How Sweet the Sound

If any of you has heard me sing, you would understand when I say that singing is something that I should not do - in public anyway. It is not for a lack of training - (Saturday morning voice lessons) or for a lack of gentle prodding on my mothers part to get me into the choir (no I don't think she actually threatened any choir directors). I am good at many things, but singing is just not one of them.

So why is singing such an important thing to me? Why is it that I feel music in every cell of my body? That my heart just overflows with song? That I ache with desire to sing? This is one of the mysteries of my life. Perhaps I was a great singer in a past life and misused the talent, I just don't know. Universal irony.

So what has this to do with anything? I guess I bring it up because I wonder if everyone has this ache for something. What do we long for that we are not expressing? I am not lumping this in to the general category of things that we would like to have in our life (new iPad, trip to Florence, a date with George Clooney) but a longing for something that shivers so close to pain you can barely stand it.

How can I sing my song when I can't sing? How can I express the music that flows through my soul and fills me to the brim with joy, sorrow, pain and exquisite pleasure?

Wynona says it this way: Sing your songs of dark and light - Make your mark with all your might. Sing your songs of hope and fear, sing the song that sent you here. Sing your heart out.

I have a song to sing. I am looking for a way to express this music without distressing those around me. What about you? What do you long for in your deepest longing?

Amazing Grace

Today I stand in the Unknown.

I can choose to see life as a positive journey, filled with the potential for grace to happen.

I choose grace.

What do you choose today? How do you want to remember this day when you are just about to fall asleep tonight?

For many years I didn’t believe that I had the power to choose my life. I believed that if you made a poor choice you would have to live with that choice whether you liked it or not. There were no do-overs. Terrified of making a poor choice, I simply didn’t choose anything at all – unless forced to act. However, life required action and so I made choices that were based in fear and the results often reinforced my theory that choosing to act was a scary thing.

When I became a parent, I gave my children many opportunities to make choices. I remember watching their faces as they thought about their choice….I choose, (thinking with eyes alight with possibility), I choose….(smiles lingering as they delighted in the very act of choosing), I choose….. Often it was just a choice between chicken nuggets or a cheeseburger in their Happy Meals, but they did get to choose and they loved it. Somewhere in that process I started to see choice in a far more playful way.

By seeing choice as playful and by not getting caught up in the fear of the unknown, I have allowed grace to come into my life. Yes, do-overs are possible.