Casting Pearls: Part 1

Wow...where do I begin?  Why don't I try at the beginning, that's always a good place to start.  :)  There were a million and one different post titles that came into my mind when thinking of what to call this series of posts, and I have a heart and an idea behind this one, but it might take me awhile to get there.  This is the first in a series of posts, so if you've found yourself at the top, come back down here and start here with Part 1.

There are many songs that sum up the way I feel.  I love music.  I love songs.  I love playing music and I love writing music.  I absolutely love it when a song or a songwriter understands me.  A song that grips me right in the heart and never lets go and stays with me forever.  A song is nothing more than a poem set to music.  I once said in a poem that "To be held on either side is all a poem can ask for, but to be Understood by the Writer is all that the Sinner may need."  That sums up the heart of what I've been trying to say.  All any poem ever wants is to be read by someone.  Why would a writer write it if it was never meant to be read?  Why would a singer write a song if it was never meant to be heard?  I am both a poet and a songwriter and like many poets and songwriters, I have deep feelings, emotions, and truths buried deep inside my heart and an even deeper longing to get them out and voice them somehow.  What is the point of feeling this way and getting it out if it's not a cry to both be understood and to understand someone?  My goal is that someone would read what I write and say, "I have been there before. I understand how you feel. I have felt that way too many times."  I guess it's a longing to be AFFIRMED.  VALIDATED.

When you're the youngest in a family with three older sisters, you're being talked down to all your life and always told what to do.  I've always struggled to feel affirmed and validated.  I guess I've always wondered, "When do I finally get to be old enough to finally know what I'm talking about?"  Now that....that is a question that remains to be answered and could remain to be answered until the day I die.  I'm not that old and I don't claim to have a lot of wisdom, but what I have learned thus far is that even when I'm 99 and on my deathbed, I could still learn something and I'll probably never really "arrive" until I literally arrive in heaven.  Then I will "know as I am known." (song reference to Chris Rice's "And Your Praise Goes On")

So, back to what's on my heart right now.  What is the Lord teaching me right now?  What am I struggling with right now?  There comes a time in everyone's life and I'm there right now, when it's one of those real pruning, breaking, molding, refining, shaping, defining moments in my life.  The times that if you make it through it, you grow up and mature A LOT through it.  Right now, I'm in the middle of it and haven't quite made it to the other side.  Sometimes I used to wish that the trial would just hurry up and be over and I would just be on the other side of it, but lately I've almost strangely grown to LOVE these times.  Another song reference is creeping up.  "Wilderness" by the OC Supertones.  There is really too much in this song to say.  So much of what I am going through and feeling is in this song as in many other songs.  It's one of those mind-folding type of songs where you just have to accept the fact that you don't know it all and fall down and lie on your back and gaze up into the deep, deep sky and believe that God is on the other side.  You have to accept the fact that God's ways are higher than yours and you don't have to know everything right now.  You don't have to know the end of the story.  Just trust in the Author who's writing your story.  I know I keep changing person or perspective as I'm talking.  I'm an English Literature nerd and it's even getting on my own nerves, but I think as I'm writing the Lord is speaking to me so sometimes He changes what "person" or "perspective" I write in.

There's a part in this "Wilderness" song that says, "I have spoken much too soon, put my hand over my mouth, I can't contend with You..." and THAT is where I'm trying to get in this series of blogs.  Wow...overload in my brain with too much to say about this...help me Lord to speak what You will.  I don't know how else to say it, but to just come right out and say it, and it might sound funny to you, but it sure is honest:  I talk too much.  THERE!  I said it!  Amazing how four little words could have so much power behind them.  Four LOADED words.  What God is showing me right now, and it may be a simple concept to some of you that have already learned it, is that the MOUTH is a powerful tool.  For me, when I don't speak with my actual mouth to a person, I type.  I can't even explain in words that make sense how many times this has gotten me into trouble.  Is "gotten" a word?  Well, it is now.  Anyway, get behind me Satan and quit knocking me off track!  The devil doesn't want me to have victory over this!  GO AWAY!

Okay, so God is really revealing to me the power that my words and my tongue really have.  This is the part that's hard for me to explain because unless you have an issue with this too, you might not really understand unless you're me.  This is the best way I can explain it:  Inside my heart and inside my mind, I have GREAT intentions.  I have loving, encouraging, understanding, hopeful, helpful, sweet intentions, but I have the HARDEST time coming off that way.  Since I'm female, I like to "scenario" in my head A LOT.  I will have a conversation or a scenario planned in my head about the way I think it should go.  In my mind, it's beautiful, it's uplifting, it's positive, it's encouraging, and it's LOVING and for whatever reason, as soon as I open my mouth, or my fingers go flying on the keyboard, it comes out WRONG.  I can't even explain how frustrating this is for me.

This is why I feel like my life is summed up in Romans 7:15-21.  "¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. ²¹ So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me."  I have the desire to do what is good, but I CANNOT carry it out.  Inside of me, and inside of many others who may struggle with this, there is a WAR going on...an all-out BATTLE constantly.  My Spirit desires to say the RIGHT thing, the GODLY thing, the truly, sincere, heartfelt, encouraging thing, but my flesh takes over and I cross the line, end up saying something I shouldn't have, I can't keep my mouth shut, and then I hit "Send" and wonder, "What just now happened?"  Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT copping out and BLAMING it on my "sinful flesh" like, "The devil made me do it." "Or, I can't help it, I still live in this fleshly, sinful body." but I guess I'm just working through what the Lord is trying to teach me through this.
  
Does anyone else struggle with this?  Please comment on my Facebook page after you view this, and after you read this (if you've hung in there with me this far).  I'll continue more tomorrow...too much for today already.  See, I told you I talk too much.  :)


In the meantime, listen to the song "Wilderness" by the OC Supertones.  When Justin and I went on our honeymoon, we must have played and replayed this song, over and over and over again one hundred thousand times all the way there and back.  This song is such a wonderful memory for us.  Just click on the blue letters below to hear it:


"Wilderness" by OC Supertones

Let me know if you want me to message you the lyrics.  Otherwise, just listen to it over and over again until you get the chorus down like a cool ska rap like we did!