The hills are aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive....

Random fact of the day: I hate doing dishes even though I have a dishwasher. I don't like putting them away for some reason. So I end up just retrieving (clean) dishes from the dishwasher when I need them. It's like having an extra cabinet! :D

Hearing Aids: I love music. I wouldn't say I'm as up to speed with what the cool kids listen to these days, though. Out of ALL the songs they sang on Glee this past fall, I knew... two? I grew up listening to Christian music - I had it in my head that anything else was just evil. (Yet I watch "secular" TV with noooo problem. Hm) Plus honestly, the cool kid music is hard to hear. Like bands today purposefully record their albums so that the music overshadows the lyrics. The Christian artists I listened to tended to be easier to hear because they didn't do that (some do, I know. I don't listen to them lol).

Anyway, I've always been thankful that God in His grace left me enough hearing to enjoy music. (I am pretty sure I owe my early spiritual formation to Michael Card. ;)) It's a process for me to learn a song. I have to memorize it by following along with printed lyrics and once I memorize the lyrics, I also memorize beats. I even used to count how many seconds between the opening instrumental and the first lyrics so I wouldn't miss anything. If anything's off, if I count just half a beat too slow or too fast, if I forget just one line, I've lost my place in the song and while I hear the music, it doesn't make sense anymore. I can no longer appreciate it the way the artist wrote it.

Isn't life like that sometimes? The last several years and in particular, the last six months, have been something else. Church hurt. I got angry. And stayed angry. I moved out. I moved in. I got a job. Got left out. Railed against hypocrisy while being the poster child for it. I lost my place and while I could live some kind of life, it paled - pales - in comparison to who Jesus is.

I was listening to an old CD yesterday. I hadn't listened to it in years. I forgot some of the lyrics. I remembered the chorus, but that was all I remembered. For the life of me, I could not remember anything else but the chorus. I get so frustrated when that happens. Just one more lapse in communication. I prayed, as I always do, "God, please, help me understand the music!" And almost immediately, I heard the last stanza as if I'd been singing it all my life.

When I doubt, when I wonder, when I struggle, when I lose my place, when I ask, "How could You do this to me?", the answer is always in a song. I think God sometimes plants specific songs on purpose - they get stuck in my head and I'm forced to listen to the message all day. :) Like He sings the song back to me when I've forgotten the words... on the CD and behind the hearing aids.

The Arrow and the Song
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

In other news: I'm hosting brunch tomorrow! So, it's off to chop and brown and slice and prepare! I love it!