The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living (14 page)

I
was newly married to Josh Sturm and touring to support our album
Memento
Mori
.
We walked into our room at the Holiday Inn Express and dropped our bags by the door. Josh pulled out his toiletry bag and took it with him to the shower. I pulled out a book someone had loaned me and started at the beginning. It was
23
Minutes
in
Hell
.

I was suspicious of any book where the author claimed to have gone to heaven or hell and returned to tell the tale. So the whole first part of the book I thought,
Yeah, right
. But then I started to recognize the story. I had heard it before.

Hell Is a Metaphor?

Eight years ago my friend Chad had stopped into town for a visit. I hadn’t seen him in a long while. A group of us
were hanging out with him when the conversation turned to the topic of hell. People were throwing out hell philosophies left and right. The dialogue escalated until everyone gave up on the discussion except Chad and me. We went through Bible verses we remembered that supported the idea of universalism—the idea that if God loves everyone, and Jesus died for everyone, then in the end everyone will be saved.

“Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

“It is not God’s will that any would perish, but that all would come to repentance through the knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

“And didn’t Jesus pray to God, ‘Thy will be done’? If it isn’t God’s will that any would perish, then maybe none will. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, forever. He forgave men when they weren’t sorry, as he hung on the cross bleeding, saying what seems to be about his murderers, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”

“So what about all those who don’t know?”

Round and round we went, until we concluded that hell was most likely metaphorical.

To Hell and Back

The very next week Flyleaf met for practice. We started with a Bible study like we always did. This time Jared’s mom had given us a tape to listen to. It was a speaker named Bill.

The man’s voice was quiet, shy, and unimpressive. It was a voice you’d never notice—totally forgettable. I imagined him to be a simple, small-framed, unassuming, unimpressive sort of nerdy guy. In the beginning of the tape I wondered what on earth this guy had to say that was worth a recording of his speech.

But as he got into the story I realized something heart shattering.

This guy had been to hell
and
back. Literally. He told how he woke up in hell with no knowledge of having ever been a Christian. He experienced a period of time
outside
of time, literally an eternity, where he was in hell.

I wanted so much to not believe him, but everything in me knew he was naturally a terrible liar. My heart shook with conflict. I wanted to pass him off as crazy or as a liar, but he showed no hint of either lunacy or dishonesty. I sat there wrecked by what I was hearing, searching for anything in his speech to validate my cynicism. Then he concluded his story, at which point his voice shook.

“I saw Jesus standing there,” Bill said, voice quavering, “and I was so relieved and amazed, but also wondering, and my heart asked, ‘Why would you bring me here?’

‘Because there are many who believe this place does not exist,’ he said. ‘Even many of my own people don’t believe that it’s here. I am calling you to tell them.’

In my heart I responded, ‘What if they don’t believe me? What if they say I just had a nightmare?’ And Jesus said so clearly to me, ‘It is not your job to convince them; it is only your job to tell them.’”
1

At that moment, I felt two arrows enter my heart. One exposed me as one of those who loved Jesus and yet twisted the Scriptures to try to prove that hell did not exist. And the other was revelation about the motives of this man. Bill didn’t want attention, nor did he possess an agenda for giving this speech. I believed he was genuine. He just wanted to tell his story because Jesus told him to do so.

I then understood God’s directive on my heart: he called me to do what Bill was doing as well. He didn’t want me to change people’s minds about him, just to tell them what he did for me. Bill’s story helped me understand that God wanted to use my story to help others as well.

It was a profound moment of conviction, and just like I began to see myself and others in this world so differently after I found Jesus, I also began to see the world in light of eternity much differently after that day.

I remember crying for three days straight after that.

I sat in traffic trying to quit crying so that I could take care of some errands. But when I looked to my left I saw people who may die any second and end up in hell. When I looked to my right I saw the same. I knew Jesus paid the penalty for sin and offered forgiveness. And I knew if only we would believe it, we could receive that forgiveness and be with God when we died. But a life without Jesus translated into an eternity apart from him, an eternity in hell. I wept for what seemed a week over the destiny of the human race without Christ.

