Your Brain Is Closer To Fine

Sometimes you just have to make a decision that everything is going to be ok. You have to be the one to decide against the odds and just proclaim that you are going to be fine. You may not think so or people around you may not think so either, but the power of words is, well, powerful. If you say something enough, it’s going to stick.


I have been through a lot lately, but so have many other people. One thing I have been taught and have been teaching others with is proclaiming truth in their life by saying it out loud. Not just writing it down and looking at it every day or just praying truth, but out loud proclaiming it. I have a sweet friend who really struggles with this. She doesn’t want to claim the truth of what has happened or what will happen because she says saying it out loud makes it more real, more truth, and that really scares her. I instantly thought of how right she was. Sometimes it really is very hard to say that we will be ok or proclaim the truth God has set before us because we know it to actually to be true. It’s just that our lives are showing us otherwise, but only at the moment. In those really low moments of failure or defeat it always seems like we will be in that place or you just don’t know how to get out of it, so we succumb to the moment. It’s those moments which we can’t always see past that make us not want to face the reality that life will go on, the earth will keep spinning, and night will turn to day.

The brain is a VERY powerful organ. It literally controls your entire being from motion to emotion, conscious and unconscious. Did you know that your brain can actually be very deceptive though? It is a storehouse of energy and knowledge, yet your brain is naturally lazy. This is why education and learning is so important to do because if you mind never learns to rest then it becomes easier and easier to continue to store new information. The older you get the harder this becomes though, so scientists say that you should never stop learning new things. My favorite speaker Erwin McManus is so big on this idea that every year he dedicates to learn something new from a new language or just learning how to do improv. There is just too much cool stuff to learn, he says. All of this to say that you must keep discovering and fighting so that your brain doesn’t become a deceptive tool. You can actually get to the point where when you learn something new or something that contradicts your beliefs, your brain will literally no longer store this information and you become “close minded” in the literal knowledge sense. Your brain is lazy and doesn’t want to create the space to hold this new information because then it is forced to rearrange the knowledge that it contradicts. So for instance, if your brain was too lazy to make “new room” for this information, later on in conversation your brain will recall false information or not even remember certain things you have experienced.

Memorizing, repetitiveness, and learning are then the key elements to controlling your brain in the healthiest sense.

Now take this information and connect it to what I was saying at the beginning. If you continue to tell yourself that things will be ok, you will get stronger, faster, or better, whether you actually believe it or not, you can eventually trick your mind into finally believing this. Well it’s not really tricking your mind into believing the truth, it’s forcing you to finally accept what already is truth. Powerful stuff huh?

So start saying what is real. Claim what you know God has in store for you in the future. A life to the full is what He came to give you. Jesus said so himself in John 10:10 which means the best is never behind you. Eventually it is up to you to finally start acting like a grown up. It’s ok to think you have failed or that things may never be the same again. What matters is how you will move on from it and come to know that nothing is ever set in stone. And that is where I am at. The less I seek the definitive answer in my every single decision I make, the closer I am to fine. One decision can change my life, yes, but so can another decision.

It’s big picture time instead of freaking out about the immediate. I have to quit seeking all of the answers to my questions right now because honestly, it is SO exhausting. I have been looking everywhere I know to point me to answers or a bit of relief and I can’t do it anymore. I have to remember to live with eyes wide open. I haven’t been doing that for a long time now. I’m exhausted mentally and spiritually. I see now God won’t answer everything I ask not because he doesn’t want to, but because it takes away my faith in Him. I have to have faith in Him for tomorrow, for now, and for the answers to my questions.

Breathing is good. Just breathing.


"Closer To Fine"

I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.
We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
-Indigo Girls

My Book: Down Your Face

I think I have finally gotten my introduction to my book written. No, my book is not finished. Far from it actually, but I have a ton of chapters and nothing has begun to flow because of no beginning point. It has taken me a year and a half with this new direction for the book, but I think I may have it.

A little preface: This book is non fiction and is a boring book about my life from the past 2 years or so. A boring book with ridiculous things that I go through and that change me. Every chapter begins with a song theme for that particular event, lesson, or idea. It is the connection of music with suffering through the muddy waters of my growing into an adult part of life. The book outlines my phases and what I have learned in hopes that you might also be able to identify with my story and maybe even learn from it. It's my story with my song(s). The title comes from the song "Fix You" by Coldplay. The book is essentially based upon that song or at least the theme came from it. I figured finally letting people get a glimpse into a part of the book and what it was about might give me some good feedback to how to better write. I love an honest critic =)

So, with that, please enjoy the introduction to Down Your Face: The Connection of Music and Suffering

He’s Not


There is a mystery in the sky
There is a gentle breeze coming from
An unfamiliar place I’ve never felt before
I hear it calling through the back door
It’s familiar yet so different
It’s the same yet nothing like I’ve ever felt
This felling like home, oh, but it’s not what I’ve been told


