What a year 2014 was. If I were to some it up in one word I would choose the word "Test". We were tested from every angle you can think of. Our health, finances, relationships, hope, faith, perseverance, integrity, and our relationship with each other was all tested. If I am to be honest, there were so many times when we were ready to call it quits. We felt defeated, hopeless, and beaten down. I know I personally questioned, "Why in the world am I doing this?" Why are we spending every spare moment in our day to send emails, research an opportunity, build relationships with other bands and music industry people, audition new drummers, make flyers etc... Why are we all pouring in every extra dime into equipment, recording the album, album artwork, logo's, Photo shoots, advertisement, wardrobes, merchandise, music video? Why do we sacrifice our time with our loved ones so we can practice, meet, do a show that only a few probably care about? Why? Why are we doing this? Is it really worth it when there is hardly ever anything given to us in return? God, why would you place such a desire for us to use our talents only for it to seem like a dead end and a dead dream? These thoughts haunted all of us. We prayed for God to end it. We prayed for him to kill the desire, the dream if it wasn't supposed be apart of his plan. Then suddenly it happened. We all came to terms that Estoria was finally over, and just as quickly as it ended God brought it all back together. But why? Why the roller coaster ride? We are tired. So why are you bringing it back together again? Well, he gave us an answer, and hopefully if you are reading this you will receive a little nugget of wisdom from our experience.
January- We were off to a great start and had some pretty awesome show opportunities lined up. Then out of nowhere test number 1 showed its face. Kat, John's wife was rushed to the hospital. We were told that she was in the final stages of her Cystic Fibrosis disease. All of our hearts sank at the thought of loosing her. Luckily, she is okay now. But that's it. She and John have been living in a hospital ever since that horrible day. This "test" or whatever you want to call it still isn't over. She and John live at Vanderbilt hospital in Nashville, TN as she waits for the day that she will receive her new lungs for transplant. But as we continued to try and find hope, Jeff and Amy were behind the scenes creating these awesome "Warrior" T-shirts to raise money for Kat. We even took silly pictures to show our support, and the fundraiser was successful. We love you Kat!!!
February- We started to adjust to a new normal. We had to find a way to practice less and without John. We put out flyers, made phone calls and held auditions for a new drummer.
March- Things started to look like they were going to improve again. We had a show at the Ardmore Shamrock Shuffle, and lead worship at Courageous Church. We even conducted our own photo shoot where we spent tons of time and money producing our new look. I did everyone's hair and makeup, and Jeff used his talents to orchestrate the entire photo shoot. We had a lot of fun doing this one. We also reached 100 trackers on bandsintown, and continued our search for a drummer.
April- We had a show at Copper Top, and got the Final mastered copies of our album complete. We contracted a company in L.A to create our album artwork, logo and we continued to look for a drummer.
May- Jeff and Raymond got baptized and we continued to search for a drummer. We also began the long journey of waiting on our album artwork.
June- Jeff and Meagan got a cool opportunity to be extras and do a cameo in an upcoming movie called "House Slave". We continued to search for and audition drummers and we patiently waited for our album artwork. (See the pattern here?)
July- Meagan had Gastric sleeve surgery that took several weeks to recover from. But don't worry, that didn't stop us from auditioning drummers and negotiating on our album artwork.
August/September/October- We continued to wait on our album artwork, and audition drummers. Meagan recovered from her surgery and her dad was diagnosed with Melanoma. Jeff had to relocate his business. John battled with one health scare after another with Kat's treatment at the hospital in Birmingham. Raymond balanced working and finishing up his master's degree. One major thing after the other but we still kept pushing, and trying to hold on to what little hope we had left. Why did it have to be so hard? Keep in mind we still searched for drummers and continued to negotiate the look for our album artwork. This time period is what I like to call Estoria's great depression. We were done at this point. It simply didn't make sense. It was out of our control. There was nothing else we could possibly do to make things push forward. But that was the point all along wasn't it?
We finally got it. The whole point was to remind us that if any success, if any glory, if any good fortune is to come our way it would not be because of what we had done, but because of what HE had done. He had to bring us to a place where we undoubtedly knew that the only way we were going anywhere was if he stepped in and moved. He had to humble us. We had to be reminded of what we were doing this for. We are doing this to tell the world who he is. Isaiah 48:10-11 "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." Just like when God refined Israel, he spent 2014 refining us. The moment we finally let go, things began to change.
November- We finally got our drummer. Guess what? We didn't find him, he found us. We finally received our album artwork and logo too. We performed at the Basement's last show, released our promo photos, and new look. We launched our own Instagram, surpassed 1,000 FB likes and released "Warrior". Things changed over night it seemed like.
December- We received awesome album reviews from Peter Vi Dani from bandcampdiaries, and Producer/filmmaker Daniel Beard. We launched our new website, built by our very own Raymond. We had our very first show in Clarksville, TN at the Warehouse Bar and Grille. We finally released our album "The War", lyric video to "Warrior", and had our very first online listening party. We ended the year with a bang. Now, don't get me wrong, we still have plenty of work to do, we just finally realized how to let go of the control and let GOD work his magic.
Post by Meagan Reeves.
There are already some exciting things in the works for 2015 and we can't wait to see what God is going to do next. It's very freeing to just let go and Let GOD. Until next time, keep fighting.
-Meagan
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