After three days the weight lifted at least somewhat, and I was able to stop crying enough to go about my day until another wave hit. I remember trying to explain my overwhelmed spirit in band practice, but the guys just looked at me like I was insane. I don’t think I ever felt more alone. I was weeping for the whole world and no one understood why.

The Weight of Darkness

Fast-forward eight years and there I was, sitting in the hotel room reading this book a friend had given me. I was cynical
about the book, waiting for the author to trip up in his story and expose himself as a fake, when all of a sudden I recognized the story. The whole speech I had heard in that band Bible study eight years ago flooded my mind. I realized that I was reading the book written by the quiet awkward guy from that tape.

I started to read more slowly.

My tired husband crawled in bed beside me. He turned off his light and left me reading with my own lamp on low. By the end of the book the tears started. I saw crowds of hundreds of thousands of people, people I had sung in front of, my voice loud enough for each one to hear, and all these people were being ushered over a cliff into hell. What had I done? What had I done with my voice? Why hadn’t I told them clearly? Didn’t I know? Why didn’t I say something when I had the chance?

It was 3:00 a.m. by this time, and I was sobbing uncontrollably. Josh woke up and thought someone had died. He was trying to comfort me and figure out what was wrong at the same time. He was completely bewildered at what to do for me. I couldn’t stop sobbing enough to tell him for the next thirty minutes, and finally I explained through sobs.

“Josh, I can see them. The crowds I loved and prayed for, the ones I sang to, the whole world that Jesus had died to save from hell, and they were going by the hundreds of thousands into eternity in hell. These precious creations of God were being lost forever and what was I doing, playing shows for entertainment? I
have
to tell them. I
have
to tell them while they’re still listening.”

I kept sobbing and sobbing. Finally, after listening and letting me cry for another hour, Josh said sternly, “I don’t think you should read that book anymore.”

I was so angry. “That is your response? This isn’t about a book. This is about something that is really happening every day!”

Josh was overwhelmed, and I think I went to bed weeping. He held me while I cried myself to sleep. What else could he do?

A month later we visited our pastor, Eric, and his wife, Sarah, in Kansas City. They had joined a church and wanted us to meet the guy who started it. His name was Tim Johns. He hugged us like we were his long-lost children. He showed us to the humble living room, where Josh and I sat on an old couch.

When Tim started asking us what we did for a living, Eric started to explain Flyleaf and our mission. Tim asked if we had any music to hear online. So Eric went with him to his computer in the other room and showed him about twenty-five seconds of the “I’m So Sick” video. He was so excited about what he heard that he started yelling to Josh and me about how awesome it was. He returned to the room where Josh and I were sitting and began to explain my whole life to me.

“Lacey! You have a prophetic, evangelical anointing. This is a very heavy, heavy calling. God has poured his love for this generation into your heart and allowed you to sing their song with his heart of passion, so they will know that God loves them. You are called to carry a very heavy burden, but Josh, it is your job to help her take that burden to Jesus and leave it at his feet. You have to remind her constantly that she is not Jesus and that it is not her job to save people, because
she can’t. She will feel the burden so that she can write and sing the songs from the heart of the Father.”

Josh and I just sat there and listened, blown away.

“Lacey, this burden is important in order for you to do what you do, but you cannot live in that place or you will be completely crushed under the weight of it. God has called you to his peace and joy as well, and Josh, it is your job to pull her out of that place of mourning and burden and prayer and take her to the movies, or for a walk, or whatever. This will be hard for her because she will feel like she is wasting time she could be using to save people or help them, but Lacey, you have to let Josh lead you into these places of rest or you will be overwhelmed and no good to anyone. God wants you to learn to listen to Josh and trust that he hears the heart of the Father too. He wants you to rest in knowing that when you trust your husband you will be in the right place at the right time. He will teach you it is not necessary to offend everyone all the time, which you probably do, is that right?”

