Flying by the Seat of My Pants

By Hannah Corbin

Hey! Oh! Ooooo. You picked me up! How sweet of you.... Oh what, I just wrote this whole thing and you expect me to write more words? Fine. Well inside what you’re going to get is honesty and bad jokes. Some tears, fears, and CRAZY years. All rolled up into one insane ride. From shootings to births and mental illness to boot. Cancer, houses

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hannah Corbin
• Release date: May 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781641119139

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Things I wish I had known: The never-ending story.

So, as I sit here at Starbucks thinking out my plan for my very first book. Thinking about this chapter especially. Oh, the things that I wish I had known. I could write a whole book on that alone. I guess in the long and the short of it that’s what this whole book is about. It’s a story of all the things I wish I had known. I feel like the stories in our lives are our failures and our wins. Yes, they may suck at the time, but if we hadn’t gone through them and experienced them, we never would have learned even the hard parts. Someone else would have and then if they had, then we wouldn’t have had the lesson for ourselves. Trust me when I say I am stubborn as hell and I would not/will not take anything anyone else says the first time, I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how much I love you I guess I’m just wired that way I always second guess everything. Which then again gives me all the anxiety which just adds to everything. UGH! But I digress.

All in all, I wouldn’t change anything that I have gone through at all. Yes, they may suck and they may be very hard lessons to go through. But I know if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be who I am now. And I honestly love who I am. I fall yes. I make mistakes OH GOD do I. But I have a Loving Savior who sent his Son to die for me on the cross so that even though I royally screw up on a regular basis I can cry and be mad but shake it off, repent and come back stronger than I ever was. Honestly without a lot of these lessons I wouldn’t know I needed God so much. Because without struggle I would just go about my own way thinking that I can handle all my own junk. Oh, how wrong I am and how wrong God has shown me I am… Oh boy what am I doing. I’m really showing you the application before I even show you the sermon ha-ha. That’s okay. I mean I know the ending and if you’ve read the story so do you. (A little inside joke for my fellow believers). So, throughout this book I think you will see a pattern. All of these stories have quite the crazy pattern. A lot of God. A lot of me. A lot of me against God. A lot of God laughing at me. And if I imagined God had a most used emoticon for me, I can only think it would be the face palm.

So, if you bought the paperback (OMGOSH THANK YOU) then you will see a picture of my mug on the back[If not the Kindle (Omgosh thank you so much too!)] My husband says it’s pretty. You will see that I have very red-hair. So har, har, get it out. Poke your fun, make your jokes. Trust me I’ve heard them all before and if you have any new ones, I’ve got 5$for you. So, as you can imagine I have a temper. And I also have an attitude to rival my hair color. Means I am stubborn as a mule. I think I have a good acronym for them when it pertains to me…. MULE: Most Unusually Large EGO…. When it comes to me and God, He has shown me that I can be quite the MULE sometimes and a lot of times I have gotten myself into it and its quite obvious and a lot of times not so much. So, if you pay attention just look for the signs and see if you can see them as easy as I could… or couldn’t until maybe years or only days after in some cases. I wish I knew how stupid it would be for me to be so stubborn. I wish I could tell myself how dumb I can still sometimes be. But also, I wish so many times that I could tell myself that mental illness is not my fault. And That God still loves me no matter what.

Oh, this whole book like I said is pretty much going to be a long list of my earliest blunders against God and also his earliest showing to me that

Hey, I am here. I do love you. Just stop being such a MULE!.

If I had known all of the things that would have happened and could have just stepped back and not been so stubborn in the first-place things would have gone WAY smoother. But I have a MULE sense to me. So, I like to fight and kick against the pricks. But God really does have a funny sense of humor, and most of these stories can end with the phrase ‘But God’. Because without Him they really would have ended badly. Just saying.

CHAPTER 2

Jesus Take the wheel.

This chapter is going to be a very special chapter to me. See because it’s my testimony. And the best way I know is to start at the very, VERY beginning. I was saved at a rather young age. But as per most young people brought up in a Christian family, I walked the isle at the tender young age of 5 years old. We at the time belonged to a large church and it was all the rave to a 5-year-old kid. All my friends were doing it and I was very impressionable. My parents were saved and always talked about Jesus. So, I knew it was the right thing to do. And whenever they had the alter call, I always wanted to be the center of attention and go down to the front to be one of the kids that got the special candy and had everyone look at them. (I’ve always been quite the ham) Anyone that’s every known me just laughed uncontrollably at that statement.

