the best part of a song....

anyone that knows me well, knows i am a sucker for analogies. cheesy ones. at best. but seriously, how can you not relate to them? my parents were great at teaching me and my brother with analogies. you can ask my group of girls i mentored in south carolina about my crazy lyssa analogies. we should have written them down. they were utterly stupid and hilarious. but drove the point home. analogies help me though, to grasp God and life in a tangible way and wrap my head around Truth in concrete and helpful ways, relatable ways...

so check it....

you know how most songs are designed....the song starts with a guitar or a piano, maybe even just a voice. it starts soft and sways back in forth with melody and lyric. for a while it does this. it then builds and then what? what happens next? enter drums. bass. the rhythm section. all the sudden the song has taken on a new life, it is fuller, it is literally moving you, body and all, with the thunder drum beats and rhythmic bass lines. it propels your soul upward, climaxing to a new level that the song was not at before....and sometimes, later on in the song, the rhythm section will fall out and leave just acapella voices singing loudly, alone, so heart stopping, and sustaining, freezing you almost in a paralyzed state of wonder and awe.....and then again, in a rebirthing of soul, enters the drums back in and your swooped back into the whirlwind affair of rhythm....that carries you and pounds in your heart and moves your soul. and your feet!

that is my analogy. driving back from getting a take-out pizza for my family, listening to a song in the car with my son on the way back up to church tonight to see ian's work on a VBS cd he is working on....in 2 minutes, in my old VW, music blaring..that analogy screams out to me and i smile. HE is so good. and i can't wait to share it with ian...because i know he gets it. my drummer man gets it. both the rhythm part and the God part...

most of my life has been the first part of the song, the melody and strings or piano or single voice, music playing and swaying me, ebbing and flowing...loving the song and the melody, the lyrics. yet, it's almost like the record was skipping and stuck on the beginning part only. so imagine my surprise the last three years when death brought more. grief causes you to come to end of yourself and have new eyes. you must reconcile to a good God that allows such pain in your life. and once the bitterness and angry tears have passed and they are replaced with gentleness and mercy and peace that ONLY comes from a faithful Father, then you really can HEAR the rest of the song. the song that began was beautiful and mine. but my journey from holding my dead daughter and fighting to claim God's glory in it all to where i am now can best be described as finally getting to the good part of the song, the place where the drums and bass enter and sweep you away. and fill your soul with thunderous beats and power. and literally make you move. and after that, it's hard to go back to the sweet lulling part of the song, you find yourself wanting the build and the release of the song, the raise your hands up or scream out your car window moment, isn't that the best part of the song? isn't that the sweetest place we can find ourselves with our God? to finally trust and believe what you trust and know to be true and feel the fruit and peace of what brave steps it took to cross over from self and personal agenda and me, me, me to THIS IS LITERALLY ALL ABOUT YOU GOD, not me. so i give in and let go, not because i must or have to, BUT because it is MY joy to. i want to.....

when you talk about test driving a ferrari vs actually driving one, when you hear about the fabulous chocolate mousse cake at flying star vs delving into a giant slice with a friend, when you hear about a mom-flat tire fiasco vs being the stress filled-scared stranded one on the highway in need of rescue, hearing the word cancer vs fighting the disease personally, praying for a friend who's buried their kid vs being the mom in all black mourning...again, all analogies. but you get the point. hard to get the idea of anything at all until you have experienced it yourself. i am not sure you TOTALLY get the heart of God and how much he suffered for you and how much he loves you until you realize your desperate need for rescue. until you realize the ultimateness of your own depravity, do you recognize your need for a Savior, until you are knee deep and floor ridden in tears from grief do you recognize a need for that same Savior to carry you through it and help you endure it. until you are in a marriage where all you do is fight each other with self vs self, and carry past hurts and blame and play victim, do you realize your insane plea for a need of help to return a blessing for a curse, help to forgive daily, to die to self and choose the other as your greatest joy, not yourself...if you never needed rescuing than how would you fathom a love so deep and faithful? that pulls you out of the deepest mire and darkness and sets your feet, literally back on solid ground some days. i know i have been redeemed (beginning of the song). yet, had i not needed rescuing from the darkness of the grave and loss, i might not have known the true heart of the Father. (the best part of the song) ..the One that restores brokenness. had i not been struggling so much with self and anger and bitterness and jealousy and negative thinking the past three years and especially the last six months, i would not have learned what it is to push past the flesh part of me and choose something greater and pure, in His spirit, which helps us hour by hour, conquer our sin nature in the little moments...to talk about the fruits of the spirit are one thing. to actually try to bring them to life in your heart, the heart that is broken and dark, is a pure act of God's grace. and goodness. and sweet faithfulness. because He promised to do so. and He will. we just have to get past ourselves to do it....and we have to be intentional about it.

i am always searching for ways to explain myself, to explain this crazy faith journey that i have been on for years, before syd died and after...this song idea seems to fit....i'd like to think i had religion most of my life, not the stale kind that some speak of..but a very selfish centered idea of God, He, in a way, served me and took care of me if I was faithful and prayed.. and i then quickly came to a relationship chasm with the Lord when i was 20 and became severely depressed and lost in life. obviously, He was beginning to faithfully bring me to the end of me...i began a spiritual journey with Jesus soon after that was graceFueled and fed, redeeming all the wasted years that i had lived in rebellion against One bigger than me.....i finally understood grace. and i was floored. and began to live and serve Him in response to that grace...yet still, i was stuck at the beginning part of the song...