Josh and I were both crying and had no idea how to respond.

“Yes, that happens a lot,” I said, stunned.

“Well, Josh is going to be able to help you know how to get the ‘what’ done without hurting everyone in your path.”

Through his tears, Josh then told Tim about what had happened in the hotel room the other night. “She would not stop sobbing and I didn’t know what was going on. I was like, ‘Is she really feeling the burden for all these people going to hell, or do I need to cast a demon out so it will stop tormenting her?’”

Tim laughed, and said, “She
really
feels that burden.” I was so relieved to hear that. “But Lacey, you have to let him help you take your burdens to Jesus’s feet, so you don’t try to carry them on your own shoulders. It’s too much, sweetheart. And lighten up on your bandmates. They don’t carry
the burden like you do, and if God sees fit to let them off the hook, then you shouldn’t try to put them on it.”

Yes, sir. This godly man spoke truth and wisdom into my life—a heavenly message that accomplished much in my heart, lightening my spirit. Oh, my, what freedom! What a weight now falling off my back. I was amazed.

__________________

O
hmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!” I yelled as I ran from the bathroom, across our bed, stopping just before the hallway where Josh stood looking at me with big eyes.

“What?!”

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!” I answered, pointing to the bathroom. He ran to the bathroom and picked up the pregnancy test to find a very dark plus sign on its screen.

“What does it mean?” he asked, still not sure.

“I’m pregnant!”

It was Halloween 2008. We went to the hospital that night to confirm the news. A handsome black doctor dressed as a cowboy shook our hands to congratulate us. He told us to
come back in about a month. Then we would be ten weeks along and they could make sure everything was normal.

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Josh snapped a picture of my joyful face looking up at him with my belly covered in the magic sonogram jelly.

It was just after that picture was taken that we found out the sad and confusing news. There was no baby heartbeat. The sonogram showed one of two possibilities. I was either miscarrying or I had a rare situation called a molar pregnancy, where a sperm fertilizes an empty egg, the cells freak out, and instead of a baby forming, you develop a rapidly growing cancerous mass. They drew some blood and sent us home to wait for the results.

We sat in shocked silence at home until the phone rang that evening. My doctor’s kind, motherly voice let me know that I wasn’t miscarrying. She suggested I come in as soon as possible to have a D&C so they could remove the mass growing in my abdomen.

As a believer in miracles, I asked her, “Will it take care of itself if I just leave it alone? Will it dissolve or something?”

“If you do nothing, you will die,” she said, very sternly. “It will spread to your lungs very quickly, then even faster to your brain, and you will die.”

“Can I please think about this?”

“I’d like to schedule you for tomorrow morning, if possible,” she said.

“Can I wait a couple of days, till after Thanksgiving?”

“You know what, that might be best. With molar pregnancies the chance of hemorrhage during D&C is extremely high. If you wait until after Thanksgiving there will be a better chance of having more blood available in case you need a transfusion. That’s fine, but absolutely no later than the morning after Thanksgiving.”

You Will Die

Flyleaf had been throwing around titles for the new album for a while, and it was just after this drama played out that Pat suggested the name
Memento
Mori
, the Latin phrase that means, “Remember you are mortal and will die.” The story goes that in ancient Rome the phrase was used to remind victorious soldiers that they were mortal and could die at any time. It was meant to humble the soldiers but also to encourage people to live life to the fullest, because one day you will die and today could be your last.

Pat didn’t know all that I had just been through with my molar pregnancy when he suggested the name, but it felt prophetic to me after my experience. We all loved it for our own reasons and settled on the name
Memento Mori
for what we didn’t know would be the last album that we would play live together.

