Five Years

In 2001 I was a freshman in high school. As a homeschooler I had time, encouragement and resources to focus on my two childhood passions: my horses and what my parents were more passionate about, my music. After my first "gig" as a background pianist at the five-star resort at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and the concierge manager sent me a check for $250, music became my passion too and as a young high school student found my self playing regularly in churches and venues across our city often filling in for the church pianists who were on vacation or sick.

It was on one such Sunday morning in May that I was playing piano at a small Presbyterian Church on the outskirts of Colorado Springs that I saw her. The entire front of the church sanctuary was windows which faced the front range of the Rocky Mountains that let the sunshine flood the room with warm, bright, Colorado sunshine. She was hard to miss; slender, the brightest, blondest hair I had ever seen that reflected all the light that poured through the windows. She was wearing a white cardigan over a green sun dress. I thought she might be my age and from my vantage point at the piano I could see her sitting with what I guessed was her mom and sisters and I spent more time watching her than I did listening to the sermon and focusing on my job...playing the piano. (This is why you don't hire fifteen year-old piano players.)

Needless to say, I hoped for a chance to walk past her after church and maybe see if she'd smile at me which unfortunately didn't happen. Disappointed, I drove away from church with my family to a high school graduation reception with friends from the church and it was there that I saw her again. She sat quietly in a corner of the living room next to her sisters. Lunch had been served buffet style, then dessert, before I finally got up the nerve. As a home schooler I needed to take advantage of these opportunities which rarely came along and I wasn't going to miss this one.

I made my move by abruptly sitting down next to her and saying, "Hi my name is Collin."
"Hi." she said. That was it. Nothing more. She was either oblivious to my sheer terror, or was enjoying her perfected torture techniques and knew that the longer she waited, the more I would wallow and completely derail and she wanted a good show this time.
"...so what's your name?" I inquired. This was typical introduction etiquette, and she wasn't helping me out. I was beginning to question that this was a good idea.
"Jenna." Which was not followed with a, "and what's your name?" I was freaking out.
For the next half hour I sat there and bravely battled on, asking question after question which rendered simple, one or two word answers. I found out that she played violin, had two sisters, (which I already knew but couldn't think of a better question in that moment), had two cats, one dog and wanted a Mazda Miatta for her first car. Pretty good recon, I thought. I found out what I needed and concluded that she was perfect for me. (This is why it's a bad idea for 15 year-olds to date which we were definitely not allowed. Good job Mom and Dad).

I didn't see her until about a year later at the same friends annual fall barn dance. As we drove in from a distance I noticed her almost immediately. She was standing in a field of tall, dry grass and her bright blonde hair was reflecting the setting sun. That night I found myself conveniently close to her whenever the caller said, "grab your partner!" I danced with her all night and even though I got in trouble on the way home I even got her email address. It was so worth it.

Slowly but surely our family friends became the same family friends and I found myself playing more frequently at her church. Whether this was fate or initiative on my part I will always wonder, however God had a plan and I found myself falling more and more in love with this pretty girl. High school thankfully didn't last forever however we thought life would have been perfect if it never did. My parents highly encouraged me to take my music scholarship at Belmont University in Nashville, TN and my friends placed bets on how long we'd stay together once I moved away.

From August to November we wrote letters and got in trouble for wracking up high cell phone bills that made our parents question my devotion and investment to my studies. I made the deans list from then on to ensure we could continue our phone conversations. After returning home for Thanksgiving that first year we kissed for the first time.

I began to grow up in Nashville and my roots began to deepen. My high school sweet heart visited as often as she could, but as the years went by it became more obvious that we were both changing. I had started a band and life was different. My circle of friends was changing, my career was developing. I was traveling a lot, growing a ton. During our visits we still were able to adjust to being together, which sometimes took a few days. We saw long distance relationships end frequently which made us question ours. It was hard. My new friends were advising us to break up. They had no idea what they were talking about.

