A gentle rhythm.  While art decorates space, music decorates time.  There is music that decorates time to evoke emotion or memories.  It can even cause chemical responses in our brains, change our heart rate, and fuel adrenaline.  Similarly, the rhythm of our lives can do the same. Our lives ebb and flow and change with seasons,  maturity and life stages.

Some seasons are full of steady survival, some seasons are full of hustle and success.  Other seasons are filled with rest.  Rest?!  Really?!  Or at least that was goes through my mind when I read that.

You see, I discovered recently that my whole life I have been in survival mode.  Having to maintain self control and believing the lie that I can control everything around me.  Feeling as though I cannot trust anyone to do their part, I cannot move forward, and absolutely cannot without any grace for myself let anything drop.  It was all my responsibility and I wouldn’t dare walk away from it.  Until now.

When the rhythm changes, our bodies react.  Living my whole life in survival mode it was like playing a song with a powerful, loud, unrelenting melody.  A chorus of “don’t let it all fall to pieces” rang loudly and manipulative in my heart.  I was completely spent and I had no idea.  I have never known this type of exhaustion: emotional, physical, spiritual, mental… all at the same time.  How did this happen? The recipe is quite simple, really.  Two parts realization of childhood wounds, one part miscarriage of twins, one part loss of a dream job, and one part loss of community because of a move.  When I say it out loud it seems to bring a holy hush into my spirit.  That season was a long funeral song.  But there was a sacredness about it.  It was painful, it was vulnerable, but it was lovely.  I can hear the soloist singing a pure song expressing the beauty of lament.

If you had to describe your current season of life in song, what would it be?  What feelings does that evoke for you?