It took a full year of monitoring and tests before the doctors could be sure remnants of the cancerous mass were not still growing somewhere in my body. We were scheduled to go to Los Angeles and record during the year while I was recovering, so my doctor suggested I visit the cancer ward of a Los Angeles hospital for my weekly blood tests. If you want to know the depth of the meaning of
Memento Mori
, I suggest visiting this cancer ward. It changed my life forever.

When Josh and I walked through the doors of the hospital, I was greeted by two people who looked at me with a kind of concern I’d never seen from strangers in Los Angeles. They
smiled warmly and lovingly, looked me over, and offered me a refreshment.

“No, thank you,” I answered, blushing at their unexpected kindness.

I stepped into the elevator at the same time as another woman, who reached the buttons before me.

“What floor are you going to?” she asked,

“Oh, looks like the same as you,” I answered.

The woman began to search my eyes with loving, hopeful concern as the doors closed.

“This is a wonderful place to be. I just want to tell you that.”

Kindness and hope dripped from her voice as she went on with the kind of intimate tone that she would use with a sister or a daughter who was afraid.

“They certainly keep you alive here.”

Her smile broadened into a look of an overcomer who was proud to have a moment to breathe and speak encouragement to a young person like me facing the prospect of cancer.

I smiled back at her as my eyes filled up with tears and told her thank you, squeezing Josh’s hand extra tight.

I kept thinking,
She is so brave and
selfless to try to encourage me this way. I’m
a stranger to her, but she is looking at me
like an old friend. She has been through so much,
and yet she is the one encouraging me.

I felt ashamed at how few times in my life I had treated a stranger with the kind of love this woman was showing me. She said so much with just a few words and her body language. I was humbled by her love. But my lessons on how to love a stranger who could die any day were just beginning.

I stepped off the elevator and walked into a room that seemed to smile with warmth. Fresh flowers and a colorful fish tank accented the room, while the smell of freshly baked cookies stirred a desire in me to curl up and take a nap. Glowing,
beautiful, friendly faces dotted the room. They all seemed to zone in on me one at a time. Whenever my eyes would meet any of theirs, they looked welcoming and encouraging.

I walked to the check-in window. The woman behind the desk looked at me with a joy so sweet and humble that I wondered if she was an angel in disguise.

“What a beautiful face!” she said to me.

The sincerity of her compliment was surprising. She didn’t wait for a response. “My love, I have some papers for you.”

“Thank you,” I said as she handed me a clipboard with a little golden Hershey’s dark chocolate clipped on top of the papers.

I marveled—this very candy was my absolute favorite. She smiled wide and beautiful at me while looking over the top of her reading glasses and then gave me a suspicious wink, like she knew that chocolate was my favorite kind. I went back to my seat, grabbed Josh’s hand, and whispered in his ear, “I think that lady is an angel, for real.”

Before I could start filling out my papers another lady in the waiting room brought me a cookie in a napkin.

“Hello, sweet one! My friend Elise baked these cookies for the waiting room today, and I just brought them over. They are still slightly warm and nice and soft, if you want to try one.”

“Oh, thank you,” I answered, taking the cookie even though I didn’t really want it. I didn’t want to take away her joy at being able to be generous and hospitable. She made me feel
so
loved. She was so happy that I received her gift.

I began to fill out the form again, but I didn’t get far before another woman came over and knelt down in front of me.

She took both my hands in hers. “What is your name, darling?”

“Lacey.”

“Lacey! That is beautiful.”

She lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “May I ask what area of your body you’re having issues in?”

The woman was older and seemed like a concerned grandmother.

“Um . . . my uh . . . abdomen.” I was unsure of what she really wanted to know.

“I had a feeling that might have been so. Let me tell you, Lacey, I had issues in the same area. I want to tell you that I am totally better now! I’m only here for check-ups. I want you to know, Lacey, that you are going to be okay.”

“Thank you,” I said as she squeezed my hands and kissed them before walking back to her seat.