I sold my truck after my 21st birthday and with the cash I bought a ring. I'd waited for years to have a lump of cash big enough to afford a diamond and I set out to buy just that. I was determined to be taken seriously and make man decisions. I was tired of being told that we weren't going to last and that we weren't right for each other. Hadn't we proven that over the past six years already? I was convinced that if I loved hard enough, called often enough, wrote sweet enough love letters that nothing could separate us.

Like many things in my life I have to learn the best when I experience it, even when it's the hard way. Jenna and I began to fight more, and connect less. Even though I had a ring in the top drawer of my dresser I knew I couldn't ask her to marry me. We weren't doing well. We began to talk about ending years of investment and relationship. It really wasn't complicated, I was extremely selfish and wanted to push my agenda on God and it wasn't in God's timing. God was teaching me that life must happen in His timing. It's not about my timing. I began to see that even though my desire to fight for Jenna and provide for her and marry her were good, they weren't in God's timing and I wasn't loving her by listening to God first. I did one of the hardest things I've ever done...I took the ring back.

Giving up years of hopes and dreams is one of the hardest parts of life in my opinion but God was showing me that it has to be in His timing. Jenna was my best friend. We really loved each other, but God was teaching me how to love her and that life happens in His timing. During on of our visits together, this time in our home in the Colorado mountains, we sat on a rock outcropping overlooking Pikes Peak with the gold mine of Cripple Creek cresting the mountains way in the distance we prayed. We both gave our relationship to God. That was the first time we'd ever done that. In that moment we stopped trying so hard to push our agenda and force the pieces to work. I know this makes sense to you. We surrendered. We both said to each other that if we were never married than it would be okay. It was sad and we grieved.

Life returned to normal when I flew back to Nashville several days later. We didn't know what was next but we were okay with that. We were waiting for God to move us toward each other even though we didn't really know what that was supposed to look like. To be honest with you I'm still not entirely sure how it happened. It just did. God used our parents again, even though we were growing adults. My parents began to soften at the conversations about Jenna, they began to affirm us as a couple, her parents began to talk more about our future together and we hadn't initiated any of it. I'm not sure why God chose to work this way but He did. This time we were listening.

I spent a long time this time finding the perfect ring. I wasn't going to buy a ring that just anybody could buy, so I went to a jeweler in Manitou Springs, CO who designed custom jewelry and asked him for a ring that had vines engraved into the band. Our relationship had been a living example of John 15 asking the Lord to take the branches that weren't bearing fruit and I wanted the symbol of our marriage (our rings) to be a symbol of that lesson. I proposed to her on the same place that we had given our relationship to the Lord and she responded with, "YES, YES YES!! Of course yes!!" We both cried.

The battles weren't over. It took many months to agree on a wedding date that worked for the world, and we finally settled on February 9th. Tomorrow will be five years from the day that I got to say, "I do.  Those words were some of the most satisfactory and pleasing words I've ever spoken. Tomorrow I will say with joy and thankfulness and sobriety that God is faithful. What He starts He will complete. There is no way we can imagine what the process will be like. Sometimes if we knew what it entailed we would say no. We wouldn't go. Marriage has brought grownup decisions. Kids. Mortgages. Complications. Things that I had no idea would be hard. But.

Please don't read over that last word.

But. God is incredible. The payoff is incredible. Is marriage hard? Duh. Look at half of your friends and parents who aren't married anymore. Apart from God this wouldn't work. God taught me that He needed to give me Jenna and guess what? She's still His. I'm just the lucky guy that gets to do life with her. Who gets to stay up late at night rocking fussy babies and changing nasty diapers. I'm the guy that gets to rub her back and encourage her when she's exhausted and can't keep her eyes open. I'm the guy who gets to touch her gorgeous blonde hair and feel her arms wrap around my neck. I'm the guy, the only guy who gets to say "I love you." (I have many guns...) I'm the guy who will grow old with her. I'm the guy who will actively and tenderly stand up for her and lead her even when she doesn't want to be lead, I will love her when she feels unloveable. I'm the guy who gets to give her presents and flowers. I will do this to the best of my ability. I love everything about this woman. The vows that I said five years ago are more true today than they were that incredible day.

