I have to write about something.

How many blog posts have started out that way? This is my heart’s cry: write, write, write.

And this is going to be messy because it’s more of a jot than well-planned thesis. But I do have a point, so just hang on. We’ll get there eventually.

I can’t be Mary Poppins.

Here is what I don’t mean: I do not mean that I can’t have my life “together”. I don’t mean that I am not capable of managing my days or the days of my littles. I’m not adverse to a little sarcasm when appropriate. I don’t mean that I can’t have a magic carpet bag or a lovely hat. I certainly have no issue with owning an umbrella that can fly me to the rooftop of a family in need.

Here is what I do mean: There is a lure in that phrase “practically perfect in every way” (this is how Mary Poppins and her magic measuring tape describe her). Do you know what a lure is? I’m not a fisherman but knowing exactly what a “lure” is seems beneficial here. A lure is something that looks pretty (and tasty!) but hidden inside is the means by which one is caught, and eventually killed. It looks oh-so-nice to be “practically perfect”. I look at Mary Poppins and my eyes are caught by her unflappable, compassionate (but also no-nonsense), purposeful demeanor. I desire that for myself. I want to be industrious and resourceful and strong.

I want these things because I don’t want to need anybody.

Mary Poppins doesn’t need anybody. That is the snare for me. There is not a thing wrong with perfection; God calls us to be perfect as He is perfect (Matt 5:48, 1 Peter 1:15). In my current culture, I see a bit too much of a pendulum swing against the “plastic” idea of perfection that we’ve started to give hearty approval to laziness and incompetence. We talk about the Proverbs 31 woman as if “getting up before dawn” has to mean something other than getting up before dawn, because — well, doesn’t God want us to be well-rested?

Oh boy I’m getting off topic.

My point is, the lure of Mary Poppins isn’t the perfection; it’s the self-sufficiency. And anybody who has walked with God more than a second knows that self-sufficiency is the oldest, ugliest sin. Eve wasn’t tempted to go off and murder anybody or even talk bad about her husband (what kind of woman is this!!); she was tempted by the thought that she could be like God, knowing good and evil. There are many ways in which we are called to be like our Creator, but clear and definite ways in which He alone is to be — omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign . . . self-sufficient.

When I attempt to be like God in His self-sufficiency, I become a traitor. God is not threatened by my attempts to usurp His throne, but those attempts are not winked at or brushed off. Like when our child decides he’s a big boy and can cook on the stove when he can’t even see over it, so am I when I try to do things in my own strength. God will not stand for this, not because He is threatened, but because He knows what danger awaits me.

Mary Poppins would have me believing that I can do it all, do it well, and have only my own reflection to argue with me. The truth is, I need God. I need Him desperately. And in resting, trusting, believing, and walking with Him I find far greater purpose and meaning than I could ever find in years of self-improvement and progress and productivity. To Him be the glory. Amen.

Did you know that if you google (that’s a verb now; may I never cease to be amazed) “Why do I feel like everyone is upset me with me?” that the first result is for the suicide prevention hotline? I find that sobering.

I’m just having one of those days where all the things I’ve said and done in error are bigger in my mind than the finished work of Jesus. I find this perspective even more sobering.

Father forgive me for my arrogance. Wretched worm that i am, who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I’m ready to stop expressing breastmilk (affectionately referred to as “pumping” by most mamas) for my Pumpkinhead. He’s six months old as of December 23rd, so it’s technically “okay” by most pediatricians recommendation. I do know quite a few people who strive for those golden boobies (in researching I actually found out there are “awards” for more years as well; that’s not panic-inducing for a recovering . . . whatever, I don’t know the name for this particular neurosis). I would love to get all the badges, medals, whatever. But this time around, I’m being realistic.

Nursing, and pumping especially, take a lot out of me. I think nursing takes more from me in the beginning when baby and I are learning each other, but after that it’s the pumping that just drains the life out of me. It’s a constant interruption to my workday; it feels cold and procedure-like what with tubes and plastic and bodily fluids everywhere. That sounds gross — I can sorta see why people look away when they see a bottle of my breastmilk on my desk now. Ha.

Anyway, I’m writing because I want to just make a note of this: the decision to quit pumping is not easy and it’s not a sudden thing. I will be gradually increasing the duration between pumps until my body says, “Ohhh, so baby doesn’t need so much anymore? OK!” And I will see those precious ounces dwindle until I’m getting 2oz or less in a pumping session; and I will panic a little.

But it will be okay. He will be okay. It is going to be okay.

