Keeping my hopes unbroken

There are days when all I want to listen to is Switchfoot.

Their music knows how to capture that indescribable feeling that every so often overwhelms my being, that moment of knowing, that I am not of this world.

But as I write this, I’m listening to Damita Haddon’s it belongs to you. A beautiful song of surrender and recognition, I don’t own anything. The best part however is where she lays out all the things that are not of me, that I should let go of, stress, depression, hurt et al

This has not really been the best June, not because of what was happening on the outside, but everything that went on inside. My soul has been extremely restless and unmotivated. I tried to find solace and joy in various things but nothing lasted and I knew why. They don’t have the ability to offer solitude to my spirit.

I love watching children. Not only are they adorable in just being really tiny humans, they are also very honest humans. It is not uncommon to see a child running back to a parent in tears even when it’s the parent who has administered punishment and caused those tears. I reckon it is because the parent is the one protection and comfort they are persuaded of. However, I also believe they want reassurance that the relationship is still solid, that they are still loved despite themselves.

I have sort of been in that state in the way that I have been dealing with God. Being miserable and taking my misery to God with my mouth all the way up in my nose accusing Him of refusing to make everything okay. I have been the kind of sad that makes it extra hard to get out of bed in the morning. I have been the level of stressed and frustrated that gave me constant headaches and made it hard to fall asleep. I have been the sort of fragile where tears were as accessible as breath.

I don’t know when it got this bad. I just know it kept on and I became one of those things I don’t like, a complainer. I would listen to myself speak and cringe and yet not be able to help sounding like that in the next sentence.

Last night, a wonderful wonderful God bless his soul friend of mine told me to listen to Switchfoot’s “Awakening”. We were texting and I was casually mentioning what the month of June had done to me or left me feeling like. In all fairness, I think it started way earlier; it’s just that June is when it all became too much. Anyway, my awesome friend Ronnie insisted that I suspend all further communication with him until I had listened to the song. I didn’t have the song, so I cheated and Googled the lyrics.

However, today while at work, I went to Youtube and listened to Awakening. I know the song. I love the song. However, I had never really paid attention to the lyrics that so perfectly described and understood my predicament.

“Last week found me living for nothing but deadlines,
With my dead beat sky but,
this town doesn't look the same tonight
These dreams started singing to me out of nowhere
And in all my life I
don't know that I ever felt so alive,
Alive"

Awakening-Switchfoot

I listened, I loved it and I looked for more songs by Switchfoot. This band never fails to speak for me. One of the songs that really really is right on the money is restless

“I am restless, I am restless
I am restless, looking for you
I am restless, I run like the ocean to find your shore
I'm looking for you”

I don’t think the issue had stared me more square in the face than it did whilst listening to that song. It’s not really my situations that I want changed. The giants in this earthly canaan slain, the love of my life loving me and loving me well and everything being fantastic. I want Him, God; the place that I am longing for is Him and he has been here the whole time while I pushed Him aside and asked Him why he wasn’t giving me the other stuff.

“I've got my eyes wide open
I've been keeping my hopes unbroken”

As I was listening to “Your love is a song” also by Switchfoot, those lines above got me. My hopes haven’t been unbroken. My hopes have been cracked, bashed, beaten and downright annihilated at some point, but I’m grateful to God that He picks them up, binds them up and says “look here, look at me, I am your hope and I am everlasting”