Let the Music Begin

It’s 4:30 in the morning and I haven’t slept a wink.  It’s been a long time since that has happened and I keep wondering why.  I don’t feel like I’m overly worried about anything.  Sure, I have some things on my mind but nothing that would normally keep me awake. If my girls can’t sleep I have often told them to pray or read the Bible. I usually find that I either hear from God or I fall asleep in no time flat.  So, I start to pray….and I start to see pictures.  Mental expressions of feelings and truths that I have been trying so hard to process and learn lately.  Nothing concrete and barely discernable to even my own mind but I know it’s there.  Those ideas and thoughts that aren’t fully developed but that have been teasing me for months start to run through my mind.

My husband is a thinker and the wisest man I know.    He can turn something around in his head and study it from every angle without saying a word.  For days or weeks he can meditate on an issue in complete and utter silence and he ends up with more wisdom and vision than I can express.  I have no idea how he does it.  My head normally sounds like an orchestra warming up before a production.  A jumbled cacophony of noises that are beautiful if they could be isolated, but that send me into a pretty constant state of mental ADD.  I literally have to talk about something for a REALLY long time to begin to understand what that “something” might even be.  Having three girls, being a stay at home mom, pastor’s wife and fitness junky all have prevented me from much time to talk, think and process for the last 23 years.  But as I laid in my bed, tried to pray and watched images, no….more like emotions… visually flash through my mind I suddenly heard this. “We’re alone”. Which brings me to what I think God may have wanted me to hear tonight.  Granted, it’s still just a thought but I think we are on to something.

I’ve had the thought “You will soon be alone” for a few years now and have shed many a tear as the process has unfolded.  But here in the middle of the night, talking to my Daddy, it was as if He whispered his version of this truth to my soul not as an accusation of my insignificance but as a promise of a new thing.  I suddenly had the thought that for the first time in a while I might be able to put meaning and words to the feelings and colors and half completed thoughts that have been fleeting through my heart and soul. I consider myself the luckiest woman alive to have been able to stay at home with my girls over the years and I miss them like crazy, but I have always loved to write and haven’t had much time for it over the years.   It helps me process things better than talking does. On days when I’m most confused I’ll start to write and God will guide me to an answer through words that I hadn’t thought of before.  The only thing I have ever loved more is to have something I write touch and encourage someone else.  It’s rare that I let people see my soul on a page.   I still feel sick to my stomach and so insecure when someone reads something that has flowed from my fingers. I guess it’s the most intimate expression of who I am and the fear of judgment or rejection never completely leaves this fleshly heart of mine.  But that same fleshly heart is known intimately by my God and He has never rejected me.

In fact, tonight He has reminded me of who I am and what I love to do. With two words he lit my soul and asked me to dance. I’m not sure of the steps yet, but I trust Him to lead. I’m not sure that I won’t make a fool of myself, but I’m ready to give it a try.   I’m not sure how many will be touched or encouraged by what I write, but I am praying there will be a few.   I’m definitely not sure how profound my thoughts will turn out to be, but as the master conductor taps his music stand and brings order to the noise in my head, I pray that He will be glorified by every note.

Now, Lord, may my voice be beautiful to you.