There is a phrase that carries more weight with me than it should because it was first spoken to me by a person in authority:

No reason.

As in, “There is no reason for the toilet to be stained from not cleaning it”.

This has become the hammer I use to come down hard on myself. No reason. It goes along the same grain as there’s no excuse, it’s not that hard, why can’t I just.

And if you hear me say things like this, even if it seems light-hearted, those are warning lights. These phrases can seem like the words of someone motivated to improve. For me, they are no less than crushing weights.

And when people try to comfort or encourage me that it’s totally possible to do whatever it is that seems to loom above me like a insurmountable obstacle, what I hear is you are weak for feeling like this is hard; you’re a failure.

The truth is, all things are possible in Christ and nothing is possible apart from Him.

Old wounds be what they may, I do know the truth. I’m not really sure how to heal that wound or why it keeps opening up, but I believe that healing is possible and promised in Christ.

This is just me being real, guys. This is what I’ve been thinking about lately.

If I could find a common thing among all my stupid emotional ramblings, it would be this deeply ingrained idea that nobody cares how I feel. It’s not a judgment on those who don’t care. It seems only reasonable to me that no one would care, because a like thought that frequents these stupid moments is that my feelings are not worth anyone’s time. Even my own.

Several months ago I wrote a post that summed up my parenting style at the time very well: https://foundmercyrambles.wordpress.com/2018/05/13/discipline/

A few months after writing that, a friend invited me to come along with her to a parenting class she wanted to take as she is preparing to adopt from foster care. She is single and the class required a partner. I’m still flattered she thought of me.

The class was nine weeks long. It was grounded in the work of Karen Purvis. I started reading The Connected Child and — Honestly? It seemed a little much like attachment style parenting. That “let’s all baby-wear and hold hands 24/7” hippie dippie crap. That came out a lot harsher than I really feel about it. I actually do like baby-wearing (although I really dislike the name of it; who wears people? Is this Silence of the Lambs?). It’s just that I just go a little bananas when I see parents abdicating their God-given authority over their children, which seems to go along with the attachment-style philosophy, in my very limited life experience and therefore humble opinion.

So I’m reading The Connected Child and vacillating between sighs of, “Well that’s just common sense” and “Well that’s just stupid.” I’m probably exaggerating a bit here for the point of the story. I like to do that. Just roll with it.

After I’ve read most of the The Connected Child, a bit of The Whole Brain Child, and some Parenting is Your Highest Calling, I go along with my friend to the first class. I leave shocked to find out how little people know about kids. That was my takeaway: people are idiots. I heard three families all give their own version of the same story: My child had a meltdown and I don’t know what on earth is wrong with him (or her). She shouldn’t get so upset over something so small. He should know better. She should understand that it’s unsafe. He shouldn’t need my help with that.

For an embarrassingly long number of classes, I would carpool home with my friend and I don’t know how many times I said in every conceivable manner, How can these people have kids and not know this? My wonderful friend listened and applauded my insight and congratulated my self-aware approach to parenting. Not once did she point out that I have a two year old and a four month old and no real experience. This is the kind of friend everyone should have. 10/10 recommend.

But somewhere along the line, as I kept reading these books and continued on with Nurturing Adoptions, The Out-of-Sync Child, and finally getting around to reading The Soul of Shame, something began to click.

I had a lot of built-in trust with Littlefoot just because I’d always been there for him, never let him go hungry or ignored, tried my best to make sure he had a stable routine. I wasn’t at risk of losing that trust by asserting my authority in ways that weren’t always empathetic or respectful. Before reading all these things and going to these classes, I saw obedience as a “win”. It didn’t matter to me if he was crying while he obeyed; he was doing what I asked and that was the goal.

My goal has changed dramatically as a parent, and I can’t even tell you when exactly this  happened. Sometime over the last nine weeks, I stopped seeing obedience as the goal. I stopped wanting to raise an obedient child; I started desiring most to raise a child who was secure in my love for him so that when God came calling for him, it wouldn’t be this huge leap of faith to accept this Heavenly Father who loved him when he was obedient, disobedient, or even apathetic.

The soil was ripe for this heart change, because looking back on the names we chose for our first versus our second son, it’s clear how our focus shifted. Love and I see names as our first gift to our child, and our personal blessing and hope for them. What we call them by every day, many times a day, we know they are more likely to become. So our firstborn child, we desired most for him to become a man of integrity and thus named him. But by the time we had a second child, we saw a greater blessing we could give, and so we named him after one who calls on the Lord from an early age. I joked with Love that by the time we hit the terrible twos we gave up on such lofty ideals of integrity and in exasperation just prayed our second would find the Lord early.