My wife deserves a better written blog post than this, but I want the world to know how I feel about this woman and what God has done in our lives.

I love you Jenna Christine.

A Little Merry Christmas Memory

My infamous picture box is stashed away somewhere in a bulging, freezing, catastrophic storage space in the freezing tundra that is northern Colorado. With it's absence I have no gorgeous picture from my photographer father's old 35mm Pentax to show you of a nostalgic old memory or visual to stretch some spiritual application from. No, the application and lessons of these past few weeks have been much more real-time and obvious.

I'm sorry for my silence over the past few months. In all honesty we've just been processing the reality of stepping through a door that God has opened which means closing one behind. In these seasons of transition I'm overly aware of the Biblical, realistic caricature of a sheep. That is me. I've never corralled a sheep, but I have chased a few cows and when they don't see exactly the opening they're supposed to head for, they don't stop, they timidly jump back and forth and clang and bash their horns on the corral bars and run into things. When moving cows I find myself not only annoyed, but embarrassed for them. Remembering that I am compared to sheep which are dumber than cows makes me embarrassed for me.

Two weeks prior to our scheduled departure date, Gabby came down with the flu/bug/sick/crap everyone in the USA is getting. Gabby's a passionate "all-in" kind of gal and her health is no different. When she catches something, she REALLY catches it. We're not talking a low fever for a few days, we're talking 103º for two weeks. Numerous doctor's visits and literally pages of us charting her med schedule, she was released from the Mercy Stoddard Hospital (that's what I named our house). Days later we didn't really pack up, we just grabbed our stuff and chucked it in some diaper boxes, wrapped it in plastic and threw it into a Uhaul truck. The big kind. Then we put my wife's car on the trailer of it and drove away.

Not that leaving with everything working out perfectly would have been any easier, but the past month has just been crazy. The past three years in Michiana have been nothing short of a huge blessing to us. We had some really tough seasons, but they were some of the best, growing times for us. As Jenna and I walked through our house one last time to make sure we had thrown everything in, we had to stop, lean against the kitchen island one more time holding hands and thank the Lord. When God meets you: in a season, a place, a time when you needed it most because you were at your lowest, it changes you. I needed to be changed when we left Nashville and I'm thankful that God chipped away at me, worked the clay soil of my heart so He could mold me on the Potter's wheel. We made life long friends. Friends I miss right now.

Well Colorado welcomed us as it does everybody else with promise of being colorful. Growing up we always joked that it was a million shades of brown. We didn't care. We were just glad to be home.

Jenna's parents are over-saturating our kids with much needed Grandparent love. There is no replacement for that. I still feel blinded when I walk outdoors and am confronted by this massive, orange ball of fire in the sky that penetrates my retinas even when I close my eyes. I hear they call it the sun. It makes the snow look pretty.

We had a good Christmas. My first "event" at Calvary was Christmas Eve (no pressure) and the band did great and I was even able to shoot and edit this Christmas video of some of the pretty footage I see on my commute between Colorado Springs and north Denver.

Christmas Day was a day of fun for us.

Palmer started crawling yesterday which has given him a big head and he's started pulling himself up on things and throwing his water from the high chair. They grow up so fast. Gabby started calling me by my first name.

Thanks for keeping up with the Stoddards.

Collin

Go West Young Man

This blog is particularly exciting for me to write today, we've been waiting anxiously to be able to share this. My faith is always challenged in the transition of a season when I desire to see the "writing on the wall" and I'm often envious of people who get that. I am shocked and thankful that God is evidently and unmistakably doing this in our lives right now.

We are moving to Colorado.

