Voices from the Road: Sydney Fontaine // de la CroiX

Broken Down
By: Sydney Fontaine 

It was our first real tour and up to that point nothing had gone right. From losing the fender of our trailer, to shredding tires, to locking our keys in the trailer, to breaking down completely. Spending hours in repair shop waiting rooms and truck stop parking lots, having to cancel shows and facing the financial strain of repairs and delays.

Looking back, I remember feeling like my prayers in those months were falling on deaf ears and that my tears of frustration were being ignored by the Lord. In retrospect I laugh at my unrelenting hopelessness towards circumstances I couldn’t control. I can’t exactly blame myself. I didn’t know what to expect from the road, but I knew it wasn’t this.

We were in Wisconsin when our RV broke down for the second time that week, only two hours from home where we were going to stop on the way to our next show. After spending 8 hours the day prior in a repair shop where we thought they had fixed the problem. The week had already put us on edge, and we really couldn’t afford the delay of another day at a repair shop. To make a long story short, we (after a long day of pacing, praying and hoping for a reasonable solution) ended up getting towed back to our home town (praise God it was only two hours from where we were stuck) and we finished the tour in our Suburban with a couple tents thrown in our trailer. It wasn’t ideal, but we laugh remembering before we had any means to travel saying we’d camp out if we had to, feeling strongly that God wanted us to be mobile. Apparently He wanted to see if we meant it.

That tour was just the beginning of our adventures, and many worse break downs and struggles have we walked through since then. For a while we thought our calling might be to tell mechanics and tow truck drivers about Jesus because of how frequently we encountered them! Things haven’t really gotten easier, but I think the more you pursue what you’re supposed to pursue, the better you understand yourself, your calling, and the Lord.

See, before I started touring I thought that ease was a direct result of success. I thought that if we were obedient, that God would make everything a cakewalk and that the repercussions of our obedience would be instantly visible. But over the past few years I’ve found that when you turn your life over to Jesus, success isn’t always marked by the tangible result of your obedience but often by obedience itself. Even if at the end of the night you’re feeling beat up and have nothing but busted guitar picks in your pocket.

Sometimes you might not know why you did it till days, weeks, years later. You might never know. But resting in the knowledge that you did what you were supposed to do is a pretty sweet feeling.

This is my encouragement to you: most of us want to see mountains moved and tides turned when we give God room to work. We want to see the whole picture fabricate before our eyes, and it makes me wonder how often we discount the times where there seems to be no resolve, no ‘fruit’ of our labor. But how beautiful to be able to rest assured that He is faithful, and that his power is perfected in our weakness?

When you find yourself in a season of life where you can’t see the big picture, take heart. He is working in and through you in some capacity, even when you can’t see or recognize it. The Lord never sleeps, He never turns a blind eye to your pain or your efforts. Trust that His heart for you and the causes that you’re passionate about is so much bigger than ours could ever be.

“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don’t give up.” Galatians 6:9