While it’s fun to joke that way, the truth is finding the Lord early is a greater blessing. But we bless with what we have, and we knew nothing better than integrity when Littlefoot was born. I still highly value integrity, but I know more now than I knew then that only the Lord can give this.

Only the Lord gives us anything good we find in our lives and in our hearts. So why did I think it was my job to teach my child to be obedient? The Lord will give the harvest; my job is to keep tending the soil. How do I do that? Listening, protecting, guiding, correcting.

If I could have a do-over of that night, I might have sat with Littlefoot for a minute, gave him some milk, let him calm down and tried again for putting away toys. I would not have gone straight to spanking when he refused to clean up. I would not have left him alone in his room, even for those few minutes. I would have (as I’ve done since) firmly placed him in a chair in the same room and picked up the majority of the toys for him, then asked him if he wanted to try picking up the rest of the toys himself. But my entire approach back then was set up in such a way that if I picked up any toys for him, I would be undermining my own authority with him. I was Mama Drill Sergeant.

I’m no longer Mama Drill Sergeant, and I no longer come to parenting armed with tricks and tips and a will of iron. I come to my child as a fellow human being who has been given the hugest honor and responsibility of being his mama.

The irony of the Dunning-Kruger effect is you can’t see where you are on it until you’ve passed the peak of “know-it-all”.

As I post this I hope I’m past that peak.

What I do know, without a doubt, is that I ended up learning a lot more than I let on during those car rides. Thank you, V.

When I’m healthy, emotionally, I get happy and sad and angry and everything in between. The feelings are not really that different from when I’m emotionally unhealthy, but the feelings make sense. I’m happy for a reason, sad for a reason.

When I’m not emotionally healthy I have almost the same range of feelings, but they don’t make sense to me. I’m really happy today. I’m thankful that I’m not unhappy, because I’ve had a lot of that lately. But I don’t know why I’m happy, and that bothers me.

Because if I have no reason to be happy, how can I think it will last?

How strange that this logic doesn’t apply whatsoever to sadness… if I am sad for no reason, I think that this must just be who I am, that I will be sad forever. But happiness, that foxy beast, always seems to be a leap away.

Blessed (happy) are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD. Psalm 119:1

I’m okay, really. But I need more Jesus and less tv, less junk food, less worldly comfort. I cling so hard to Him when life is hard, but the moment it eases up I forget.

I’m still happy, just pensive.

I am ready to quit my job, but February 26, 2020 will have to be the day. Littlefoot will be almost four years old. Pumpkinhead will be almost two. I just need to hang in there. Hang in there and stop spending money on ridiculously expensive coffee.

I have about six drafts sitting there, looking at me every time I log on here, saying Finish writing about this, or — for a couple — Post me! I want to see the light of day!

Every time I think about hitting “publish”, I have to consider the few and precious people who will read what I write, and I have to come to terms with the few and precious people that won’t.

It’s a lot, and every time I click that friendly-looking {Publish} button I know why so many people don’t write at all, even if they enjoy it.

I’m taking time away from work to write this. That’s another reason I don’t write much; I’m not organized enough yet (I have to keep using this word — yet) to write without borrowing that time from something else. But the words just bubble up and spill over and if I don’t write I do believe I would explode.

So this is me, writing instead of exploding. Three more weeks left in 2018. Nothing is ever finished. Thank God for that.

I think that’s the title of a book I’ve never read. My impertinence knows no bounds.

This morning as I nursed my unbelievably beautiful Pumpkinhead, I contemplated returning to the warm bed. Contemplated might be the wrong word. Daydreamed? Lusted after? Oh, how I wanted to just go back to the warmth and easiness of dreamland.

And this conversation started brewing in my mind, because after everything and despite my lack of discipline in this area, I am still a writer. I draft conversations in my mind as if I’m writing a novel. I wish I could recall this one exactly, but it’s been a few hours since then and the conversation had the distinct flavor of dreaminess — and we know how those go. Dreams evaporate more quickly than the morning dew and leave less behind.

What is sticking with me is more of a hint of something. I remember clearly thinking that I should want to spend time with God, and after a bit of pressing back-and-forth as to why I might prefer lazing in bed to time with the Lover of my soul, I reached a point of almost desperate feeling and I felt my soul cry out as if being squeezed: Change my heart so that i want to spend time with You!