I will be the Director of Worship and Music at Calvary Bible's Erie campus in Erie, Colorado, just north of Denver. It has been a crazy and faith-deepening journey that has brought us and connected us to Calvary. We are packing and preparing for a cold winter move on December 18 and have already felt incredibly welcomed and reached out to by our new family at Calvary. We can't wait to begin a new season with a new spiritual family so close to our physical family and our roots. Colorado is our home and we can't wait to be close to a few grandparents. We can't be more thankful. I will be working at Calvary in a part time capacity to have the ability to tour as a solo artist, build my studio, teach students and continue recording my music.

We are thankful for the past two and a half years that God has had us at Grace in Indiana. We have met some incredible people and learned some invaluable lessons. Jenna and I are so thankful for the relationship and growth that we have experienced with these people, in our marriage, and our family. 

Thank you for rejoicing and celebrating with us.

Psalm 90:1 "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God." 

St. Joseph, MI

While spending hours of preparation loading up the car with gear and diapers for a concert with a family of four inspires excitement and adventure, it's not the easiest and most stress-free way to tour. As I recently found myself rearranging car seats and wedging strollers between my road cases in the back of our SUV I remembered traveling with all dudes in a tour bus with a massive trailer packed with merchandise, gear and often a massive sound system. While I miss playing with a band of fantastic musicians, I prefer the small SUV with my cute little family.

Even better are the dates close to home. Several weeks ago I spent an early afternoon playing Tetris at the back of our MDX. Poor Gabby had to share her seat with a piano. Every time I have to move a keyboard I ask myself why I didn't choose to play the violin or guitar?



Even though the rain made the load in slightly obnoxious, we found ourselves ready for a great night with good friends. What better way to spend a rainy evening than with a group of friends at a concert?



Other advantages of having a show close to home is the ability to invite a network of cool friends. Always thankful for my friend and creative counter part Kyle Pierpont. Having a good photographer in one's inner-circle is always a good idea.









A one man show is tough and not my preference by any means. Toby Mac is probably the best example of this philosophy of business and has been very successful at it. He's the first to admit that he's not the most talented guy on the bus and purposefully surrounds him self with people who are better than him to make his concerts what they are. Any one who's seen Toby and the Diverse City band would see that. A band compensates for a player's weaknesses and potential lack of preparation. When you're by yourself, there's nobody to hide your mistakes behind. You also never get a break. There isn't a guitar solo that allows a few seconds to step back and drink some water and catch your breath, or a trash can ending to to give a few minutes to think of your next joke. It's also tough to remain entertaining for 80 minutes. When I'm hiding behind a keyboard, it's tough to visually stimulate an audience. I try to come out from around the keyboard a few times a night, but I always feel the pull hurry back behind my shield.




A band will come, but this has been a tremendously rewarding and challenging way to travel and play concerts. God has been so gracious to us in this, we've helped facilitate over 60 children sponsored this year. Considering the size of my typical audiences, this is a tremendous blessing.
If you've come to my shows, thank you. If you're thinking of having me to one, pull the trigger. Do it. Do it now. I can't wait and look forward to seeing you soon. Christmas is around the corner and I can't wait to share some Christmas music with you.

