I think I have found the theme song of my life, a song that serves as a valid introduction and table of contents to other songs that join to form my life soundtrack.  It is rare in life to find someone who truly understands you in a way that they can sing to you songs like this and have it reverberate on the strings of your heart, because you know it is sincere and true.  It is similarly exceptional to know the person to whom you can sing such a song and know that they understand and receive it as you intend in your heart.  Most often, these symphonies of the soul are sung in private either to oneself or to the conceptual hearer, and fade into silent air.  Perhaps one day they will be heard and echoed.

Don't give up / It's just the weight of the world / When your heart's heavy / I will lift it for you

For all of my life, my heart has yearned for things perpetually out of reach.  When I should have been infected with cooties in first grade, I was already dreaming of marriage.  When I should have been playing the games of an 11 year old, I was instead conceiving of ways to host websites on the infantile Internet and program applications beyond my abilities.  When I should have been looking forward to my driver's license, I was mere weeks away from almost leaving for Pensacola Christian College to pursue a Missions degree and sacrifice computing for the sake of changing the world in foreign places.  When I should have been enjoying my first year of soloing in the driver's seat, I was considering accepting a position at Dell Computer Corporation in the Enterprise Server Group and a possible college change to UT.  When I should have been entering my freshman year of college, I was instead a junior in California, reacting to 9/11, and contemplating a long-desired departure to the Air Force.  When I should have been a junior in college, I was starting a masters degree and again considering a career as an Air Force officer.  Six months later, I was in Mississippi applying for Secret clearance, a few steps closer to past aspirations of CIA, NSA, or another three-letter government entity.  In the last six years, I have applied to the NSA, CIA, and FBI at least three times and even foolishly conceived of being useful in the intelligence community during my never-fulfilled IBEX semester.  I want to change the world and I feel burdened for every moment wasted, even though most are due to my failing persistence.

Don't give up / Because you want to be heard / If silence keeps you / I will break it for you

Why do we post such personal diaries to public places like the Internet?  Because we obviously are desperate to be heard.  We may never be willing to speak the words to friends or family, but we will broadcast them to the world in hopes that someone near or far will respond sincerely of their own volition.  The heart shouts from the mountain top rather than confiding in the drawing room because the risk of personal rejection or apathy is infinitely greater than anonymous silence.  The weight of the world is not oft gained against one's will.  Rather it is the award of a striving being who wishes to bear it, but cannot long continue alone.

Don't give up / It's just the hurt that you hide / When you're lost inside / I'll be there to find you

The hurt that one hides is not only externally inflicted but also self inflicted, often over the damage rendered in others' lives across the years.  One of the greatest childhood lies is the adage, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!"  Oh, the pain I have rendered with the words I have spoken!  How it hurts to recall since it has most frequently been to close friends and loved ones!  I am too commonly lost in my own selfishness or the nethers of confusion between genuinely justifiable life-weariness and self-focused faithlessness.

Don't give up / Because you want to burn bright / If darkness blinds you / I will shine to guide you

"For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate...For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want" (Romans 7:15,19 NASB). With all my heart I want to be holy and walk in the footsteps of the warriors of the Faith, to be a modern-day Hudson Taylor, John Calvin, Stephen, Paul, Peter, Martin Luther, or Daniel.  I want to be counted among the ranks of those in Acts of whom it was said that the whole world was being upset by their message and testimony.  I want to be the spiritual version of the metal, magnesium, which when held in the fire, burns too brilliantly to be directly looked upon.  Too often, though, I am blinded and lose sight of the eternal weight of glory. Eternity and the King should be as the sun in my heart and mind that even with my eyes fast shut, the light still pierces the darkness.  How am I ignoring such a vision?

Everybody wants to be understood / Well I can hear you / Everybody wants to be loved / Don't give up

I know that I am just as much the one with whom it is too great a risk for another to open their heart.  I see that.  "Everybody wants to be understood." I am not alone in that.  The Lord alone can perfectly fulfill that longing, yet He is no longer physically here and we still are, and there must be a reason.  The Spirit most certainly indwells the children of God; I am in no way belittling His constant presence.  Even so, we have five senses that are only addressed by personal interaction.  We want to speak and be heard.  We want to cry, feel the warmth of the tear, and have another dry it for us.  We want to listen and hear more than silence.  We want to dream and know that it is not just a solitary imagining that disappears with the dawning day.  When hope is hanging by a thread, we want, yea we need, to have someone say, "Don't give up."

 

 

 

(c) 2007 Veritas Road