In that very moment, I had no more desire to go back to bed. I laid my precious Pumpkinhead down in his crib and made my way to my chair. Many obstacles cropped up along the way, but I eventually got there and sat down with the wonderful Word of God.

To prepare for Christmas, I’m reading Luke. My goal is a chapter a day. I caught up on Luke 2-4 this morning. And although this post isn’t about what I read, I’ll throw out this little tidbit: where most writers would call back in salacious detail the people involved in causing our Lord to spend His first night in a feeding trough, and how that came about, I am humbled to see how matter-of-fact Scripture handles this fact of our Lord’s birthday. Am I this quick to downplay my insults and injuries?

And because I know from this morning how eager God is to answer this prayer, I ask Him now: change my heart O God.

I get it. Deuteronomy chapter six, “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.”

I need this to be written on my hand:

I didn’t know how ungrateful I was. I would hear this “be grateful” mandate and list things I was grateful for, then look at the list and conclude that I’m a terrible person. For not being happy when I have so much. For not treating people with the gratitude I supposedly had for them.

You can’t be truly grateful for others when you’re spending so much time berating yourself. People try to get this across by saying “you have to love yourself first” and “you can’t give from an empty vessel”.

I don’t believe in the “love yourself first” idea. However, I used the fact that it’s unbiblical as a shield, to hide from what would confront an attitude I had grown quite comfortable with: self-hatred.

For too much of my life, if I wasn’t actively hating myself I was simply tolerating my loathsome self without argument.

I’ve slipped back into that lately. But it’s not as bad as it used to be, and I don’t feel like it’s going to be this way forever anymore.

When my second beautiful boy was born, I think it was the first time I actually accepted help without cursing myself for needing it. And when I stopped beating myself up, something amazing happened: I actually felt good letting my husband put away the clean clothes and I felt blessed when my mom offered to watch kids so I could nap.

For those who can’t comprehend what I’m talking about and believe I’m simply an ingrate for not being born happy to be helped, this post is not for you.

But for those people like me, there is hope. Things can change. You don’t have to be stuck in the negative feedback loop you’ve resigned yourself to. Hating yourself, whether actively or passively, keeps you from being truly grateful.

What better time to lay down a hindrance to our gratitude than Thanksgiving?

Today is Love’s last day working for the company he’s given the majority of his waking hours, energy, and creativity to for the last four years and eight months. We’ve been talking quite a bit about how it’s time to pursue other opportunities, but the news that his position was being eliminated still hit us like cold water.

I’m not the worrying kind. I have no reason to doubt that God will continue to care for us. It’s not hard for me to consider “worst case scenario” — losing the house, having no money for food, etc. — and conclude that none of that is worrisome. I’ve spent a night at a stranger’s house for lack of shelter. I’ve worn clothes that others threw away. I’ve survived on discarded food from my fast food job. It’s not a lifestyle I aspire to, but I know how to be poor. I know where to find food banks and perfectly good clothing for free. I know how to save water and electricity and gas. I know how to prepare meals that cost next to nothing and keep a growing tummy full.

But the fact that I revert back to this trusting in my abilities is just exactly what is wrong with me. I give a nod to God, but deep down what reassures me isn’t that He has provided for me every step of the way — it’s that I have been able to endure hard times in the past. I feel like if God takes everything away, I still have my own can-do attitude and willpower to strive and struggle and “get back on the horse”.

This is probably why God has allowed me to continue to struggle with the lack of motivation, general “blurry” feelings, and despair that go along with depression. I have to thank Him that He keeps my strong drive checked in some way, because if I were allowed to be as “type A” as I feel when I’m not stricken with the hopelessness that wakes me up and puts me to bed sometimes for months at a time, I don’t think I would give Him any glory at all. I would be content to toss Him a perfunctory “thanks” and move on with relying on my own strength.

At the beginning of this year, I chose to dwell specifically on the word “refuge”, and to make a deliberate attempt to understand what it means to make God my refuge. I can’t say that I’ve been as steady as I intended to be at pursuing that knowledge. Still, the little that I’ve put my mind to it, God has blessed in His typical abundant fashion. I do pray more than I did last year. I’ve learned since January that if I can trace my sin back to where I demanded my way and, instead request, I grow in humility and holiness. I have not done this perfectly; I haven’t even done it well. But I am learning that when I feel that anger, that despair, that hopelessness rise up in my heart to turn around and ask myself, “What am I demanding? What do you want, soul?” And I am learning that getting in touch with what I really desire is — oh the irony of ironies — the path to contentment.