so when our daughter died, that relationship was tested and questioned but proved True and right and held all it's promises that i had believed the years prior. yet, i still somehow chose to still live in self mode, the victim mode, the woe is me mode....constantly justifying moods and emotions, seasons and trials, actions and speech as an "i can't help it..." mentality....i got the big picture part of it, the idea of a sovereign God...yet it wasn't being fleshed out in my day to day walk or relationships, my heart was still holding onto self and pride....i grew tired of victim and wanted more...

over the past year for sure, but maybe even just in the last 6 months more deeply, have i begun to really seek out a 'spirit lived' life, where i choose to live in the spirit, by the spirit and LET the Lord truly take my brokenness daily and transform me into the moments of my day...not just the big ideas of faith but the little day to day scenes that play out...parenting dilemas, marriage trials, relationship conflicts...etc. truly attempting to die to self and serve Him, not me. to get to the point where you are sick of your own thoughts and self woes and selfish ego and pride, to get to a place where you are literally at the end of yourself is truly a GOOD place. you can fight it for only so long and then to resign to the fact that YOU are the problem, not other people, YOUR sin is the thing impeding joy and peace in your relationships not others, YOU are the reason HE can't work in this or that because YOU have your own agenda, your own expectations. YOU actually think HE owes you, that you deserve more. ALL of that will stand in the way of getting to the best part of the song...

i know for sure this about me. i am pretty lazy. i have a hard time being intentional about things. i am not sure i would be fighting so passionately for this 'living in the spirit' had it not come out of desperation from grief. a dead child. and a dying marriage parched and strangled by grief and it's dark minions lurking in corners. while some would see any of this as pious or self righteous, i argue that my need for a Savior to redeem my soul is true BUT i also need a Savior and His grace to redeem my heart and my speech and my actions and my agenda about every 5 minutes throughout the day. left to myself, i will always choose self. foolishness is bound up in my heart, as a result of the fall, and the curse is alive and well in my heart as i could choose to go my own way. how would you define sin? i honestly think a lot of people, some churches even and modern society would begin with a list. a list of things you aren't supposed to do. or describe it as just 'being bad'....a book we got this weekend for the boys, Mighty Acts of God, says it so simply...sin is simply this: "doing what you want to do rather than doing what God wants you to do." it's that simple. and true. we teach and train our children that this "sin" will lead to their destruction and we try to drive it out of them in their youth....i have no idea, other than pure foolishness, as to why we as adults forget this simple definition as we bring it to our relationships, our marriages and parenting and all of life ALL the time. we constantly "do what we want to do" all the time in how we treat people, how we react to trials, or how we talk to our spouse or kids or strangers who offend us, we rarely "do what God wants us to do" in those moments, which would result in being kind, patient, long suffering, joyful in all things, gentle or self-controlled and so on....we chose self. over and over. we choose me. why else would marriages end and relationships dissolve or become strained or divisive? He chooses reconciling and dying to self while we choose stubborn pride or revenge. why else would kids grow up feeling unloved or not good enough with fake-perfect hypocrite parents? He chooses humility and serving others and putting others first while we choose pride and ego and build walls to protect said pride. why else would a person's heart after tragedy become so embittered, cynical and angry and disconnected? He chooses merciful healing, surpassing Joy and restoration found in letting go and trust while we choose pride again, thinking we are owed something, we choose selfishness and fear and hold tight to old wounds. we MUST see that. our pattern to always do the wrong thing, to make the wrong choice, to "do what we want to do rather than what God wants us to do..." we don't have to be stuck at that part of the song....

so to truly choose God's agenda over our own takes sheer will power and choice, humility and submission, being intentional and aggressive with your heart, not passive, not lazy and not blaming or justifying. taking on His power to do so, as He promises. and love. it takes truly believing that He loves you, HE LOVES intensely. you have to desire and love something like crazy if you are going to work so hard at it, right?...it can't be about the motions or obligation. it must be about the heart...if you want to get to the best part of His song....

i am super excited about the latest analogy He has given me. because it gives life to what i have been feeling lately. once you feel the powerful drum beats laid down in a song, you're hooked. you want more and it's hard not to want to dance like a fool when music moves you like that. i am proud to be a fool for my King, just like David..and i'm pretty sure i look like a fool most sunday mornings....i cry through worship. still. it used to be because i was so sad and broken. then it was because He was my hope and my Shelter and i needed Him to breathe. i truly began believing the words i was singing because i was living them, outside of sunday morning. it was my daily life, needing him like that..and lately. you know what? i cry and raise my hands high because we have a Good God who never lets go and pursues us, gently loves us and lovingly keeps us on path, rescues us from darkness day in and day out, delivers us from evil and OURSELVES and literally crushed the enemy and death so that we could be whole and His again. i cry now because i know i am nothing without Him and i know how badly i need Him to live hour by hour, i know now that He delivered me out of grief's wake and still is, and i know that He delivers me daily out of my own Egypt of self. He promises and HE delivers. How can you not respond? and want to praise Him with loud song and heavy thunderous applause? there is a steady rhythm to His grace, it is there!!

don't we all want to experience the best that He has to offer? experience the best part of the song? He tells us we can, He promises us that in His word. my heart is living proof and i can testify that living in self-mode does not work, it leads to destruction, daily. living for Him and because of Him is our goal...but truly living IN Him, is where it's at! it's the best part of His song!