The Song Lyrics

After several hard weeks of being sick, endless cloudy days and generally feeling like a failure in every sphere of my life I found myself in a hot bubble bath with a glass of wine. I was crying and praying. (My mom's trifecta for problem solving: prayer, hot bath and wine.) And there were lyrics of a song that just stuck in my mind that I felt God was whispering to me. It wasn't a popular praise and worship song or a hymn. It was "Your Mess is Mine" by Vance Joy.

Hold on my darling.
This mess was yours.
Now your mess is mine. 
Your mess is mine. 

And what I felt Him speak to my hurting heart was that He loved me and all my mess. And to bring it to Him.
The inability to breathe and the low grade fever.
The frustration over my beautiful boy turned smart alec.
The sadness I can't shake off.
The heartbreak and pain brought on by trying to love others in hard places.

He wants all of that. And while it won't all go away isn't it great to know He wants all of it?

Now I am currently trying to handle my stress with exercise and better rest and some sunshine. And one of my totally cool power ballads I like to sweat to is "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis.

My heart's crippled by the vein I keep on closing
You cut me open and I 
Keep bleeding. Keep keep bleeding love. 

A long time ago I asked God to let me see with His eyes the way He sees people. I prayed to love like Him. I didn't really understand what that would look like. And how my heart for those on the edges would grow. But what I didn't understand was how much pain that love would allow in. So that every time I say yes to loving others, I also say yes to the hurt of empathizing, shouldering burdens, emotional attachment to kids who leave or who don't chose the best road, to the weight of problems I can't fix. Sometimes I want to badly to go back to the days before I asked for eyes to see and a heart to love, when I lived in my little garden home with a fenced in yard and where my job was just a means to buying my babies food, toys and the occasional smocked outfit. But when the Lord granted that naive request for a new heart He gave me an assignment. He gave me a neighborhood of the most amazing people and a job where the teaching is secondary to loving teenagers who sometimes find it really hard to love themselves. He asks me to stand for them and be a messenger of hope to those who find hopelessness hard to shake off and He asks me to love them well. That means putting one foot in front of the other down on the pavement and keep bleeding love. It also means bringing Him my mess. All the good days, terribly gone wrong days, the confused days, the funny days. All the messy wonderful days.