For someone like me Christ was always the center of attention in our family. We rose early with my dad before he went to work and had bible study and we were always having lessons. We went to church every time the doors were open. We took part in Sunday school and all the plays and Wednesday night service. It was a glorious time for a young girl who would thrive on attention and LOVED every single minute of it. And let me tell you I was the holy terror. Me and two other girls became the three musketeers of Trinity. We were the mess makers the ones that never stopped running and would always cause problems for anyone around. But in the long and the short of it, it was all lip service. I was truly not saved. I did it to fit in and did not truly understand what it meant to be saved. My heart did not change. And at that age I just did not understand the true implications of what being saved meant.

It was easy to think that it was because of living in a family where God was the center. But Praise God He still had His hand on my life and had plans for me. Because He didn’t let go. And as I grew, I just could not find peace. My life wouldn’t calm down and I never truly became happy. Until I was about 11. I remember It vividly as if it were yesterday. It was me and my mom just us sitting alone at our house. We had a folding table sitting up in our old house. And I don’t remember exactly who it was who had died but it was a family member, and she had just let me know and it just hit me. It hit me hard right in my gut. I didn’t want to die and if I did I wanted to know where I was going. At that point and time in my life I honestly couldn’t say that I knew that I knew that I knew that I did. So, there we sat. My mother with tears in her eyes told me about a loving God who sent His Son. All of these things I had heard before. I knew about Jesus. I knew about God. I knew that he had sent his son to pay my sin debt. But it had never sunk in like it did sitting at that table. I had a yearning for the truth. A Yearning for Jesus. To accept Him into my heart in a way that I never had before. To have a relationship with Him instead of just a head knowledge.

See, all my life I had known about God. I had seen my parents live their lives worshiping and honoring Him and they had told me about how He had spoken to them and it was just

Oh wow. I want that. I want Someone that will guide me in my everyday life and my every action to know that what I’m doing is good or right or not good or wrong.

All I had was me. And I knew I failed every day. I never heard Jesus speak to me. Of course, I didn’t because He hadn’t quickened me to life yet. But little did I know I was being awakened to His life and love at that very moment and my world was being opened to a whole new level. I was dead and being brought to life. As I sat there with tears in my eyes listening to my mom speaking about her relationship with Jesus and how I could have one too my shackles fell off and I finally truly accepted the gift that God had preordained before the foundations of this world. He had chosen me and my time had come. My life was forever changed. I remember after we sat there and I was saved me and my mom were hugging and my sister walked in and we were both still in tears and she looked worried and asked

Who died?

Mom and I both laughed and replied.

Well two people really did. But Hannah just got saved! Abby not realizing what had gone on just looked a little bewildered then joined our hugging and we went on about our days.

I would love to be able to tell you that the rest of my days I walked around on cloud nine happy go lucky and just bewilderedly in awe of all the things that God has done for me and just so crazily happy all the time. But that’s not how this story goes. That’s not how a lot of these stories go. The bible doesn’t say that you get a ‘get out of jail free card’ when you accept Jesus into your heart and it’s all going to be hunky dory and a bed of roses. Can you imagine how the apostles would feel if that had been the case? All but 1 of them died a horrible gruesome death. Just because they were followers of Christ. Jesus said if you believe on Me you will be persecuted. For My name’s sake. But your crowns of glory will be many. Yes, I am paraphrasing (Mathew 5)(2nd Timothy 3:12) But it’s there. Look it up.

I will say this. For about a week I did walk around light as a feather. Happy as could be and boy did I beam. And I shared my joy with everyone around me. People knew about my Love for Jesus. Man do I miss those days. Sometimes we really should search our hearts and go back to those days and try and remember the fire that was lit in our hearts for God. It’s still there but do we let it get snuffed out by other things in this world? Don’t. Don’t let that happen. God is still with us and never changing. We just get bogged down with life and those troubles. Every day we should be pushing back and fighting for our relationship with the Lord. (And yes, I am preaching to the choir. This is an autobiography. Things I wish I had known before I turned 30, right?)

But as life does happen and things just keep coming and don’t let up. I lost my shine. I just let things get in the way. And things kept creeping back in. I was a baby Christian and I didn’t get into the deep word. I was still thriving on milk. And not into the meat of the word. So still very impressionable. During that time, I swayed this way and that. I was a teenager. And as you can imagine things come along with being a teenager. Boys and school and dances and friends. Your mind tends to wander very far away from things of heaven and things that are important.

Fast-forward to nearing my 18th birthday. I have yet to be able to say that I have ever been able to truly hear the Lord speak to me. And it’s getting very frustrating. I am trying to run my life and prepare for marriage and get all my ducks in a row. And nothing seems to be working. And then the worst happens. (Funny how that works). My fiancé (at the time now husband) and I had a best friend couple. (My let’s just go ahead and call him fiancé with the understanding that he ends up my husband for sake of continuity.) My fiancé had been friends with this couple for many, many years and had even grown up with the young man since near birth. Well the time came that the couple wanted to get engaged. And being that we were all best friends we wanted to be a great big part of that exciting moment in their lives. Well little did we know the behind the scenes story that was playing out that we had no knowledge of.

