aren't fooling anyone.  Those who don't know Christ aren't buying the act.  In fact, they're ignoring it.  Following Jesus has become to them like a high school variety show, complete with dated costumes, cheesy songs, and bad acting.

There were a handful of people at Prestonwood that didn't fit this bill. Two of them were the people the Lord put in my path to show me the love of Christ, without my --get this -- ever knowing it.  Jarrett Stephens encouraged me when I needed him. I even called him randomly while in college, working on a paper for Medieval Spanish painting. I needed a biblical reference for blue and white thread.  Guess what?  He found it. And Diane. Diane is a woman who radiates in a love and a peace that only Christ can bring.  I've always said her house is my favorite place to be, and that still holds true.  You can just feel the love seeping out of the very walls.  Back in the day, I can't remember how many times I'd say just that, but in secular terms.

You see, He's in everything.  Everything.  He placed me in that Starbucks where the seeds for the literal Gospel were planted in my love for Gospel music.  God wired me to love music in general.

I literally do not remember most of my childhood thru parts of my teens, even some adult years, but listen -- play any Depeche Mode song and I can tell what ,where, when, who, and even how I felt, sometimes even the smell in the air. That is not a genetic preference, let me tell you. My mother has never understood my absolute love of music and its therapeutic value to me.  Inside music, and even on the dance floor at the Goth club The Church (ironic, isn't it) I attended --religiously-- for over a decade every Thursday and Sunday night, I would get lost, completely lost in the music, for hours on end. 

That is a God thing.  Cause guess what?  He used Sam Cooke to woo me. He's an artist I was introduced to where?  Starbucks.

This was the first song I heard, and as I tend to do when a song becomes a bookmark on my life, I had this on repeat for at least a week, if not longer.

I had no idea what this "change" was gonna be, but I knew even then it would be a big change of some kind.

I remember one day Jarrett told me over the phone, in our conversational, fun tone he and I always kept, "He's chasing you, Hollie."  Keep in mind Jarrett knew and respected my boundaries.  Certain words like "prophecy" and "spiritual warfare" were (and frankly, still are) like triggers to me that shut me down -- yet -- he said that and it did not make me uncomfortable in any way.  Perhaps that was because  that notion was ridiculous and absurd to me.  No one and nothing had that kind of control of me -- but me.


After that, Jarrett and I did not talk but twice a year, maybe.  He was busy, and so was I.  But God wasn't.


Several years passed, I became a single mom, finished my degree, and well, life just got the way and became hard. 

In all of that, one day, I happened upon this song. Over and over and over again I played it -- having no idea what Jesus gave me water really meant. Not a clue -- which will always serve as a reminder to me that a person will only ever know when He wants them to.

The best part about that, my friends, is He will never ever send you out ill prepared, and at this point in my life, I would not have been able to handle just how remarkable receiving His love is.  I wouldn't have been able to understand it.  I was still shedding my self-deserving skin, and I had yet to experience what I thought was true, made for me, love.

Enter James, a fella after my own heart. He was academic, geeky, well read, and when I found out he drove from Texas to Georgia for Christmas and listened to Sam Cooke the entire way-- man, that sealed the deal. 

He became very special to me right then and there, and he happened to be "Christian."  Go figure.

Shortly before coming to Christ, while James and I lived together, this next song randomly played on Pandora.

It just filled me (and still does)  with joy, one that made me feel like my heart could positively burst, particularly when the five part harmony comes in around 1:19.  I simply could not explain it. 

It is a mean old world in which to be alone.

Even at this point I refused Him, but I knew who Sam Cooke was talking about.

But, alas!  Jesus Gave Me Water and boy did I get thirsty quick. Every day I would (and still) go to Starbucks to study, and when I came upon that chapter in John, I probably looked like a complete idiot when I stood up shouting something to the likes of, "That's where that song came from!"  And I wept what Amelie refers to as "happy tears," just because they now happen so often.

So much has come out of working across the street from Prestonwood.  I met Jarrett and Diane for starters. He was then just a guy in seminary, and now he's their teaching pastor, who is still just a guy to me, however a fantastic teacher and wise.  His care for me, came in a way I never expected -- silently -- particularly when I wanted him to answer me.  I am learning from both of my mentors there is wisdom in silence.

 My first visit to a church -- willingly to go to church-- was The Village.  I pulled in and saw it was in a converted grocery store?  What was I thinking? If there were any silk plants, I was walking out the door.  That's where I drew  the line. Whew, all I could think of were my labels and that passage from Sinclair I quoted above. That's when I learned the labels I had of church folk in general were just as strong and just as damaging as theirs of me and how I looked, especially after hearing what Chandler had to say, but more importantly how he said it.

 Matt Chandler is the teaching pastor at The Village Church, a place I now call home -- a Gospel saturated home. Guess what?  I recently learned he was preaching at Prestonwood while I worked in that very Starbucks.  He and Jarrett are friends.  Shoot, they probably came into my store together. Who knew.

Jarrett Stephens and Diane -- two "random" people I met at a Starbucks --have prayed for me for nine years.  Nine years.  Jarrett baptized me October 1st 2011.

You never know how He's at work, and when you find out, and can see or hear it, it is sweet indeed.

Happy Valentine's Day.