Collin

Gabby in Colorado

I flew into Midway airport yesterday morning and a good friend picked me up from the airport to return me to my quiet home in southern Michigan. I realized it had been over two years since I boarded a plane last. As I stood in line clutching my driver's license and thinking through the contents of my bag, paranoid that I'd forgotten to leave behind any renegade bullets that may have sunk into the recesses of my backpack it dawned on me how I change and adapt to my surroundings. Once upon a time I racked up the frequent flier miles and had air port concourses and shuttle bus routes memorized. Not any more. Now I'm the guy shrieking when the little puffs of air fluff up my hair in the full body scanners. What's happening to me? Traveling is good for everybody. (Blanket statement I know...) I really believe that. I still maintain that change for the sake of change itself is very good for us humans who's brains are patterned to program muscle memory and become complacent in our routines. Traveling reminds me of lots of things: who I am now, where I've come from, where I'm going, that there is a big huge world out there that doesn't revolve around me, that there is a perspective other than mine that I need to acknowledge. This was the first big trip with a family of four. Not sure what I think of traveling with a small family the age of ours. The infant is fine. Gabby's the tough one. She's so engrained in her little patterns and routines that altering her lunch schedule and menu by one small cracker half an hour late throws off her entire day. Add that to the stress of being strapped into a car seat for 20 hours makes for a grumpy little kid. I can't say that I blame her, I was her age once too and remember hating my car seat. Thankfully I got bigger. Much bigger. When she adjusted to her new routine of no routine she became her happy, bossy high-energy self again. Between concerts we drove through some of my favorite parts of the Colorado mountains. These are the places that inspired the songs of "Songs from Brookside." I look forward to showing you the videos I took of my new family enjoying these incredibly beautiful places. I did grab some still images that I thought I thought were adorable.

 



 We spent several days at Jenna's parents house in Colorado Springs. My horse trailer has sat as a reminder of a past life, slowly rusting in their field. I finally sold it today. My Proverbs 31 wife acted the part of a barter-saavy Mike Wolf and negotiated the sale to a cowboy from Omaha. My tribute to my horse trailer will come soon. :) If you really follow my blog, the answer is yes, everything in my life holds significance. If it doesn't, I throw it away. I got these pics of our cute little someday-to-be-cowgirl
 peering through the slats in the side.





 Jenna and the kiddos stay in the home country for two weeks away from me to attend the wedding of one of Jenna's good friends. I'm going to be so productive I won't be able to miss them. That's the theory anyway. So far I'm failing.

Breckenridge

A much needed change in our routine brought our little family to Colorado for the next few weeks for some shows, a family reunion and hopefully some family time. My EP Fight for Me released last week and this is the first run of shows that I have it with me. We've experience a lot of attack leading up to and during the past few days we've been away. Traveling with a family presents a new set of challenges and Jenna and I are adjusting to this new reality. It's no longer just the two of us switching off driving and only stopping for gas until we're at our destination...it's a little more complicated. Our little Cracken (Gabby) had enough of her car seat at hour sixteen of a twenty-one hour drive. Turns out toddlers also need lots of sleep and we've realized just how valuable her home routine has been to keeping her rested! Due to either the altitude of where we are in Breckenridge, or a bug she picked up, she's been a sick little girl battling a fever and hopefully a doc visit this afternoon will reassure her folks' anxious hearts!

Last Saturday we loaded up about 4,000 diapers, babies, concert gear and finally ourselves and left for Chicago to see some great friends. Once our Nashville family, God has moved us all across the country and our paths intersected in Chicago. Jonathan is a creative arts director at Willow Creek and David is a Brentwood, TN cop. We've more than doubled in numbers...how is this happening?





We are thankful for First Federated Baptist in Des Moines for hosting us and allowing me to join them for worship on Sunday. I'm always for some reason surprised and comforted connecting with believers across the nation singing the same songs to the same God. Common bonds are pretty neat.

Our journey has led us to here where Jenna's immediate family is off enjoying the Rocky Mountains. At least we get this view from our deck where I'm awaiting my turn at rocking the little ill one.



I haven't seen this mountains since I recorded Songs from Brookside which was inspired by the places we will see this week. Come back to my website throughout the next few days and I'll give you some video stories behind the songs and tell a few stories about this beautiful place.

Wish you could see it.

I'm Still Kicking...

Hey friends. I hope you haven't missed me too much. The last time I wrote to you was in May. This has probably been one of the busiest seasons I've ever lived through but God has been so faithful and done so many things I have to share with you. The last image I left you with was of my two delightful Blue Spark microphones in front of my Yamaha piano. For two weeks I tucked myself away in Brookside and recorded a full length solo piano record called Songs from Brookside in the small hours of the night when my babies were sleeping. It's available for download on my website, I hope you check it out.




