When God Likes Pain

Two blogs in one day?! I'll bet you're thinking, "She never blogs anymore, and now there are TWO blog entries in one day?!" Right? Well, as the new saying goes, "Blog posts are like Christmas cookies. You don't get to have them all that often, but when you do make 'em, you can' t eat just one..." Is that the new saying? No? Okay, well grab some Christmas cookies to munch on, because this is a long 'n'.

While I was resting, I realized how boring recovery can be... especially when you haven't had time to play the piano in a relatively long time (since I was at my in-laws' house last week). I did know that Matt would be annoyed if I wasn't resting while home, so with that in mind, I hobbled restfully over to the piano, and slowly sat down. Then I began to play a quiet tune that would only inspire restfulness. But if you know me and my piano playing, it can't stay restful for the entire song. Soon I was painfully singing every song I ever wrote--- I say "painfully" in reference to the jab in my right side where my gallbladder was removed a couple days ago... not because the neighbors heard howling that I roughly described as singing.

A funny thing happened while pain was throbbing in my right side, just under my rib cage. Words to complete a recent song hit me suddenly! I grabbed the closest thing to me that I could legally write on, and I began sketching out how the song would go. I put it back into the flood of music that surrounds the lyrics at that time (it's a pretty busy piano part, and I'm imagining some crazy orchestration), and it worked. There were a couple times it sounded like I was singing while jumping over toys left out on the floor that I didn't see, but I think after some smoothing out and cleaning up it'll be done!

Then a strange recollection began to form as I was singing. I began imagining where I was when I wrote each song that have become my "canon" of Molly songs. Each song I wrote was birthed from a very painful part of my life. In fact, today I began playing one song that still hurts a little to play and sing out loud, one that I wrote the majority of the lamenting after our first, horrible miscarriage and finished after our second miscarriage a year after. The experience of those miscarriages taught both Matt and me several things about our Lord, and we wouldn't trade that understanding for anything, but I don't know if the pain fully goes away. I mean, there I was at the piano, singing a song I'd written nearly two years ago, bawling my eyes out.

And I knew God was right there. Listening.

Because I was being honest and open about how I felt.

But you know something cool that He's taught me? Everything that I encounter--- good, bad, beautiful, ugly--- all of it is given to me as an opportunity to use it to glorify God. So, as the Psalms of Lament all end with praises to the Father, so do my lamenting songs. But I didn't realize that they almost ALL do this! It really cracks me up. Whenever my mood is quite "Woe-is-me-ish," then I have a tendency now to turn it into praising God for who He is, and sometimes for what He's teaching me. But why is it that in life we always look FIRST at ourselves, when we are not even as big as a pea in His hand? Why do we automatically first look at ourselves?! It makes me crazy!

I know God heard me singing the honesty of my heart today, and I actually believe He cared. But I wonder how sick He gets of me dwelling on my misfortunes when I don't see any longer how great He is that I am awestruck--- or dumbfounded. Can you believe that I actually have a REAL phobia of losing a nearly healthy perspective of God (which really means a growing understanding of His might and sovereignty) that I wrote a song about it?

Okay... that's a tangent. (Where's Sammy Carani to say, "Mrs. Ackerman, is that a tangent?") What I REALLY wanted to say was how each song I wrote ended up being a song of praise of who God is. I think it's amazing that He uses pain, even small jabs, to create something beautiful, like a song. I think those moments are when God likes pain.