Sing like never before...

As I walked in the door tonight, I had a snip it of a song playing over and over in my head.

 

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul

 

I've made no secret in my blog that I've struggled greatly with faith and people this summer.  It's been a struggle so great that I've felt as though God has long left me and forgotten about me.  I continue to struggle with this.  For so many reasons, I've truly been in a crisis of faith and disbelief.

 

For that reason, I've not listened to Christian music in months.  I couldn't.  For anyone who doesn't know, music is a huge part of my life.  I love singing.  I love listening.  I love hearing the words.  Music is like a second language for me that often says what I can't and speaks to me in ways nobody does.

 

I've enjoyed listening to Oldies, but haven't even done that much lately.  When I've said it's been a dry summer, I mean it.  Life without music for me is empty.

 

It's been months since I've had a song pop in my head and even longer since that song has been a Christian song.  I knew this snip was from a Christian song/artist, but no clue what/who.

 

The past few months have been tough and good days have been scarce. 

 

I stood over the sink tonight, bathing the dog and thinking through my day.

 

A few things happened today, which have impacted me deeply.

 

I shared with a friend last night that I have a difficult time moving past hurts that happen in church.  I've had many.  One of the reasons I feel it is so difficult to move past is because of all of the hurts I've experienced, I've never had any of them lead to restoration of the relationship. 

 

Today I had someone take steps to restore a relationship with me.  I won't and don't need to give you any details for you to understand how huge that was for me.  I really had to process my thoughts and feelings about this.  Forgiveness was simple, effortless.  It's never been so easy for me to forgive a hurt.  It was a completely new experience for me. 

 

I had no expectation that this relationship would be restored.  However, I can honestly say that I'm happy it can be.  Believe me, it really goes a long way in the effort to renew my faith in people, kindness and love amongst Christians.

 

There has been another person who has been unknowingly helping settle my stirring heart.  I want to believe that at the core of everyone is a good person, especially Christians.  I haven't believed that for a while.  I've had a tough time believing people can be loving, caring, genuine, gracious or have any desire to be like Christ.

 

Sometimes I look to the older members of the church to be these examples to me, accepting that nobody is perfect.  Age does not always equate to maturity, especially in faith. 

 

A younger (younger than me) lady in the church has shown me all of those things.  While I don't know her well, my experiences with her have been learning and growing experiences for me.  Through crazy times, tough circumstances and stressful situations, the young woman has been a picture of the healthy way to deal with adversity and hurt feelings. 

 

She embodies what I have been looking for, needed to see.  What is more amazing is that she has no clue her part in this beginning stage of healing.

 

Another obscure thing happened today, something completely unexpected.  During a meeting completely irrelevant to anything already mentioned, the pastor made a comment which stuck with me.  As he discussed serving people and the reason for service, he put something in perspective for me.

 

I won't quote him verbatim, but he said he doesn't prepare sermons for himself.  His study, his effort, his prep and ultimately the sermon itself is done for the people of the church.  He does it all for us, the body of the church.  He does it for me, being a member of the body.

 

Let me say that again...my pastor studies, spends many hours preparing and delivers a sermon for me. 

 

Having that perspective does so much to renew my desire to want to understand and hear sermons.  If he's going to put forth effort me, I believe I owe him the same in return.

 

Before I began scrubbing the dog and getting lost in my thoughts about the day, I had turned on the ipod.  I'm not even sure what had been playing, I hadn't heard any of it.  A momentary break in my thoughts opened my head to hear the words playing.

 

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul

 

It was the song.  It was the first time I'd heard the words of a Christian song in months.  I mean heard them, really deep down in my soul heard them. 

 

I couldn't help myself.  I stood over my soapy dog and wept. 

 

Of course I am filled with fear that everything I mentioned above is a fluke and tomorrow will bring more challenges and again kick me.

 

The fight isn't over.  I'm still in crisis.  Today's showers weren't enough to end the drought.  But maybe, just maybe, it's at least the beginning. 

 

Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to reconnect with my old friend...music.