If I could title a book about the past few months it would be, "Starting a Solo Music Career in Thirty Days: The Wrong Way to Do it." As a pianist first and foremost I've always lacked the project that represents who I am that says exactly what I want in the most honest and raw way I know how. This is Songs from Brookside. I've had these songs in my head for years without the time or capability to record them and now that I have one of these (capability) it was time. Every creative self-help book (trust me, I've read many because I need so much help) explains the importance of setting deadlines for yourself to accomplish goals and I had a natural deadline set itself for me.

Three weeks before Father's Day an opportunity presented itself for me to easily step away from my duties at Grace and finally having a Sunday morning off, I unashamedly invited myself to my good friend Jeff Castello's church, Crossroads Community in Goshen, IN. Jeff has always been a tremendous advocate since our introduction five or six years ago when I traveled in 33Miles and often stopped at Crossroads. Pretty awesome church. I've always wanted to have a CD release concert there but never had a CD to release...minor problem. With the time and excuse to promote a concert and lead worship with them on a Sunday morning I put the pieces together and Songs from Brookside was born.




Jeff connected me with LeSea broadcasting and simultaneously set up an interview at Studio B on the Harvest Show, a live Christian morning talk show. An awesome opportunity to share my music and share my heart for this new season of music ministry as a solo artist...something I never thought I would ever hear myself say. Check out clips from my time on the Media>Videos section of my website.




Well, a solo piano record is great, but the majority of my concert consists of me telling stories and singing songs about my family and what God is doing in my life. I'm so glad I finally finished Songs from Brookside, but with several shows lining up through the end of summer and into the fall I needed to track my vocal record and the day after my CD release concert I started tracking Fight For Me, my five song EP which I have been more proud to collaborate on then any other record I've ever done. This is not the $80,000 recording budget of my 33Miles records and on my shoe string budget I wasn't sure if I'd able to make something work and with the help of some awesome friends sharing .wav files over DropBox, tracking is finally done. I got the first mix back last Wednesday as I was driving to church and listened to it from my iPhone in my truck I laughed hysterically as I swerved back and forth and clapped my hands!

I called in a huge favor with Adam Silverman who I played with for years in 33Miles who now tours with Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina and he knocked it out of the park. My good friend Cal Joslin who plays bass for SideWalk Prophets tracked acoustics and bass, and Tyler Ewing played cello. Jason Hall, a friend from college is mixing and mastering and he is a magician. I am so honored that these guys believed in my project and offered to lend their incredibly amazing creative ability to make this what it is. I can't wait for you to hear this. These guys made me sound so much better than I do on my own and I'm so glad to have something that I don't cringe at when I hand people!

I've partnered with Jeff Castello more officially and he has been lining up shows through the fall, I seriously can't believe it. I'll debut Fight For Me on a run of shows to Colorado starting August 5 and I'm anxious to hold it in my hand and make people buy it. I hope it communicates how faithful God has been to me and how much He is teaching me utter dependence on Him.

Another major blessing in this new seasons has been our home base at Grace. Working with a pastor and boss like Jay who understands my creativity and supports my music ministry is a tremendous blessing. Pulling double duty keeping my worship arts, tech teams and now taking over more staff administration duties has been challenging and Jenna has been such a tremendous support giving me pep talks, talking me off many ledges, and held down the fort with a two year old and a three month old. Can you believe that? I'll post pics of my beautiful family soon because I have so many stories that crack us up daily with these little people that I know you'll get a kick out of, too. Here Gabby and Palmer are helping me edit vocals.



Alright. Best update I can bang out on keyboard in a few minutes. Can't wait for you to hear Fight For Me, I'd love to come and share it with you LIVE at your church!!

Collin