I grew up thinking like the Buddha: the path to contentment is the removal of desire. We suffer because we want. There is truth in that, but like a shadow it lacks all the greatness of the greater reality (substance). We were created for the purpose of desiring. We were created to want. The problem is that instead of wanting what we were created to want, we set our sights on other things — and that’s where the suffering comes from. The Buddha was right that we suffer because we want, but he never found out why.

So much of taking refuge in God is acknowledging the desires that fuel my thoughts, feelings, and actions. Rather than dismissing my own feelings as “wrong”, I delve into them. I’m feeling like staying in bed all day would be some sort of solution to all my sadness. Why? What do I really want? I want comfort. How many days have I spent trying to reject my desire for comfort, only to have it leak out in my food choices and where I choose to spend my time and how I choose to relate to people? The bed represents guilt-free comfort that asks nothing of anybody. That’s why I want to stay in bed. But God made me to be needy; He created me to give and take in relationships with others. Not only is it impractical to stay in bed all morning, it doesn’t actually meet my need.

I don’t worry, but I do wake up feeling like the world would be a better place if it didn’t have to endure my moroseness, and if I have to be alive I will just do my best not to infect anyone. Isn’t that just the strangest thing, to be so certain that I can’t change my mood that it doesn’t even occur to me that the most obvious solution to being morose is to address that feeling so I no longer feel morose?

And all this comes down to Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight

I desire most of anything to be in charge of myself, to be autonomous. But I am not. I was created by God, formed by God, and I am even now being sustained by God. I get no glory for choosing Him, because He first chose me. It is not up to me to choose God’s ways because they seem right and good to me; it is up to me to trust and not lean on my own understanding. How difficult this is for the analytical person!!

But this I know, when God is my refuge I will not be shaken. When God is my refuge, nothing can keep me in bed for I will jump at the chance to meet with Him in the early morning hours. When God is my refuge, I am full of joy and my life is abundant. And all I need to do is be willing to let Him be this for me. Taking up my cross, laying down my agenda, and following Him.

This morning I was thinking about that phrase that just comes out every so often of the mouths of depressed people: I can’t do anything right.

I was thinking this because I have just been having such a hard time getting up at a reasonable hour lately, and this morning I even got up, took the dog out (Mr Bill!) and went back to bed to sleep till 7am. I’m not even sure I fell asleep, but I guess I must have because the alarm woke up me up.

How do I get from I’m having a lot of trouble getting myself out of bed lately to I can’t do anything right?

These are questions best left for the professionals.

What I did notice this morning is that the phrase is always “right”, never I can’t do anything well or perfectly or good. Why is that? I tried it out. I tried telling myself, “I can’t do anything well.” My mind immediately rejected that; I do plenty of things well. Then I tried, “I can’t do anything perfectly.” I laughed; of course I can’t! I’m not perfect! Nobody’s perfect. Then I tried, “I can’t do anything good.” Hmm. That’s a little closer.

What is it about right that rings so loud in the ears of so many (maybe everyone?) that it causes us to weep, to crumble, to stop trying?

I think I know. Of all the adjectives we could use to describe our actions, right comes closest to describing a fundamental attribute of God. What does “right” mean?

God alone is morally good, justified, and acceptable on His own.

“Right” cuts to the quick; it points to what is wrong with us as humans and why we need grace. It offends us at a level deeper than we are cognizant of. From the days of Adam, we don’t want to be perfect or good; we won’t settle for anything less than right.

Thanks be to God through Christ, we are made “right” — but this is not of ourselves; it is a gift of God (Eph 2:8).

When we tell ourselves, “I can’t do anything right”, what we are saying is a legitimate heart-cry of “I want to be right!” But our error comes from wanting to be right on our own standing; we don’t want mercy; we don’t want a good God to condescend to us and make us right. We are ever toddlers saying, “No! I can do it myself!”

I am so grateful that God describes Himself as a father, because literally any other relationship will not tolerate such rebellion. A friend, a sibling, a coworker would all say, “Okay, do it yourself then,” but a father (or mother) will look down with love and patiently wait for the pitiful and heart-string-pulling “Help” that inevitably follows.

♦

Lord, thank you for being right — consistently, reliably.  You alone are good. There is no one righteous, not one. You alone are worthy. i confess my tendency to seek righteousness by own merits. i confess chasing after comfort and forsaking the Comforter. O Lord i confess my foolishness. Thank You Father for forgiving me, even when i turn away and attempt to reject the very thing i’m asking for. Thank You for Your amazing patience. Thank You for Your love that will follow me down to the depths and give me strength to fly out of the pit. Thank You for Your many, many blessings. Please Father help me to see Your gifts as an extension of Your lovingkindness and to look past the gift and to the Giver. In the worthy name of Jesus, who stands in my place and covers me completely, Amen.

