Slow Down to Listen to Your Life
I am not musical, but lately, the Lord and I have been coming back to a musical conversation.
Life sounds like something. Have you ever considered this?
Your life is a song. It is made up of lots and lots of verses. Some of them have light and lively tempos and those are the ones you want to go of forever. You’d put it on repeat. They are the parts of life where rejoicing is easy and worship comes naturally.
The moments your kids are kind and fun.
Those days when your work goes so well you are amazed.
The bills are less than you expected.
The food tastes better.
The prayers you prayed are answered with a quick YES!
The vacation feels restful and relaxing.
But other verses are hard and harsh. The sound is mellow or tense. The sound is unsettling and you want to put it fast-forward. Honestly, these are the verses you’d like to stop at any point and just move right on to another one…ANY other one. To praise in these places truly is a “sacrifice of praise.”
Everyone is fighting and peace feels absent.
Work is a mess and your to-do list is only getting longer.
The bills are more than you expected.
That meal you prepared burns on the stove.
Your prayers feel empty and unheard.
There is no rest to be had anywhere.
And sometimes life experiences mix ebbing and flowing like the ocean. They are serene one moment and crashing the very next.
But they each need the other. It is good for us to experience all kinds of verses. We need our lives to be full of beauty that expands us and challenges that soften us.
The truth is throughout the entire melody of our lives there are strands of gold interwoven, just waiting to be revealed. In every single hard season of my life, there are moments when I can see the fingerprints of God. In times of deepest despair, there are refrains (or bridges) where God shows up to let me know He is with me.
I bet you are thinking of your bridges right now. What are the places where you were hurting the most and your tears abated for even a moment as He startled you with “a sound” you weren’t expecting?
What is the melody of your life today? If it is the lovely first one, enjoy each sweet moment and know that throughout your life there will be many such verses.
If yours is the challenging verse at the moment, know that you are not ever alone and that you can transition out of this place stronger in some way. If you need prayer, please know you can push reply to this email and I will stop and pray for you.
Take time today to consider where the stands of gold are in your current melody. It is worth slowing down for.