I just got started on my form again when another older Hispanic woman came and stood in front of me. She just looked at me for a moment. With tears in her eyes she smiled warmly at me but said nothing.

“Hello,” I said to her.

She answered me in Spanish.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish,” I said.

“No?” she answered, with a thick accent. “You look like my daughter.” She smiled, making a tear fall from her eye.

She leaned down, took my face in her hands, and looked at me with such love I almost started bawling. Then she kissed me on each cheek and gave me a long, genuine, loving hug. I would guess she was praying as she hugged me. It was as if she really believed her hug was going to heal me.

“You will be okay,” she said to me.

I was wiping tears from my eyes now, overwhelmed with how loved I felt in the waiting room of this cancer center.

I sat there utterly convicted.

I realized I had only a nice concept in my mind when I spouted off speeches at Flyleaf shows about how we should love people because we never know if it will be our last day
or theirs. I had no idea what that really looked like until I sat in that waiting room.
Memento
Mori
came to life in that place, but this was only the beginning.

Life, Our Special Gift

I didn’t know at the time that I would survive that process and move on. I didn’t know that I would become pregnant with my first child around the same time the next year. I didn’t know that I would go to a very painful, unexpected funeral the year after that. I didn’t know that
Memento
Mori
would mean so much more to me than I could ever read about or philosophize about.

Memento Mori
came to life in tragic ways, with my molar pregnancy and the death of my friend Rich Caldwell, who was killed in a car accident, and it came to life in beautiful, miraculous ways, with the birth of my two sons.

To remember we are mortal means to live one day at a time.

It means we must do the most we can with every day we have. It means we must learn to be truly alive
right now
. We must love people while we can.

To love others doesn’t mean we should try to be God for people. If we try to be God for others, we will always let them down and we will always be crushed under the weight of trying to be more than it is possible for us to be. To love others means to point to the God who is our only Savior. It means to look to God to find out where he wants us to go and how he wants us to live and to love. It means we must make the most of every opportunity—that might look like standing on stage in front of thousands and singing your heart out,
or it could be bringing some fresh baked cookies to a cancer ward waiting room. Both are
equally
important. It’s just a matter of what your highest purpose is for each day.

We don’t know if we will have tomorrow. Sometimes it takes the scary prospect of cancer for that to really sink in. Sometimes it takes a healthy loved one dying in a car crash. Sometimes it takes going through a complicated pregnancy and giving birth to a healthy baby anyway. But we don’t require the experience of trauma to wake up, listen, believe, and truly live like our lives are precious, fragile gifts. The lives of the people around us are precious, fragile gifts.

All life is a gift from God.

So if you know you should leave home and tell the world about hope by being a musician, lawyer, doctor, missionary, businessperson, educator, or whatever; or if you are supposed to go home and be a mom, a son, a friend, or a plumber at your dad’s plumbing business, then don’t neglect what you know you should do with the short time you have here on earth.

For me, the season for being in Flyleaf was coming to a close, and I could feel it. When my son Jack was born, I wasn’t certain how having a baby would affect me as a full-time musician, but I knew my priorities were already changing.

I remember lying beside my baby boy, looking at his innocent face, and wishing that my only job was to be his momma. But I wasn’t sure this was what I was meant to do. I remember crying and praying and telling the Lord, “I’m willing to trust you, if you want me to hire help and keep touring. But if you honor me by calling me to stay home, then I will be so happy.”

It took a full year of praying and watching for the answer before Josh and I would make one of the hardest decisions
we’ve ever had to make. But finally, the answer was very clear: this new season for us was best served at home, learning what it meant to be parents.

It was hard for a lot of people to understand (especially if they didn’t have children) how changing diapers was more important than trying to spread hope into the hearts of suicidal teens through Flyleaf’s music. The truth is, it isn’t
more
important. It is
just as
important. What matters is knowing what season it is for you and knowing what you are meant to be doing today. That is where you will be the most fulfilled and where you will be the most effective at changing the world.