No it’s lies, lies, lies, that I have been told
He’s not that rhyme that you have been sold
He not that old church down the road
He’s not that old preacher from a long time ago
No, he’s not your friend who say they know
Oh, He’s not a church, He’s not a prayer, He’s not a page, He’s not a word
Oh, He’s like nothing that you’ve ever known


So don’t say a word
Don’t you grow tired of trying to be heard
It’s like trying to capture the sunlight in a box
It’s like trying to stop a raging river with a leaf
It’s like trying to hide the mighty mountains with your hand
Oh, He’s not what I’ve been told


Oh, He’s lies, lies, lies that I have been sold
Oh, He’s so much more than what you can hold
No, no, no, no, no , no
Jesus is not, He’s not that old church down the road
He’s not that old preacher from a long time ago
He’s not your friends that say they know
He’s not a prayer, He’s not a church, He’s not a page, He’s not a word
Oh, He’s like nothing that you’ve ever known
Oh, He’s like nothing that you’ve ever known

-By Chris Westbrook



So this book began with this song years ago. I began to write stories all about who Jesus is not and the misconceptions of what Christianity has stereotyped him to be and I knew I was still learning myself . I began this book when I was a sophomore in college. I had just transferred from a liberal arts school to a Baptist university which was quite the atmosphere change in people and college culture. I was in a biblical perspectives class and I was getting really fed up. The course is designed not to make you question your faith, but to show you perspectives of the Bible by learning actual culture and literature of the time it was written (brilliant, I know). Literally learning the context in which scripture was written (sadly, most Christians never learn this stuff). This is turn completely renewed how I viewed the Bible as well as many other students. It can be a very liberating class, or one that you will totally disagree with. So naturally, when in a Baptist environment where most of these young college students have grown up in private Christian schools, attended the First Baptist Church of their hometown, and with their daddy’s credit card in their pocket, questioning their faith was not something that was easily done in a classroom without upset and confused students or hard work to answer some intense theological questions most people never want to ask. I heard, “But that is not what my pastor said!” for the last time and walked out of the class so frustrated with Bible belt Christians. Just because someone’s pastor said it apparently made it absolute truth over a professor, theologian, or history. I wasn’t on board with that to say the least.

I went back to my room and played this song. A friend from a while ago wrote this back when I was in high school and I remember thinking, He gets it. He gets who Jesus is. It changed me more than he could have known. So when I listened to this song after class that day for the millionth time, this time it struck a chord in me to start writing about it. I put my frustrations on paper. Slowly chapters came out of each verse from the song giving detailed descriptions and experiences of how Jesus is not what my pastor always says, not just what I grew up to know from my parents, not only a page or piece of scripture, or a prayer. Yes, we need all of these things to supplement our faith and to know about who Jesus is, but those are not the means to the end. Shockingly Jesus is more than you can read or talk about. It’s all about the relationship and what Christ himself reveals to you.

With that said, on this quest of initially trying to write about who Jesus is not I guess my mind unknowingly had to find out what or who he IS. I never intended to give an answer to that because I honestly don’t think there is one, or at least one you can verbally explain. But when life began to happen and things would or would not go my way, I would subconsciously say OK, this is who you are and what you do. I put them into neat little categories so that the next time I could expect or predict how God would act (yeah, I still laugh at myself for trying that one out).

Let me tell you the biggest lesson I learned from all of this and which is also the basis for this book. Life is seldom what you plan. I could write an entire book with nothing but that sentence in it, but I still don’t think that it would get my point across of how true that statement is. You may end up at Z one day, but A, B, and C certainly did not get you there. It was through M and T that led to J that made you end up at D instead of Z. I mean, this is something we all know. We know life isn’t fair and that we don’t always get what we want. So why then do we get so upset when the unexpected keeps coming true? That’s life. You know this already and it sounds cheesy, but I will say it anyways. Jesus did not come for you to have the perfect life and to make all of your plans come true. You cannot back that up with scripture, trust me, I have searched. What he did say was that he came to give life and give it to the full (John 10:10). A full life looks like a lot of different things, but I truly believe a full life is one that you couldn’t have imagined for yourself or for anyone else. But again, that is my opinion.

And so begins my story. I must give credit where due to Donald Miller for helping me realize that is exactly what my life is- a real story. The journey of learning more than ever who Jesus is not and scraping only the surface of who our infinite God is. My initial book is now only this short introduction. What follows is quite a story of life lessons, mainly through music of all kinds- Goo Goo Dolls to Broadway to awesome 80's. Music is the best expression of my heart and can communicate better than I can for myself. I swear I have one of those movie-esq life’s. I hate it because of the abnormal things that happen to me all the freaking time, but writer Lacey loves it at the end of the day. It certainly has been the most unexpected and intense journey, but one thing I have always prayed for in my walk with Christ, is a life worth telling. Sometimes I wonder if I should retract that prayer because of what I end up going through, but whatever. This is my story.