Skip to main content

The Song that Spoke

A huge problem I find in myself is procrastination. Today I was going to write this post, but when it came time, I decided to instead clean my room. Now I sit on my floor surveying the newly organized room I will leave in a couple of days. And again I think. I really ought to get writing…but really, why; it’s not like there’s a deadline or someone who really needs to read this. BOOM! (God doesn’t show me things quietly; He understands how thick my skull can be and tends to use 2X4’s.) I realized that I don’t write these things for anyone else, I write them for me so I can understand just what is running through my head. So I my thoughts…

Sometimes we get to love people for a season; knowing all the while that it is only for a season, that it is not returned; all to be reminded that love is not all about me whomever the ‘me’ may be. The troubling thing with a situation like that is it can lead to bitterness. Knowing how things will turn out in the end does not always change our feelings in the now, nor make us more understanding when that end has come. I’ve always been on the more skeptical side of emotion. I tend to doubt the sincerity, especially when the emotions are mine. The verse in Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” is one I have always relied upon. Obviously I am not anti-emotion; I just prefer to not dwell on what I feel.

I don’t think I was becoming bitter or anything dramatic, but I did not understand why, in spite of knowing how things would end; I would choose to love someone. Usually after thinking that I would berate myself and say that love should never be about self, which I believe, but it is hard to convince one’s self of with a clenched jaw and knitted forehead that we should expect nothing from those we love.

Then, at the beginning of break, I was sitting alone in a friend’s car while she was running errands. The song I’m Not Who I Was by Brandon Heath came on. I believe I replayed it five times – there was quite a line in the post office. I have always been fond of the song, but what caught my attention that day was the verse that sang,

“Well the thing I find most amazing
 In amazing grace 
 Is the chance to give it out
 Maybe that's what love is all about”

Living out grace is why we love. Knowing something is one thing, but being able to articulate it? That shoves it deep into our souls. At least, it did mine; alone in a crowded parking lot on a snowless December afternoon. God, through beautiful chords, let me understand what He had been trying to teach me all along. I am to love those around me as He loves me: unconditionally, without expectation.

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
LOVE YOU! And I want to let you know that your writings may be written for you, but I am positive that they help others see things in themselves also...including me :)
January 3, 2012 at 2:21 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Still Moving

Any prayer requests? That’s how my lit prof always starts class. This morning I was thinking, wishing I were there right now to shoot up my hand. Yes! I have praise! Although, I have to admit, that isn’t how I woke up. It’s finals week. I was cranky and annoyed as well as emotionally drained from writing some pretty personal stories for my two thesis classes. Like normal I reached for my phone to check the time – up before my alarm yet again. This time I had a few text messages. One friend said some things I didn’t want to hear. Just like friends to share that sort of stuff we just have to hope it’s to benefit us, not to sting. I was in a fine mood as I walked out to get started on breakfast. Scrambled eggs would help get me out of that funk right? That’s what I was praying, anyway, just before I shared my news with my roommate as she headed out to class. I brought my computer out to listen to a sermon. Recently in a crisis of emotion I told anot...
2 comments
Read more

A Journal, a Poem, and a Sermon.

God’s mercy is what is keeping me here right now. It is what has been molding me these past twenty years; and what will continue to mold me until He decides to call me home. But sometimes, it terrifies me. To know that I fall so short and yet, he loves me. I listened to a sermon tonight by Matt Chandler and he said, “What leads us to discipline? It’s love. The love of Christ compels us, it pushes us, it controls us…Why does the love of Christ compel you? Because you’re dead!” And something clicked in me.  This semester, God has been showing me that above all, He is merciful. Everything that He hands me is because of His mercy. Especially the sufferings I go through. If I were to have everything I want exactly how I want it, I would never know how much I need Jesus. My foundation of joy would be built on everything I have and all I have done. But seeing how quickly things and people I love can be taken away or placed out of reach, I know that nothing I have earned is mine to ...
2 comments
Read more

One Fruit: Becoming the Monday Church

I’ve had a rather horrid realization: Just because someone already loves Jesus doesn’t mean I stop being a witness. The terrible part is I haven’t been living up to that. I tend to assume that my behavior around and toward my Christian friends can be different because “they know what I mean” or “they understand me” so much better than others or “they’ll forgive me.” More often than not all three are true. But what excuse is that? So often I am captured by how I feel and made slave to it by my own will. I hold on to how I feel and project it however I see fit. I don’t wait to see if it is beneficial. I just do it. Nike would be proud. Jesus isn’t. I heard my uncle talk about the churches in Kenya. They have this saying called the “Monday Church.” They say that to remind the Body of Christ that it isn’t just Sunday we are the bride of Christ but at all times in all things. I originally thought it was such a cool movement. Go Kenya! It hit me that I don’...
1 comment
Read more