Song 2:8 Listen! My beloved!
Look! Here he comes,
leaping across the mountains,
bounding over the hills.

Song 2:9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.
Look! There he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattice.
Song 2:10 My beloved spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, come with me.
Song 2:11 See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Song 2:12 Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.
Song 2:13 The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me.”

“It’s Not My Time” is a song about being
resilient. It’s a song about going against the
grain and going against the world when the
world’s trying to push you down, or take you
out. It’s about never giving up and not letting
it get you down and just going through it.

1) This guy in the video never gives up. I could easily see a perseverance sermon about hanging in there no matter what, an “encouraging” sermon (encouragement/exhortation is one of my gifts). There are a number of Bible materials about never giving up.
2) I could easily talk about evil and the sources of evil in this world, often times those sources are people and negative choices they make.
3) My original thought when I was listening and watching this song was about the struggles we have and the load that each of us carries, about the hope of sun to light the way.

I haven’t had a chance to digest Erika’s thoughts but the struggling to carry our burdens… that is something we all can identify with.

I haven’t slept much in days so maybe I am seeing things in my delusion, but that is what I see in this song…tons of potential here, good choice.

This week, I learned that a fellow volunteer at my DV shelter committed suicide. While I did not know her personally, just as I was trying to understand how this could happen to someone who worked so selflessly,I was struck with events closer to home; alcohol claimed two important lives – - a college classmate and good friend died and my younger brother went to jail, again, and probably for the last time. In their many, many years of real torture, real struggling, I did what I thought I could to understand and be helpful. But now I realize how short I fell because all too often I wondered, Why cant they just grow up? Why cant they quit? Why do they seem stuck in time, so immature, so unwilling to stop the party and find their purpose? Why do they perpetuate being “too young” at the real expense of a having a life that fulfills “their dreams.” I wonder if the friends and parents of the DV volunteer had similar moments: did they wonder at times, “why cant she just get past the depression and get on with life?”

As I reflect on many years and conversations, I know that both my friend and my brother struggled with faith, were not close to God, did not feel that through good times and bad, Christ’s love was an ever present compass, trying to help them navigate. Both were given the remarkable gift of complex, truly brilliant intellects, but it seemed God’s strength, His mercy and grace, the simple gift of his deep love eluded them.

So now I wonder why? And I need to ask whether its because I was not a strong or effective enough advocate of that love; maybe its because instead of wondering why they werent doing their part to grow up, I should have been more focused on being patient, and kind, being more loving, being a better messenger for God. I am not suggesting that I could have changed their course, that if I had been a little more responsible I could have rescued either my friend or my brother from their paths of self destruction. But I know the measure of success for God was in my trying, not the end result; and that I should have tried harder.

And as I read the blog, and write this, I realize that even in a difficult week, God has just given me another gift: he knows I aint perfect, but He is expecting me to keep trying. And, what if starting now, I really learn that lesson, really embed it in my thoughts, prayer and actions? Who would I see differently? How would I act differently?

I read something recently about the Old Testament that it really is a record of how hard God tries to get our attention: he moved mountains, there were earthquakes, water from rocks, all kinds of miracles that were amazing and wondrous. And yet we still forgot to love Him and love one another. So what did God do? He somehow figured out that these huge cosmic fireworks werent getting the job done so He sent someone to earth who was just like us. (Arent we egotistical in that it takes one to know One?) And, then he not only looked like us, but God allowed Jesus to suffer just like us, just to teach us to love in spite of the challenges, to have faith through the difficulties, to keep trying and to know that through it all, He loves us with purpose.

So maybe that person who seems immature, who isnt fulfilling other people’s expectations, who seems to most people to be a screw-up, maybe, just maybe, we should think about that person differently? Maybe he was sent to be part of my life so I could learn to receive Gods message and be a better person. Maybe in falling short of his dream, my brother was actually a better teacher of Gods message than I ever could hope to be: that he was put right in front of me to challenge me to love with more kindness and patience, to be forgiving one more time, even when I really dont understand.

Crystal and James are right to challenge the premise that we all think that the one thing we dont have will make life better; that we want to be rock stars without the hours of practice, often forgetting how hollow that life may be. I think I am looking at the same picture but from a slightly different vantage point: that even with crash and burn victims, even in people who seem to be failing, who arent living up to their own, their family or community expectations, maybe they are the real messengers. That, in the end, we are all less than perfect but are given small and big opportunities every day to be kind, not judge, to accept that God loves and keeps trying to teach us, and so sends us the most unusual messengers.

Maybe, the peace of Gods understanding is having the faith to search, keep trying, to work on loving and living the message, rather than finding fault with the messenger. If we walk in faith, even an inmate can teach us something.

I want to be like that.