The Music Plays On...

Why you with your long brown hair flowing

And you with your fresh tattooed skin

And you from the Western Virginia

That you'll never get to see again

As darkness descended the desert

And a bad actor starred in his play

Why you from Tennessee did life capture

And me from Tennessee get away

-Eric Church 

I had just fallen into that moment, the one between sleep and awake. My head rested heavily on my cool pillow, the ceiling fan swayed in constant motion above me, and a dreamlike sensation mixed with heavy eyes had me off to Neverland. And then, like the cold that filled that eery night, my slumber was erupted with that tiny vibrating of my phone. And in that moment, the world I knew, changed. 

I never left my phone on when I slept. I have no idea why or how that night it had been. And twenty minutes later when I sat frozen in my bed, still in shock, and utterly terrified, my mom wondered what I was doing. I replied, "Mom, I'm so scared." 

I was paralyzed in fear. Absolutely terrified. In my own bed, in my own room, I could not move.  We had looked at tickets for that concert. We had considered going. If it were not for work plans that weekend, we could have easily been there. The next week we were scheduled to see the artist performing when the shots fired. One week later we were going to be in his audience. The guy that played right before him, we had seen in concert a few months before.  We knew those people. They were our people. 

I could imagine in the realist way the terror. I could see the cowboy boots running to some sort of refuge in an open field. I could smell the beer that dropped to the ground and poured out in the chaos of running for your life. I knew those faces. I knew those people. I had stood by them before and sang with them. I could picture the plaid covered in blood and the silenced guitars that must have felt so unbelievably eery. That was my crowd. Those were my people. And that could have easily, so easily been me. 

The text that woke me up that night was my friend asking if I'd heard about the Route 91 festival shooting. For the next several hours, in the cold of what was before just a normal Sunday night, I watched in absolute shock and disbelief.  The news reports were scattered at first, multiple shooters, guns on the loose, and hotels on lockdown. And my mind literally felt like it was in the middle of some horrific nightmare I just wanted to wake up from. But I didn't, I didn't wake up from it. And while my experience with the tragedy is in so many ways, NOTHING, compared to all those directly involved, and NOTHING compared to those who lost their lives, it was a real moment when my own FAITH was tested. 

That night, as I sat up, and watched with no clear understanding, fear overcame me. I couldn't move. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't turn off the tv. I didn't want to wake up the next day in this horrible world. I was sad. I felt alone. I felt the most real fear. And I could have let that paralyze me.  But then, I had to go deep into my mind, and my heart, and ask myself what it might have looked like if I was shot that day. What if mine was one of the lives that was lost? Of course that is scary. Of course that's enough to make you question ever putting your boot back in the saddle and riding again. Of course that makes you question big crowds and the security at all your future concerts. But then there was a moment, when I went back far enough in my mind to the truth.  I could have died that day, I could die any day, but faith says death is not the final say. Faith says that death, while an ending is not the ultimate end. Faith says that at death, we see Jesus. Faith says love out does hate and out does fear. Faith says you get up and put one foot in front of the other because on the worse day there is still good. That's what faith says. 

And I honestly believe there's a part of me that might still be laying in that cold bed on a cold night paralyzed in fear if it were not for faith. 

Last night we rallied for our first country concert since Las Vegas. And I'm sure it took less courage for us to go than for some of those directly impacted, but it was not without some consideration that faith says we can keep going. Faith got me there last night. Because God has shown me that even though so many moments hold the potential for death, and darkness in the cold of the night, there is so much more potential for love, and light, and warmth, as the country music plays on and the memory of precious lives stills the crowd. 

Las Vegas. You have my prayers and a piece of my heart always. God you have my life.