Satchels and Songs

Why are the beginning sentences of these blogs always the most challenging for me to write? As if there was a way to neatly frame all the random things I want to say. Some congruity to all the moving parts of a life being lived. 

Some people might find the beginning sentence easy, but for me it's often the hardest part. A pile of accumulated days and thoughts, layer on top of layer, taking up space in my brain until these rare moments occur when it can finally be sorted through and written out. 

No pressure.

Shots are being pulled for drinks I didn't buy, and there's the smell of coffee and a blank screen in front of me. My daughters are out galavanting with their daddy, and I've got two satchels sitting next to me full of tasks I won't get to. Things to research, things to remember, things to reply to, things to read and reflect on. 

There are never enough hours in the day, so I find myself having to make brutal cuts to the list of tasks represented in each satchel. What matters most today? The rest will have to wait. Making choices, making cuts, editing my own life as its being lived. What is most important? All the rest must go. So maybe that would have been a better beginning sentence:

Making choices, making cuts. What is most important? All the rest must go. 

This is my life lately. 

- - - 

Two nights ago, I played my guitar for the first time in over approximately three years. Yes. Three years. I've glanced at it from the corner of my eye innumerable times, but lacked the courage or motivation to pick it up and dare to hold it close to me again. I've been afraid. Afraid of the absence of callouses on my fingers, the evidence of perhaps a forsaken talent judging me from its stand. 

Every time I look at my guitar, I'm flooded with memories. Memories of a sweet season of life, when songs came easily, fingers flew over strings like melodies, and there was a well full of longings and dreams to express.

It feels like such a long time ago... until I see it sitting there on its stand, gathering dust. And something in my heart breaks a little. 

Time after time though, it just hasn't made the cut. There have been more important things needing my attention... a husband, two daughters, a life that no longer seems bent on forming itself into songs and melodies. I'm still the same me, but my time these days is spent prepping meals, doing laundry, writing lesson plans, and studying apologetics. I'm eating much healthier, exercising more, daily making better choices for my health and our family's health. It all takes time. It takes up a full life... It is a full life.

But a couple nights ago, I saw my guitar sitting there on the stand... and I picked it up. I sat down on the floor, put my arms in their old familiar place, settled my fingers on the strings, and the tears came suddenly heavy and hard. 

There aren't words.

It was humbling. Restoring. Just sitting there, confessing an unexplainable, undefinable relief to the God who once again has apparently begun communicating to my heart in the form of songs and melodies. 

It's been such a long time.

- - -

I had no idea back in January when I decided to set aside all other books and pursue apologetics and theology what the Lord would do this year. I didn't know what He was creating margin for, if anything - all I knew was that I needed to be obedient to His prompting. I had a desire to grow deeper in my understanding of His Word, and I knew that if I wanted to make time for that, other things would have to be cut. I prayed that as the world outside would get more crazy and cracked my mind would grow increasingly still and strong - but I didn't know what to expect, other than the joy of walking in the rightness of a well-placed hope. 

But the Lord. He knocks the breath out of me, with His goodness. How do I describe the way it is, when a rock cracks open into a spring? The way it is when an empty well fills back up again, after years of being dry? 

Making choices, making cuts. Choosing what's important, forsaking all the rest. And suddenly... there it is. The well fills up again. The silence forms a melody. 

And with two satchels of incomplete tasks sitting next to you, you find yourself singing.