Dare You To Ask
Simcha Natan is a small town Israeli British immigrant, interior designer by day, closet author, musician, podcaster and course writer by night… I’m a multi-juggling super-creative, with massive dreams and a drive that won’t quit! She’s a course writer, author, song creator, taker-of-new-ground and super-investor in people, their gifts and callings! She’s committed to stopping for the ONE, and loving you well, whether through books, devotionals, music or courses!
We are so excited to welcome Simcha to our Guest Writer line-up and are so excited for you to read her blog.
Read below, comment, and join the conversation! XO, the Boldly Seeking Team
Have you ever walked through a valley so dark, so long, and so silent that you’ve ended up doubting if the sun exists anymore?
I have.
For 15 years I lived through a season of being completely hidden. Invisible, passed over, and forgotten. I was there, but not really there. I was physically in the room, but not really present. I was screaming, but not heard.
Can you relate?
For many of these years, I temper tantrumed. I stomped my feet, I yelled and screamed, I had a full-on hissy-fit in front of the maker of the universe. I was so angry that he’d given me so many dreams, ideas, visions, passions, abilities, and so much drive, but he wasn’t releasing me into any of them! I was so convinced that he had it wrong!
Then one day, I was just too tired to fight.
I was too tired to shout.
Too tired to scream.
Too tired to argue anymore.
So I stopped.
Actually what I did was fall onto my carpet face first and cry my eyes out.
That went on for a few days.
I was really in despair.
I just couldn’t.
What happened in that place was really quite astonishing!
Suddenly I had peace!
I couldn’t understand it.
I ran to my piano (where I run to on most days whenever I have any feeling of any sort - my piano bares took the brunt of it!) and sat down to process.
God spoke to me and told me:
“I dare you to ask for this place”
What!?
Ask for this horrendous, hidden, awful, exhausting, life-draining, desert of a valley!?
Why would ANYONE do that!?
This was the beginning of my adventure of learning to Dare to Ask for the things that the world tells us to run away from.
Of being willing to flourish in the place we genuinely think we’ll die.
Of wrestling for more of God while remaining at rest, and of finding a place of surrender and humility that makes you give up what you want, in order to gain what you never knew you wanted.
My first offering of this newfound place of understanding was Rest:
I never intended to write a collection of coherent songs, or to write anything down to be honest, I was just a girl, trying to make head or tail of a crazy season where nothing made sense.
I was still hidden,
still passed over
still forgotten and invisible.
I had spent so many years fighting with God to allow me out of the shadows and to let me step into the sunlight, even if just for s second, but he never did.
So I had to learn to love the hidden place.
In this place I wrote and I wrote, songs flowed from the depths of me, private songs that were my cry responding to his call.
God was speaking.
I was singing.
I was writing song after song after song.
He was speaking, whispering all these things to me, which I knew signified a deep, deep meaning that I needed to explore.
I started writing down the meanings behind the songs I was writing, and no matter how hard I tried, I could NOT finish the thought! They just went on and on!
Actually, I gave up on writing these down, until one day, on the shores of the Galilee, when I was on a retreat with my closest friend, God cornered me in one of the clearest instructions I’ve ever heard.
“FINISH IT”.
I knew at that moment that I had to complete these thoughts I’ve been trying to grapple with and that they would become a book.
I never wanted to write a book.
Never.
In a million years it never crossed my mind to write a book.
As a kid I dreamt of singing, or performing, of owning the stage and ‘living the dream’. Never did I want to write a book! It’s interesting to me that God brought me to the book through the means of music. He knows I’d probably have missed it had he not done it that way!
Pretty soon, I had completed my book Dare to Ask which chronicled my story behind several of the songs I’d written over this 15-year process of battling with God. I wasn’t very excited about sharing this book with the world. It was my private processing, my own walk, my inner soul on paper. I didn’t want to put it in front of anyone!
Then he spoke again: “Make the songs”
I was NOT happy.
Not only was I going to have to publicly share my soul - but I was also now going to have to sing my soul too!?
For anyone that knows me, you’ll know that singing has been an interesting road for me to walk.
From a very young I was singing all the time. In my head I was Whitney Houston or Christina Aguilera, I was a diva with a voice to match and it was only when I hit my upper teens that my world came crumbling, and what became a torrent of negative comments started to be spoken over me and my voice. So much so that I stopped singing all together.
So when God asked me to make the songs, fear gripped me, I felt like the whole room would be able to hear my heart pounding, and my mouth went dry and I shook from top to toe.
How I overcame this is a whole other story in itself, but when the time came to record the first EP, in a room, with 2 men I’d just met, alone, in London (what was I thinking!) - I was terrified!
There was prayer ministry, there was coaching, there was comforting encouragements, different positions, chairs, drinks (talk about diva!) all arranged to try and make me more comfortable for the vocal recordings. In the end - it was PURELY HIM. He breathed, and there was life.
What transpired across this epic, three-disc journey is one that has completely transformed my life, and a growing number of others too, which has to be the most humbling thing about it.
He showed me the pattern I’d walked through in my own life, one of letting go, but still wrestling.
One of learning to dream again, without trying to strong-arm my will and make deals with God.
One of being awakened all over again to who he is, and therefore who I am.
One of learning to rise above and find a consistency that takes me to new heights.
This pattern became the outline for the 3 EPs and 30-day devotional guides which lead you through the same process (in my much less messy, much prettier way!)
These songs are not about arriving, figuring it all out, and having the answers, they’re about understanding the truth of the hidden place.
The place where you are found.
The place where you become fully alive.
The place where you are broken in order to be whole.
The place where you find all that you need in isolation.
The place where surrender becomes home.
The place where the glory goes where it deserves, and there’s no competition for his name’s worth.
The place of hiddenness, where we are found.
-Simcha
Check out a few more videos as you reflect…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw417NLV35Y&list=PL-YrWW5EiNDs9EoYhz0YqmsJO8eLWsOAA&index=6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr71lG7EgQM&list=PL-YrWW5EiNDs9EoYhz0YqmsJO8eLWsOAA&index=7
