i freakin' LOVE music - with deeply rooted, untamable love. love. love. love. it is pulsing within me as i write. i'm actually typing in rhythmic style to my beloved beloved phil. phil wickham. ooh, baby.
i love even more emphatically hymns. they soothe parts of me i wasn't aware needed soothing. phil, at this exact moment, is singing at the top of his lungs 'how great thou art'... and it's amazing to me, that God gifts people with these kinda talents to bring people closer to Him. that is so rad. and it's something i don't take nearly enough advantage of. the story goes something like this:
i am not a fan of compliments. for some unknown reason they just don't bode well with me. hearing them makes me feel unheard of amounts of awkwardness. so to avoid such nonsense, i hide my skills and talents under a prickly bush and hope no one comes in their direction. i say prickly because it's not comfortable - not using my talents, i mean. i don't like the fact that i hide the greatness within me. i think all the time about how exceptional it'd be to just stand on the corner in an open box with an open heart blaring at the top of my lungs whatever is on my heart. such could also be said for the art i could create. i'm fully aware that art and music are the two things in life i was meant to create. some people are great chefs, of this i am not remotely close to. i can count on beanie weenies and that's about as far as i go in that direction. some people are great presidents. i couldn't tell you any of their names or parties, so again, not my thing. some people are doctors and vets and the 13 years of college type of people, i get antsy just sitting in church for 50 minutes.
[actually... to tell you the truth, in high school i was in the health occ. program where i was able to be involved in different hospitals/procedures/surgeries/clean-up extravaganzas, etc. and there was one point where i was helping with a hysterectomy. yes. you read correctly. a hysterectomy. and the lady was coming out of a coma as the doctor was stitching her up. yes. disturbing, i know. but all the while, while her legs were starting to flinch, all i could think about was how bored i was and how i wanted to be drawing or doing something 'productive'...]
that right there gave me sheer evidence that medicine wasn't my knack. since i was a wee pup, all i've loved is drawing and music. i remember thinking how proud i was that all the other kids in preschool sucked at coloring and that i could color perfectly inside the lines. granted, it'd take me all day but i was bound and determined to have the best plastic place mat out of my class! i remember how terribly heartbroken i was when we had a robbery occur at our house while we were out of town... and the ONLY thing stolen was my karaoke machine. yes. this is not a lie. they only stole my karaoke machine. (do not even attempt to say that they were trying to make a point...i sang boysIImen beautifully back then..ha) i think i cried for days. it still ticks me off. jerk faces! why would you steal a kids karaoke machine? that's like taking my left hand. i mean, i didn't really need it...but it was awfully useful. gah-lee. ruthless robbers. why bother to steal our big tv or movies or furniture... everyone wants a karaoke machine, apparently! (sorry...i'm still bitter. i've yet to let that go. i just loved it so...) ha. moving on.
all this to say, really, that God instills within us snippets of who he is in all of his glory and perfection. and when we use that glimpse to its fullest... creation happens. and the way we feel when we use those segments of him - it's unexplainable. i can say without a doubt that the joy i feel after i've painted something that needed let out of me, or after i've written a song that i know could change anyone who read it ... it's phenomenal. it really is. but it's a shame, as well...because i, alongside everyone else, rarely tap into the potential we have within us. potential just bursting at the seams to get out! beauty is all around us, but even more so it's deeply rooted within us. sometimes we are ashamed to have such beauty when we don't feel it ourselves, and other times the world tells us it's not good enough so why bother. there are a multitude of reasons as to why we don't let it out, but none suffice us because the reasons we hide can't compare to the reasons why not to. we're just scared little sissies. well. i am. i'm a pansy. the nerves i feel when i have to sing in front of a crowd... it could make the strongest soldier's knees wobble. i get absolutely terrified. just thinking about it the butterflies in my stomach are starting to form a clique. or the vulnerability i feel when i show someone my paintings or drawings or songs i've written... sometimes ...it's just too much.
but what would happen... persay... if we became a people that fully comprehended the idea that vulnerability begets other vulnerability? what would happen if we let out that inner child within us that aches to create something beautiful out of something ugly? what would happen if we put our focus not on politics, or bad memories or feelings, and focused solely on the good that could come out of it all? what kind of world would we live in? what would we do if we helped out our neighbor a little more? if we mowed their grass a few times a year, or raked their leaves, or baked them cookies? what would happen if we paid for a stranger's groceries, or gas a few times a year? oh the lives that we could change!!! simply thinking about it has me in a ball of excitement. you can't change the nation until you change your neighborhood. and that begins with us.
it all starts with we. with me. with you. with I. what would happen if i let other people read my songs that speak for me when words can't? what would happen if i let people hear me sing more often or if i drew something and gave it to someone who didn't expect it? what would happen if you let people see the you that sits so comfortably in your closed-in walls? what would happen if you let go of the past in hope for a beautiful future? how do we hope for huge change but resist it within our selves? we can't. it has to start with we. with you. with me. with we. i'm so sick and tired of these month-long passion binges we get on after church camp or after something great happens. we are on fire and then it sizzles to smoke that fleas shortly after. enough is enough. time is of the essence. Jesus is coming. and i refuse to be one of the people who tells him i didn't have enough time to show people who He is. i refuse to tell Jesus that i didn't use all the ounces of his greatness he instilled in me. i cannot. i will not. i'm made for great things. it's about time i started acting like it.
you were made for great things - things unimaginable to any human. freaking act on it, already. we have to keep each other accountable. we're all we've got. Jesus is coming. maybe not tomorrow or in fifty years from now. but he's coming. and when he does. i will most assuredly NOT be the one saying i could have, should have, but didn't.
no. time is off the essence. live right now. we were made for better things.
live now.
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