"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one." - C.S. Lewis
God answered a big prayer of mine this week. I've been feeling so alone in all this junk that I've been going through. Nobody knows, nobody would understand. So hard to find people who've either been through a very similar experience or who have a unique ability to really listen and care. Having a blog and believing there are people out there who read and care is one thing, but I've really been praying for a real friend, someone I can talk face to face with about these deepest hurts. And God is so good! This friendship is a new thing, she and I have lots of catching up to do, but it's an in-person and online kind of thing, and God is using it to bless my heart in big ways.
One interesting thing is, she also blogs about her experience. Vaguely, of course, like me, but OMG we have such common ground on some big things! One of these is music. I thought I was the only one who loved the Lord and loved Christian music but still had this secret addiction to lots of secular music, too. So many songs feed this very emotional part of me that can easily get disconnected in the attempt to keep up appearances of being a good Christian and having it all together. Actually music has been huge to me all my life, and became a battleground in my mind when I first came to know the Lord and felt I needed to purge my thought-life of all the sinful, evil messages I was drinking in through my secular music. So in my season of spiritual revival and major turnaround in college, I feverishly discarded all my old secular music that sounded even remotely devil-inspired and began listening to only Christian rock, which I was very thrilled to have just discovered. But as the months went on and my spiritual fervor dwindled, bits of this "Satanic" music starting creeping back into my listening repertoire, adding much guilt to an already confused born-again heart that still didn't realize I had deeper issues that these other "perfect" Christians just wouldn't understand. So I decided it was all-or-nothing, and turned my back on my newly converted lifestyle, and returned to the "vomit" of my old ways of partying and rocking out to raucous rock music and indulgent lyrics. Of course that season was more than just about music, but music was definitely the "pied piper" that led my goody-two shoes facade out of the Christian community I'd joined on campus and back into the drinking and carousing lifestyle of sororities (and fraternities!) and nightclubs.
Now back onto the topic of music. There is just something very real about some lyrics, that resonates with a soul that's been hurt. Take Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb. yes!!!! My new friend totally "gets" what I love about this song!
Hello,
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home.....
There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.......
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb.....
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb. (Pink Floyd)
No, folks, these lyrics were not taken from that thick blue hymnal in the pew pocket in front of you!
No offense to Christian music, I love it, I need it, I was born to worship, but sometimes even the coolest Christian rock is all about believing in God's love (which is true! it's great!!!) but never leaves any room for the natural doubts and struggles I have as a very flesh-dwelling, tarnished and sinful individual. It's a balancing act that follows the path of Christian maturity. There's never a place of having arrived at that place, just as we must walk through the paths of everyday temptations, live among unbelievers and still love them as Jesus did. For some of us, it's a trickier issue to live IN the world (and its music!!) but to not be OF the world.
ok, enough preaching. Am the only one who feels this way? Raise your hand if you love the Lord but have still banged your head (I know, I'm so stuck in the 80's) to some good Pink Floyd or other shockingly wicked rock music!!!!!! (audible gasps from the pew-folk....)
That wasn't exactly where I meant to go with this blog post tonight...er, this morning, but so be it. I am just so thankful that I have a real friend who understands all this _______ I'm going through... (sorry, but the word "crap" just isn't strong enough for these emotions I'm having...go ahead, judge me!!) :)
I hope you have a wonderful day. And if not, come with me, to a place where you can be...
Comfortably Numb.
(Thank you, Friend, for I know you're reading this!!!!) :-)
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