WHERE IT STARTED: I remember when someone messaged me to know that God laid it upon their heart to give me the software and midi I would need to create sheet music for my music.  This was not the first time God had moved someone to push me forward.  This is how my first and third albums came about as well.

I have never liked sales & marketing and I was someone who when asked “So, you make CDs?” I would say yes and then quickly change the subject.  I just figured I was doing my part by creating what God put within me and it was His business what He did with that.  Now, it was as if God said, “Melissa, you need to put yourself out there.  You need to find a way to tell people that you have something that could be a blessing.  If you bury this talent, I will hold you accountable on the day of judgment.”  (Sorry for those of you who have heard this testimony before.)

One thing for sure is that I was in NO WAY going to go out and start telling people that I have anything to offer, but what I WOULD do is get out there and share how God is amazing and His word has the answer to everything.  With that in mind, I thought, “How can I minister to a need?”  Around that time a young girl committed suicide and I thought,

“I can minister to young girls.  I can use my counseling experience and reach out to them.  Maybe I can help one girl not make the mistake of making a permanent decision like suicide because of temporary problems.”

I figured, if I could meet a need, then in the meantime I could ALSO share my music … which is geared towards encouragement anyway.

The name Amazingly Deep Thoughts is satirical because I truly am so serious, analytical and rather a bit much in my obsessive learning … and I often feel bad that my friends and family have to deal with my “Amazingly Deep Thoughts.”  [Thanks guys. :)]

WHERE I AM TODAY: My goodness I have learned a lot.  In case anyone out there wants to start a similar ministry, here is what I have learned.  Maybe you can learn from my experience and it can be an encouragement or give you a foot up in the journey.

SPIRITUALLY

Pride has always been my besetting sin, followed closely by fear.  These have both been hit over and over in this ministry.  The devil hit me over and over again with accusations and fears like this:

    • The Comparison Trap: You aren’t anyone special.  You aren’t as good as “fill in the blank” what makes you think anyone will want to hear you.
    • Others apathy towards my very best efforts: You are so boring and your music all sounds the same.  People will probably just scroll on by.  
    • Rejection: People are going to misjudge you.  They are going to misunderstand you.  They are going to think you are “fill in the blank.”  You are pathetic.
    • Failure: You are not doing enough.  If you could just do more than maybe you could provide more value.

It was in 2021 when I was studying how the devil uses the enneagrams to attack Christians I realized that even though I knew on a personal level that I couldn’t let people’s opinions of me determine my value … that I still WANTED to be WANTED.  That this ministry was my very best and analytics were there to determine my level of being wanted.

It was then that I determined that analytics are nothing more than a tool of the devil to feed our pride and puff us up or to use them to cause us to quit.  I had to learn all over again that God wanted me.  God created me for His pleasure.  He bought me with His own blood and my value is in my obedience and submission to His will and word.

COUNSELING

Pornography: I don’t know if the needs of people have changed in the past 20 years but the things I was taught in school didn’t deal specifically with the things people were contacting me about today.  God’s word is still sufficient to address all our needs, but I was overwhelmed with the desperation in single girls and marriages that pornography use has brought about.

The spiritual hardness and self deception of those wrapped up in pornography (both men and women) and how they can go on with life as if they are right with God, living a life of duplicity.  It is destroying marriages and it is destroying people’s capabilities of spreading the gospel because “conscience makes cowards of men and women.”

What a heavy topic and my heart is continually grieved when I am approached about these scenarios, but I DO KNOW that God can grant victory for those ensnared and for those marriages that have been broken.

Narcissism: I think the rise in this topic is because it is the last days where men are “lovers of selves” and that scoffers and scorners are increased.  It takes people a while to realize that they are trapped in a relationship with a narcissist and very often so much mental twisting has been done that it takes quite a bit to get a victim of a narcissist to get anchored in God’s word and come to a sound mind.

They often have been through counseling and the narcissist has convinced everyone that it is the other person’s fault and even the victim might believe the narcissists own words.  They are masterful.  

I have studied this topic intently for two – three years and am just now working on a “Pocket Guide To Dealing With a Narcissist According to Jesus.”  I think it is something that is going to be needed more and more as spiritual darkness tightens its grasp on the church and society.

The Endocrine & Nervous Systems: I took a special interest in this topic when I was studying for my degree and even moved out of state to take classes on the medical aspects of Biblical Counseling, but I think leaps and bounds have been made in this area now that people have begun advocating for their own health and information has been more available outside of the pre-screened media outlets.

I have learned SO MUCH about this topic and truly feel it will become more prevalent and necessary to understand for anyone who does counseling for teens and young women.  We are living in a world that is geared toward breaking us down physically for monetary gain and Satan utilizes it to keep us from being active in the areas of Titus 2.

If this is an area of interest for you as well (why hello, my fellow nerd friend) than I have my whole series of videos here: https://truthandsong.com/the-biblical-counselors-guide-to-hormonal-mental-endocrine-health/

SKILLS

Computer Skills: I feel like I need a movie reference here about computer skillz and such.  But seriously, I know there are so many women who think that once you get married their learning ends.  This causes a lot of the mentality of “I have to get a student loan, because I need to go to college because what if my husband dies.”  (That is a whole other topic that is worthwhile discussing and I covered that in the series “Living on a Single’s Income”).

Ladies, I would never have guessed 20 years ago that I would learn how to build a webpage, do graphic design for book covers, learn videography, food photography and the ins-and-outs of social media marketing.  I certainly wouldn’t have believed I could do my own sound engineering and orchestration for this last Christmas album.

But I am a huge advocate for learning independently and just continuing to grow.  Always be learning.  We have never been in a financial situation where we have been able to throw caution to the wind and hire out our workload.  We just learned how to do it on our own.  Learning to learn is a skill in itself.

You can learn a marketable skill for free while married.  Do it for the Lord.  Do it to be a good steward of your time.  Do it for the joy of learning.  Do it to be a helpmeet to your husband.  Don’t do it because of “What if.”

Public Speaking: Oh. My. Goodness.  I cannot tell you how many hours I spent editing my first videos because I was just HORRIBLE at organizing what I studied and then presenting it without a bunch of “ums,” pauses and “and so’s'”.  Sooooo many mistakes.  It was only two years ago that I started answering the Q&A’s while sitting on my bed and publishing them without any editing.

That is three years of  doing a bad job and editing it all out.  LOL.

I don’t know how many hours I have spent studying out topics.  God knows.  There were times when I was exhausted and burnt out and asking God to allow me to be done and He would say “What has changed Melissa?  Have I pointed you to something else?  I put you in this and I haven’t changed.”

But I LEARNED.  I learned to be comfortable speaking.  I learned to be transparent and vulnerable.  I learned to study and master a topic and then present it in manageable bites.

LASTLY

I am not alone.  I was very much like Elijah in 2017.  I was broken from some trials and from being sick with migraines for 1 1/2 years.  I was wondering if I was more of a burden in this world than I was worth.  I felt like the whole Christian world was full of pragmatism, compromise and that the conservative, separated Christian was gone.

I was wrong.

There are so many of you out there.  I was privileged to come to know you.  I am blessed to see your hearts.  Satan wants to separate the coals from the warmth of the body of Christ.  He wants us to be cast out and discouraged.  I am SO THANKFUL for you guys.

It is not merely something I say when I end these things with “As always, thank you for being here and for being my friends.”  It is the part of Amazingly Deep Thoughts that I will continue to cherish in my heart.  You have ministered to me.

Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Melissa