Skip to main content

Overwhelming Ideas

I'm diligently (at least for me) working on my current short story about the messiness of life. My muse for this story is a Rich Mullins tribute album, and so far, the story is taking the form of three songs from that album. Jacob and 2 Women, Calling Out Your Name, and If I Stand. (Perhaps I'll divulge their inspiration later.)

These songs are stuck in my head, and as I've been singing them today, pieces of the story appear alongside them. I pulled out my old trusty CD player and CD (the iPod seemed inappropriate for this task), thinking that listening to them would be a stronger experience. Sure enough. It's so exciting to see the ideas finally piecing themselves together.

As I listened to "Calling Out Your Name," I just burst into tears at the line, How the Lord takes by its corners this old world and shakes us forward and shakes us free to run wild with the hope. In that moment, just as sure as I was sitting in my livingroom, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of hope...hope in the middle of pain...hope in the middle of the messiness...hope in the middle of the loss. It's there. And there was even a twinge of love thrown in, a spark that's been missing from my soul for a while now.

I'm grateful and humbled to have had that opportunity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Busy Days Ahead

It's been a busy week for me. I left my house at 4:30 Monday morning for my drive down south and pulled back in my driveway at 1:20 this morning. The days have been long, too, between working at the new school from 7:30 until 3:00 or 4:00 and then working at the new place until 9:00 or 10:00 each night. I now have callouses on my fingers and not one intact finger nail. I think I've also developed a new twitch somewhere on my face. One afternoon this week, I stood in the middle of our new living room and took in the sight of missing drywall, a growing hole in the floor and soaked up my husband's predictions that we still won't be ready to paint by the weekend. All I wanted to do was cry. All I felt was nothingness. Numbness. Anyone who has ever reached the point of numbness knows that it's scarier than feeling like you're falling apart. It's one step beyond feeling like you're falling apart. I couldn't help but wonder just what we had gotten ourselves
5 comments
Read more

The Carnival

It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon here in southwest Florida, although still a bit too warm for my November tastes. I'm learning to enjoy my weekends with as much unstructured and unscheduled time as possible. Last Saturday was a delightful unstructured day. A new friend of mine (the one from the Everglades excursion) and I went to a local carnival. Now, here's the thing...I LOVE carnivals. The food. The people. The rides. The lights. I can easily spend an entire day wandering through the crowds. He's no carnival slouch. The first thing we did was walk through the entire place, scoping out the rides. Then the fun began. We rode almost every ride there (except for the kiddie attractions and the broken Tornado). The Wild Claw. The Scrambler. The Orbiter. The Space Oddysey. The Swings. The Pharaoh's Fury. The Ferris Wheel. The Giant Slide. The Haunted House. The Avalanche. It was all good. How can you top a ride that uses centrifugal force to plaster your body against
2 comments
Read more

Stranger Obligations

I had to make a few difficult decisions this week. At least, they were difficult for me. I wish I could be the kind of person who completely makes decisions based on his/her own needs and wants and boldly moves through life with unabashed freedom from how our choices affect others. But I'm not built like that. I had placed an ad for my former stray. I felt like it was time to find her a more permanent home because so much in my life right now is uncertain. One person answered the ad, but she did not seem like a good fit, and I gave up further thought. This week I received another response. As long as this person is telling the truth, it's an ideal situation for the dog. Yet, I had a strange feeling and could not sort out whether or not it was my intuition kicking in or that fact that I actually like the dog and don't want to see her go. In the end, I decided that it was in my own (and my Winnipeg's) best interest for her to stay with us through the summer. (I seri
5 comments
Read more