Lately the voice in my head that my heart recognizes as the Spirit, is surprisingly, the voice of my  almost-three-year-old. It sounds weird, even to me. But there it is. In November she told me, correctly so, that the state of someone elses heart was “not you business.” The phrase has been showing up ever since. And she is right. All that junk is not my business.

What people think of you? That not you business.

Whether or not people believe you, that you are trying to follow God? That not you business.

That thing that is between someone else and God? That is for SURE not you business.

What is going to be the next step, once you finish this one? That not you business….yet.

As I put together this book proposal, edit chapters, send it to people whose opinions matter to me, I am inundated with thoughts that are not my business. What if no one wants to publish my book? What if everyone thinks I am lying? What if it flops, what if it succeeds beyond my wildest expectations? Right now, that is not my business. And in that phrase, there is freedom.

So today, let me be your not-quite-three-year-old prophet.

What people think, what you are supposed to be doing 5 years from now: That not you business.

Whether or not someone else is doing their job. How someone else is slacking: That not you business.

What that other thinks of that thing you tweeted at them but you meant well but what if they take it the wrong way? If they never bring it up: That not you business.

Stick to the things that are yours to have, but everything else?

That not you business.

When you tell me that my feminism is of the angry kind, I need you to know that it didn’t start out that way. It isn’t that way at the core. My feminist heart got tired of being battered and broken in a church that promised to love and cherish it. It got tired of being knocked around by the buts and only ifs.

We love you Abby, all of you, but only if are a little less loud, only if you are a little less bursting with your ideas. We let you serve in your bold  seventh grade way, but only until the boys want to do it. When no one else wants to do it, your desire is from a servant’s heart. When others do want to, you need to learn to submit. In high school you are too close to woman, and them to man, and then your gifts are too loud and too bold. Then it will be their turn, and you will need to sit down. We will love your whole heart, but only if you are willing to submit it to any man who comes up and wants a chance to lead. We will love your whole heart only when no one else volunteers.

I know it surprises some when a girl as loud and as occasionally obnoxious as I am is also very sensitive. I know it seems strange that someone who speaks as boldly as I so often  do is scared most of the time. But there it is. You see, I am afraid that my sad, crying heart will bleed out one of these days if I let it rattle around in the church. It has gotten hurt there before, I best not leave it out. I am afraid of the mourning clothes, so I clothe my heart in anger. I encase it in anger, so that it will stop bleeding, so this heart of mine won’t stop beating. Like most, I have learned to be more careful with this heart the hard way.

When you tell me I have lost the heart of servanthood, am neglecting the heart of submission, the gentle back and forth of a dance led a followed, flowed from the Father, I need you to understand it was only in the submitting I learned to dance at all.

It is in my nature to submit, to roll over on my belly and expose my weakest part of myself to you. I’ll even pee a little bit, embarrass myself like a dog trying to declare my undying allegiance to the authority in front of me. When I am asked to pick an animal to represent myself, my patronous, my soul animal, I choose a sheep dog. I am a pack animal, and I am better at rolling over than I would care to admit. We can do it your way. It is fine. Really. I don’t mind.

Here’s the thing about sheep dogs: They know who their master is. They know who their flock is and they know who their master is and they care for their sheep as they follow their master. Amidst all the shouting of women and submission I mistook a lot of voices for the voice of my master. I was on my back, legs in the air, belly up to anyone who was yelling. A sheep dog on her back is useless. She cannot care for the things she was designed to tend when she is busy submitting to any voice that she hears.

I am learning to heed only the calls of my master, even when others are calling out in his name, “sit!” “stay!” heel!” I can hear his gentle voice, “come, run, tend what I have given you.” Listening to the voices that are not my father often leave me cowering with my tail between my legs. It isn’t always safe, this calling in this body and listening to people who are not my master has only compounded the situation, and left me distracted from my work.

When you see me rising from my stance of submission, you need to understand it is the master’s voice I am submitting to. I would never stand up on my own. If it were left up to me I would live my life belly up, legs in the air. It is time for me to use these strong legs, to bark a little bit in a voice that surprises even myself, to feel satisfied when I see that all is well with the flock that is under my care. I need to get out of this loud barn, and go with my master into the wild flower fields. I understand it doesn’t look like submission to you, but it isn’t you I am answering. My master is calling. I have sheep to tend.

There was a time when I would have scoffed at a memorial service in a bar. I would have shook my head at the idea of celebrating a life and mourning a death with friends as people took turns singing words from a screen. Now, I shake my head at that girl, she didn’t understand, in all of her knowing. Now, I am just grateful to be there, to be invited, to know the man whose memorial service packed a bar on a Monday night. I am grateful to have called Bobby Byrne a friend.

I met Bobby when my friends from work invited me to karaoke night. He was a friend of theirs. Bobby had a beautiful voice and could have used it to intimidate the rest of us into not having anything to sing. Everyone knows the local karaoke guy who uses the stage as a personal platform, wields his voice to show everyone else they do not belong. Bobby could have been that guy. He was good enough we would have gladly let him sing all night. Instead he used it to invite everyone to have a turn, to ensure everyone was having a good time. Need the night to pick up, the bar to perk up? Ask Bobby to sing. Need to feel like someone wants you to sing? If the most talented man in the bar says you can have one, then you can have one.

Bobby lived his life the same way. Inviting everyone to have a turn; giving people permission to sing their own song. Bobby recognized the worth in people, simply because they were people. He had the capacity to love as he did, so freely and easily, so thoroughly accepting, because he knew and loved himself.

In high school a group called Plumb sang a song about a God shaped hole, a desperate searching soul. I’ve known that God shaped hole, been made whole by the space being filled to overflowing. But what do you do with a hole the size and shape of a man no one ever had an unkind thing to say about? How do you fill the space he left in so many lives?

On the way home from the bar I put in the CD with his big and beautiful voice. I cried as his voice sang the theme of every church banquet of my youth, Michael W. Smith’s Friends are Friends forever. I think the last conversation we had was the one where he told me he was enjoying my blog, specifically my easter reflections. It had never occurred to me he thought more of easter than bunnies and jellybeans. I wonder what else never occurred to me, what I will never get to know.

There was a time when I would have beat myself up over not having this conversation. Grieved the opportunities I may or may not have had. But when I think about the life that Bobby Byrne lived I can almost hear him whisper to me, “It is okay, you are doing the best you can.”

I sat at that bar last night, with this book proposal hanging over my head. Spring Break is the deadline I set for myself, and here it is. I have it written, and today begins the messy process of editing. Somehow this scares me more than the writing. It means I am taking myself and my message more seriously than I ever have. I have a lot of myself in my book, parts that I have kept off of this blog, parts I am not sure I have wrestled out with myself.

Bobby Byrne would tell me that those messy parts are okay, he would smile at me in a way that would remind me that there are people in this world who will love my messy parts too.   Bobby knew himself and loved himself, and because of that he had the space to love, really love, all of us, even the messy parts.

Here’s to you Bobby Byrne. I am taking the invitation to sing my own song the best I know how. Even when I am off-key, even when I don’t know all the words. Thanks for the invitation to share this stage we call life. I can hear them telling me I’m about to be up. I know you’ll be cheering for me. I know you’ll think I did a good job. Bobby Byrne, you made this world just a little bit safer for us all.

There was a time I would have scoffed at a memorial service that packed out a bar on a Monday night, where everyone took a turn with the karaoke night. Now I am grateful to have known a man who could inspire such amazing performance.