Singing My Song

I don't know where to begin today, or where to go ...

I only know that these fingers must click along a keyboard again, & in a way, I must sing my song.

I think about those words now ... singing my own song.

Once upon a time, that meant something different for me; it meant an actual song.

I'm actually in a season right now where I am coming to grips with the fact that I'm maybe actually more of a poet than a songwriter, & maybe just maybe I should accept that, & live like that.

I'm not talking about a song I wrote, or "my jam."

The idea of my song is so much more than that. It's the idea that there are words that I need to remember always. Words that dear friends sing over me, & that my Lord has sung over me from the start.

Today, I really need to hear my song.

I need Truth sung over me. I need to remember what I always forget. I need to feel the closeness of someone holding my hand & knowing my hurt, & pouring hope into my dark places.

Lately, I've been breaking under the weight of knowing that several of the people who sing over me ... they're leaving. At least for a season. Some of them, for the foreseeable future.

Lately, I've been feeling like I'm drowning.

The people who have faithfully lifted my head above the waters are absent, & I forget sometimes that I have been here before, & the Lord has seen me through.

I forget that I know how to breathe.

It hits me like a rock as I type, & I'm still wrestling with it ...

but I need to sing my own song.

As Ann Voskamp would put it, I need to preach Gospel to myself.

I need to declare things that I know to be true ...

even on the days when it feels like they couldn't possibly still be true.

I need to orient myself towards Him.

Establish myself in His Truth.

Tune my heart to sing His praise.

Friends, tuning hurts. I can't think about this, much less write about it, without crying.

I feel as though I have been crying for a month.

Singing my song feels like climbing a mountain, & I've never been much of a fan of going uphill.

But, if I'm going to get through this, I am going to have to get my heart to a place where it turns toward truth, even in the darkest nights.

I have probably been the most mentored, mothered, & supported believer that ever there was. I have become dependent, you could say.

This time is painful, but there are growing pains amidst these heartaches.

There is a safe place to run to in this storm.

Abba Father, teach these feet to run.

Toward You ... ever toward You. 

On my own, I make myself as small as possible, & I cry in that place. I don't let anyone see or hear.

He is calling me to bigger things, though. Things that impact others.

Like it or not, He is calling me to sing out loud. He is calling me to be a witness; one who testifies of Him.

It's like I see Him calling me to stand up from the corner I was huddled in, & to step into an open field ... to stand boldly, out in the open, & declare that His mercies are new every morning.

Those words were penned in the book of Lamentations ... literally a book of grieving.

The place I am in does not negate the Truth, & speaking the Truth does not marginalize the place I am in.

He still deserves my every praise, & He still remains my steadfast hope. My only hope.

I am counting on Him to restore my soul. To lift my burdens. & to bring me out of this bigger, bolder, braver, stronger ... He never fails, & He wastes nothing.