You Sing Anyways

Last night I babysat at a large home on the Tennessee side of Lookout Mountain, chock full of unexpected perks such as, a whole drawer dedicated to candy, organic but tasty pizza bites, enough artwork to resemble a museum, computers, TV's, and gadgets all around in every nook. It was all very beautiful, but as I hunkered down into a soft, plush, and unbelievably crispy white chair, and flipped on the TV exploring all 900+ channels, I stumbled upon the greatest perk of all. A trip down memory lane.

I came across a movie called Evening. It was released in theater's last year in early August I believe. As I watched this movie again, crying pitifully, soaking in every line of this heartfelt, overly emotional movie exploring one women's journey through life, her up's and down's, her mistakes, her accomplishments, her dreams, I remembered precisely where I had been just a year ago when I had first seen this film. I was sitting in the Bijou Theater. It was sadly similar to how I was sitting now, at this wealthy home in a crisp white chair. My knees to my chest, my cheeks wet with tears and my mind racing in over analytical exploration of my life, my mistakes, my up's, my down's and what it all meant.

A year ago when I watched this movie, I was pregnant and one person knew. Only one. Even that night, that first night when I first watched this touching, "Notebook" reminiscent movie, and as I sat next to my unaware best friend in a dark theater, balling through a movie that was all too familiar in theme, I was terribly frightened. I did not wish to be an old lady one day, laying on my death bed deciphering what was a mistake, whether or not my whole life and identity would be defined by those mistakes.

A year later, as I sat in a home cold and sterile to me, I heard a line that a year ago I had never heard. A line that a year ago my ears were not tuned to hear. "There's no such thing as a mistake. You get nervous, but you sing anyways." It was a line of redemption I had missed a year ago. Maybe a cheesy, mushy, not so well written, unrealistic, theologically shaky or uncompleted thought of redemption, but none-the-less it was there this time, glaring at me and challenging me to think. So I did.

What I came up with isn't necessarily profound or much of anything, but I know it is the truth. In a sense, this cheesy line is right on. We make mistakes- yes, but it's not those mistakes that define us, it's what we choose, with the help of God, to make of them. About a year ago as I sat watching this movie, I didn't understand that my biggest "mistake" would be the biggest blessing of my life. I also didn't know or understand then that I would constantly be faltering. Constantly be making "mistakes" and that because of the grace of God that somehow through it all, even when I feel I'm straining to survive, when I'm scared shitless, or nervous as hell, that he calls us to sing anyways. He calls us to look past our fears of judgment and our inhibitions and our mistakes and to focus our vision. That as we climb the stairs to the stage of life, as we hear the clapping of the audience and sometimes the booing, that we will peer through the glaring lights, past the audience, into the eyes of our savior and guiding composer of life, with faith in the promise that although are voice may shake, and our hands tremble and our voice waver, falter; that if we are faithful he will make our voice strong. Strong to praise him. Strong to glorify him. Strong enough to sing, "I am weak but he is strong." A simple song is sufficient enough, the key is that we are singing. That through our strife, our fears, our worries, our tears, our mistakes, our seemingly constant sorrow, our anger, our lingering contemplation over the decisions we have made, that through it all we understand and accept that it is his will that we sing, not softly, but loudly and boldly as we proclaim what he has done in our lives, through our mistakes.

So, yes I am a sinner. Yes, I have made many mistakes. Yes, there are many more yet to come. Yes, the Lord's will is often trying, but what I now know is that years from now, when I am an old shriveled lady that I will not look back on my life down trodden and saddened by the "defining, monumental mistakes of my life", because they aren't what define me. What define's me is the man standing in the back of the auditorium, calling me by name, asking me to sing his praises. And so- I will sing anyways.