Maybe it's just me, but my favorite music tends to come in waves in my life. Favorite songs don't usually emerge one-at-a-time, but in small groups. For a short while, those few songs seem to say everything I can't quite find words for. Since I listen almost exclusively to Christian music, the songs I gravitate toward tend to be applicable to things I'm praying about. So as I'm listening (or doing car karaoke) to them, my heart is also praying the words.
And then, inevitably, they just kind of fade into the background. Their lyrics aren't floating around in my mind 24/7. I don't wake up humming the choruses. I don't put music on for a few days and just kind of forget what used to be such a regular rhythm. And soon, songs I once listened to daily become estranged melodies that make me say, "Oh yeah! I forgot about this one."
But occasionally, before a song gets through its full lifetime on my playlists, I will start skipping it.
It's subtle at first -- usually choosing to skip a slower song while I'm exercising or skip the up-beat one while I'm studying... but sometimes, even when I'm just playing music in the background, something will cause me to get up and hit "Skip" for no reason.
When the pandemic hit, I had a solid handful of favorites. My playlist was literally 9 songs, partially because I was too cheap to buy more music for the type of smart phone I had at the time. One of those songs was "Waymaker." The chorus says,
Waymaker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness, my God-- that is who You are.
Even when I can't see it, You're working. Even when I can't feel it, You're working. My God -- that is who You are.
Early in the pandemic, that set of lyrics was one of my favorites to repeat. It felt like a battle cry. It was one of the only things I felt like I could say to combat all the uncertainty and negativity of a global health crisis and the ensuing chaos of the next year. I had it on repeat and for a while, it was my running cadence on the treadmill. (#nerdalert)
But then the months wore on. The virus didn't lift. The restrictions got tighter. The election was volatile. Tensions ran higher. A couple tough blows were dealt. Time to process and slow down was cut way short by the demands of my new role at work and the fatigue that came with it. I was hardly listening to music at all. I found a small respite in the Hamilton soundtrack, mostly because it matched some of my angst. But I struggled to sing worship songs with any sort of heart.
A few times this summer, I've had that old playlist going and I kept skipping "Waymaker." I didn't think anything of it initially, but eventually I thought to myself -- "What's your deal? Why are you skipping that one? You used to love that one." I couldn't answer my own question. My best answer was that it just didn't hit right. It made me recoil a little. I didn't want to hear that melody right now. But why?
And then last week at church, we read Psalm 71 and sang it and the dots connected. The psalmist talks about God having rescued him from a very hard time. It's both praise for the rescue and acknowledgment of the pain. But he chooses to focus on praise. As the song started, something in me was resisting, but I also started crying. I thought, "I don't want to sing this one." I asked myself why and FINALLY had an answer: because I had certain forms of "rescue" that God didn't come through on. I had a couple dreams dashed this year. A couple earnest, heart-felt prayers that God said "no" to and my heart was still grieving. I felt like God had not kept His promise, that He had not made a way, that He did not perform miracles. I was a little mad, but mostly just sad. Regardless, I did not want to declare praise.
So why the tears? Welcome to life in my head. I am an odd combination of stubborn and emotional. Head-strong yet heart-felt. My head was ready to rattle off all the logical reasons I thought God was not worthy of my praise right this moment. My heart knew I was in the wrong. First, because He's always worthy. Period. But second, I knew if I really stopped and thought about it, God is still FOR me. He is not against me and I was really foolish to try and argue against Him. Even in my prideful ideas of how He should like... run the universe and stuff... He still gives me the ability to make meaningful choices. And the choice I was making in that moment was to hold more tightly to my pain and injury than to cling to the goodness of my God and trust that He actually has a miraculous ability to use suffering for my good and His glory.
I really didn't have to think very long or hard about ways that God had protected and provided for me in the last year. And I was reminded continually that sometimes God's best "yes" is actually a "no." So I sang, and I cried, and I bossed my feelings around a little. I might not feel like doing something, but that doesn't make it a less-right thing to do. Some part of me needed to do it anyway (just like that long lost workout routine). I knew it would be better to praise Him in the midst of my pain than to let my feelings have the final say about what's true and what's not. Feelings contain helpful information, but they never have the full perspective. Therefore, they are an unreliable source for finding truth, but a valid place to start a conversation.
Because I took the time to dig into the reason behind my skipped song, I have a clearer idea of where I need to keep growing and healing. That reflection time and God's Word showed me the false idea of "good" I was putting a lot of stock in. I could've kept pressing Skip... but I'm glad I didn't. It doesn't take away any of the pain, but it gives me clarity on how to work through it. When you're physically injured, it's nice to have a physical therapy plan, right? Same here.
How about you? What are you hitting Skip on? Is it music? Is it that pesky workout routine? Is it the text message you've been meaning to send but afraid to step into the conversation it will bring? I don't know -- but I'm willing to bet after a year like last year, we all have something we could work on.
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