Beginning

"Sometimes the very thing you're looking for is the one thing you can't see..." This line in this song haunted me during my traumatic short prison experience in China. During the anguish of waiting for release, this song somehow rang inside my head even though I didn't own it nor remember paying any attention to it. It was the message that something good awaits me that kept me positive. 

During my often desperate search for that "something" to release me from the self-imprisonment, that first line haunted me. The something will be new and unseen but it's origins lie in how I saw my past. There was guilt, nonacceptance, obstacles that had to do with me. Despite my general optimism, these historic dark places still stood in my line of sight.

One by one, through silence, training, crying and caring responses, I saw how even the nightmares were part of a blessing. Like rain in the songs of my previous blog post, the horror of the past morphed into a beautiful tapestry. It involved going back to my beginnings but with new insights, that is making a new me.

"Get right back where we started from". I grew up in the 70's yet disliked much of the clothes, music and popular culture back then. But there were gems. Like this song, the imperfect beginning can take on new colors, meaning and life.

Soaked

"I guess I must appear so brave and so strong 
but even the strong need someone to cry their songs to
someone who feels the disappointment and fading visions of grandeur 
who knows that the strong are often children and unsure 
Who have to endure 

[chorus] Jesus although I may stand these storms like I’m made out of stone 
You hear the songs that I cry when I’m weary and all alone 
You see the years that have come too fast and the pain that goes so slow 
yet like rain to a garden when the ground becomes hardened 
I know You’re using it all to help me grow 

I have to be a beacon, strong and shining Your light 
I know that beacons can’t never be weary or frightened of the night 
so I seek You even through these songs and I wait for You to hear me 
and I know that You are going to answer despite my trembling and my fear 
I just need need to feel You near me ..." 

For My Growing" by Mylon LeFevre & Broken Heart.

This old song made me cry when I first heard it because the lyrics seemed to describe me, even when everything was going well. People naturally use me as a sounding board or even advice ever since adolescence. I enjoyed knowing them but wonder who would listen to me. 

After feeling oppressed by misfortune, I cried out when I felt so empty and hopeless, after exhausting all the ways I knew to climb out of my hole. When I no one seemed willing to help, the feeling that I was thirsty for truth, then being soaked by rain so that my drought infested spirit could be revived and grow like a small seed. A mustard seed that grows into a tree. Like the first weak rays of sunrise that light up the whole sky.

"Let the rain come down and wash away my tears

Let it fill my soul and drown my fears

Let it shatter the walls for a new sun

A new day has...begun."

A New Day by Georgia Mass Choir

A much more recent song but saying the same thing.