The tears come fast and heavy down your perfectly round cheeks. Your eyes instinctively close. Doesn’t sadness and anger do that to us — isolate, shame? Don’t see me crying. It’s one of those parenting tricks I picked up along the way: if you’re still looking at me — those tears ain’t real.

Oh, but when they are. Littlefoot, it takes every minute of my hard-won years of being an adult, practicing the art of maintaining composure, to keep me from joining you in those tears. It takes strength I didn’t know I had in me to hold your chin up and look into those beautiful, overwhelmed eyes and tell you with unbending certainty: I hear you. And it’s going to be okay.

It doesn’t matter that you’re only crying because you’re tired, or your socks won’t go on right, or the cat doesn’t want to be smothered. I can look back and laugh at the ridiculousness of those tears over something so small! But in that moment, Littlefoot, when your little heart is swimming with emotions so strong they overflow, I feel.

Don’t look away from me in your pain, Littlefoot. I will always feel your feels, and I will always care.

For what it’s worth, I’ve rebounded a bit today and find myself in the mode I used to get into when I worked at Burger King. I’d be on the line and orders would start stacking up to the point that I felt I could not possibly keep up.

In those moments, the best thing to do was always to take half a second (a half-second I didn’t believe I had, by the way) to stop, breathe, and tell myself: Line ’em up and knock ’em down. 

So today, I am lining them up and knocking them down. Get the things in order to do the things most effectively and efficiently. And this is my half-second of breathing and telling myself:

Line ’em up. Knock ’em down.

Nothing is impossible.

Ok, truth time.

I’ve been writing positively because I’ve been hoping that talking about the good, true things would motivate me out of this… whatever it is.

I’ve been waking up at 7am or later every morning for a week. And even getting up at 7 takes a lot of reminding myself of how frustrated I get when I feel “behind” and how 7 is really late to be getting up since Littlefoot gets up a mere half hour later.

The rest of the day is pretty okay, until evening. Lately I’ve been choosing to watch tv instead of doing housework. This is making get behind on laundry. I really dislike folding clothes so getting behind on laundry is more than a little stressful for me.

So . . . That’s the truth. I’m not living life upset or super irritable; I don’t feel depressed. I just don’t feel like I can get going in the morning and when the immediate needs of my family fade away in the evening I feel done, like I can’t do anymore.

Maybe my thyroid really isn’t quite right. I just thought about that. I’m sleeping nine hours a night. Falling asleep fast most nights, struggling to get up.

So I’ll call the doctor today. But if it’s not my thyroid I’m not sure what I will do. I can’t seem to shake myself out of this. Ugh. It feels ridiculous talking about this. I say I know what the answer is to all life’s problems so I shouldn’t have any problems, right?

I wasn’t feeling bad until now. Now I feel like a total hypocrite and failure. So I’m just gonna post this because it will surely make someone happy to see me miserable.

One little radio station in one little town in the state God saw fit to put me in plays a variety of genres, probably in an attempt to reach as many with the gospel as possible.

Several months ago they played this song called Messiah. That song make me cry for weeks at this one part:

The saddest fact is that I search for satisfaction as if I lack it when in fact I lack nothing . . . Hope deferred so I prefer the immediate and exchange the true God for what seems more expedient; it’s meaningless.

After playing that song for weeks, I discovered the artist, Beautiful Eulogy, offers their entire albums for free on their website. I downloaded Worthy, the album with Messiah on it, and made (ok fine Love made) a CD that I can play in my car. I’m surprised it still plays.

Long before I had any interest in moving on from that album Love discovered Instruments of Mercy and had it on repeat. I finally decided to look into that one and now I’m listening to both albums regularly.

And if I can credit the stability of my life lately, even after having a baby, to anything other than the grace of God, these two albums have been a lifeline of truth to me when other means have felt inaccessible. Music has a way of cutting through the bullshit and sticking with us when it feels impossible to think.

I need to hide the Word in my heart; music does not replace the practice of meditating on scripture. It can easily become a scripture replacement, and it shouldn’t. But I am so grateful that I listen to a radio station that plays music like this, this music that gets into my heart and kneads love and hope and truth into it.

Check it out. That link works almost everywhere in the world.