To make a very hard situation and to keep a long sad story short and for the safety of privacy of those involved. We got played. We got played and manipulated hard. Now granted. We were very naive and young. And when you are young and naive you see with blinders on. And you only hear what you want to hear. And love and friendship make you see the best of people even when they can be the worst. Well, I lost my best friend and my fiancé his. I had never gone through this much heart ache in my life. And this was the first battle with depression I had ever felt. AND… My first time every being angry with God. And consequently, also my first time I ever remember Him with 100% clarity speaking to me loud and clear. Because see, I had to come to a point where I realized that I could do nothing. It wasn’t my call it was His. It was all God to deal with as He saw fit, not me. And I was so stubborn and Mule headed that I wanted to fix it. I left no room for God.

It came down to a day when I was at work. And one day when I was working as a security guard someone died on my watch. It wasn’t my fault and I know that. It was a heart attack and nothing I could do or could have done would have saved him by the time he was found he was already gone. But it still tore me up. And all I wanted to do was talk to my best friend. And I couldn’t. With tears in my eyes, hyperventilating I had to pull over to the side of the road because I couldn’t see. And I just screamed and cried. I cried out to God.

WHY! WHY GOD! I can’t do it anymore! Please! I’m hurting so bad! I just need my friend please! Just make the pain go away! Just make it stop! Please God! Just take over! I am giving it over to you 100% I’m done I can’t do it anymore! PLEASE! PLEASE GOD! Just take over.

Very, VERY, shortly thereafter my eyes were opened. Opened to the truth. Opened to what had really happened. And opened to… Excuse my French but opened to what an ass I had been in the whole situation. So, I made a phone call I had been dreading and swallowed my pride. I apologized. Not expecting to ever be able to talk to my friend ever again still but knowing that I had to do the right thing because ah! Guess what… I had FINALLY heard God speak to me saying

Hey. You messed up. You need to fix this.

And so that’s exactly what I did. And do you know what? 2 weeks after I made my heartfelt tear-filled apologies. The phone call I never expected to receive happened. And my best friend of now nearly 15 years is closer than ever. She was in my wedding I in hers. We were there for the birth of each other’s first children… And God spoke to me so fiercely and clearly that that stone of remembrance for me still rings truer and truer to this day. It was God telling me that

Hey. I love you. But you are stubborn as HECK. You have to let Me take the reins. But if you are so adamant on doing it yourself that’s fine, but, I will step back until you are ready to let Me take over. And you will flounder and flop and make a fool of you. And My child I will weep for you because all you will do is cause yourself more pain. But one day you will learn. One day you will learn that My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

And let me tell you every day I am reminded of that moment that I learned that very valuable lesson. Do I remember it all the time? No. Do I still need help with it on a regular basis? You better believe I do! But does it come back to me quicker than it used to. Most of the time.

This may have very well been the first time that I ever recalled God speaking to me openly and so loudly but let me tell you this, this is definitely not the last time. And BOY has He gotten louder and louder and has He had A LOT to say! Because He LOVES me so very, very much!

CHAPTER 3

There’s a frog in my throat.

This chapter is going to be a fun but hard one for me to fill out. Because it’s all about music. Since I was little, I have loved music. I come from a very musically inclined family. Ever since I was 10 my dad gave me an option. What instrument did I want to learn to play? I was the weirdo that picked the banjo. What 10-year-old picks that? Well this weirdo here did just that. My dad has played the guitar for way longer than I can remember and my mom. Well one of the requirements that my dad gave my Aunt on a woman he would date was that she be a Christian, would be nice if she loved music, and he was kinda partial to red-hair. And a few weeks later my aunt came back and said she found him a girlfriend. Sure enough, my mom steps into his world and the rest is history.

So, from 10 years old my musical career started. I’m sure if were up to my dad it would have flourished a lot more than it did if only, I would have practiced more. And you know what, looking back on it now, I wish I would have practiced more too. I’ve always loved singing and musical arts and theater. But God has given me a gift for music and an ear for it. And sadly, I have more or less wasted it. Don’t waste what gifts God has given you. I LOVE music. And I loved music coming up. But I fought it. Tooth and nail I fought it. If I had just practiced and realized what a gift I had I could have gone so far with it. But alas here I am 28 years old and an ok musician with 2 kids with so little time to be able to do near as much as I would like with it.

When I was young it was always a chore. I had other things I wanted to do. I wanted to go play with my friends I didn’t want to go practice. Because come on my very first gig was a nursing home! They were half asleep! And then I started to get good. A little bit here, and a little bit there I realized I had an ear for music. My dad got me lessons first off at a little music store in our home town and I