Truths from good music.....

If you've followed my other blogs, you'll know how much I look for inspiration and motivation in music, and often times I'll quote a good song because I feel like it spoke to me, or it speaks for me, in a way that I'm just not eloquent enough to do. I love the way a good song can sum up my life or how I feel about my life, or a truth about life, in one beautifully compact verse.

And those of you know have read my other blogs, and most specifically my grief blog, will know that I love me some Joe Purdy! He's got a lot of songs I feel he may have written specifically for me, or maybe about me? (haha). Anyway, Joe Purdy must be a pretty cool guy I think, and a pretty wise guy too (and I mean that in a good way).

I've been thinking a lot lately about the hardships in life that weigh us down and really dampen our ability to enjoy the good things in life. Its true, sometimes, when your life is a mix of good and bad, happy and sad, hard and easy, sometimes all we really see are those negative qualities. Our hardships really become albatrosses around our necks, they burden us and distract us from the gifts in our lives.

So, as I've been thinking about this, I've been doing what I do, and thinking about music to help and inspire, because sometimes a good song, or even just a piece of a good song, can uplift me, or re-frame a situation enough to make it more bearable, and maybe through this blog, I can offer little pieces of lyrics here and there that may uplift anyone lovely enough to be reading my blog.

Lets revisit Joe then. This little piece of lyric has struck me before, and it struck me again when I was thinking about struggle and hardship. Its short and simple, not much to dissect, here it is...

"I love the rain the most, when it stops"

Lets all all deep and philosophical and take that apart a little. Let's substitute "my struggles" for rain. And "they" for it.

"I love my struggles the most, when they stop"

Say what? I LOVE my struggles? Sure thing. I love my struggles them most when they stop. I can't love them while I'm in them, because right then I'm too busy struggling and bemoaning my hardships, I'm too busy coping. But when they stop. When the storm clears and we can see easily (hey, that brings another song to mind! "I can see clearly now.....", never mind), we can see what our struggles allowed us to do, we can see the changes that our struggles facilitated.

After we've struggled and endured and come out on the other end, still standing, we can then begin to be grateful for the process of struggle. Like a test from God, our struggles test our faith, and our fortitude. And when its all said and done, LOVE your struggles for who they made you and what they allowed you to do. They didn't defeat you but rather they added to your character and strengthened you.

Maybe Joe didn't mean it that way, maybe he did, that's the beauty of art and music, they're so interpretive. One song can take on a million different translations depending on who's listening and what they need and want to hear at that moment. But this translation is mine, and maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't.

But if its raining in your life right now, take heart, it will stop, and when it does, you'll be able to see that it did something beautiful in your life, that it wasn't just rain for the sake of rain, but like it nature, where flowers grow because of the rain, you experienced some beautiful personal growth as a result of your struggles, your downpours. There are seasons in life, and there are rainy seasons, when things look grey and bleak and things just don't seem to go your way. Maybe you feel lost and isolated during these storms, but they have one thing in common, they always stop. Whether you're experiencing a sprinkle, a shower, a downpour or a flat out hurricane, it'll stop, and you'll still be standing, and all the better for it. And chances are, if you look to your left and your right, you're not alone out there in the rain, your friends and family are out there too, getting rained on in some way or another in their own lives. You're in good company.

Grab God as your umbrella, take heart, and since its raining anyway, why not jump in a puddle and have a laugh at it all!

Katie