Gratitude

As you are all aware, music is a big part of my life. So it will come as no surprise to any of you that I found myself on YouTube the other day, watching concert bootlegs.

I was watching a musician. He's been one for a long time, all of his adult life and some besides. A few years into his career, his band had a hit song. They've sung this hit at almost every concert since.

I watched him play this song, the one he's played thousands of times, the one he's experienced so much and probably forgotten a lot about. But the look on his face was sheer joy - a sense of wonder, that after twelve years there were still people wanting to hear this tune he wrote, these words that he penned an oblivion ago. I could tell what was going on in his mind. This amazement, this reminiscing. He was looking back over the decades of tours and long nights in the studio and red-eye flights back home to his family - and finding that it had been worth it. The thought crossed my mind, "Wow, he has so much to be thankful for."

Of course, as soon as I thought it I realized how ridiculous it was. He has a lot to be thankful for? Do I not?

I am convinced that if we see nothing in our lives worth being thankful for, we are not looking.

Life itself is a gift, salvation is the most mind-blowing, incomparable, overlooked gift we could possibly have. With the hope we have as followers of Christ, life could be Hell and it would still be worth living. But God doesn't stop there. He endows us with talents and privileges and blessings - ones that we take disgustingly for granted. I'm not saying it to guilt-trip anyone. I'm saying it because it's true. 

I live in the most opulent country on the planet. I am in the upper 90% of living conditions in the world. I eat three meals a day, have a closet full of clothes, and have access to the world's latest medical and educational care. And yet I still complain when the time change rolls around and I have to get up an hour earlier. I'm not trying to drag myself through the mud. I'm saying it because it's true. 

Last week was a bad one for me. Usually I would have qualms about saying something like that, but I was so extraordinarily down that I can't imagine it wasn't obvious. What made it bad? Guilt, mostly. Fear. Looking to the past and the present and seeing only the negative aspects of my history and my future.

Then I wrote a song. I called it Brown Eyes. It's no hit, but it's mine. It's the story of who I used to be - or more accurately, my desire to be that person again. There is no happy ending to my story thus far. Rather, I believe the joy had been with me all the way, I just haven't been looking for it.

Because that song brought back a flood of memories. Things I haven't thought about in years. I was crying - and it wasn't because the song was particularly good.

You see, that's what music does. It transports you. I've had many ideas about what I want to do with my life. But each time I have seriously considered a vocation, I realized that I could be just as happy doing something else as doing that... that thing, whatever it was. What a world we live in, that we would rather do with our lives, and leave no time for being. I asked myself today, "Could I honestly be happy in a career that doesn't include music?" I'm still answering that question. There is a defiant hope within me that yells, "No, never!"

What does this have to do with gratitude? Everything, depending on how you look at it.

Dissatisfaction says, "Yeah, you've written a song. You've got fifty more from the past year. But you know what? They're not good enough."

But gratitude is so very different. It is contentment, it is joy, it is progress. Gratitude says, "Look how far you've come!" and it finds exhilaration in saying, "Look how far you have yet to go!" Gratitude doesn't ignore the past and it doesn't fear the future. It is the strangest form of nonsensical honesty in this dead and dying world. Honesty. Have we really learned the meaning of the word? Why do we call truth cold and hard? It is the greatest gift we are given, except for love. The truth sets you free.

So I am not going to fear. I am not going to be driven by Guilt, that hideous, immobilizing demon of mine. If God wants me to sing, then I will sing until He takes my voice from me. If He wants me to write, I will write until He Himself takes away my pen or pencil or keyboard - but only Him. I will not listen to any voice that has not been cleansed by His truth, that does not see the world with His gratitude. And when I doubt this resolution I will remind myself. I'm saying it because it's true.

I don't know what's in store for me. As much as I would like to say that this life doesn't count, that our salvation is the only thing that's important and nothing we do here will ever matter in the trajectory of eternity, that's not true. How we live is important. And it is the hardest thing we will ever do.

I want to do it well. I believe God has created me with talents to use for His glory and the good of others. If He wants me to make music then I will make music, in whatever shape, fashion, or venue I can. Not every musician can have a successful career - successful by the world's standards, that is.

But I can still see it in my mind, dreams so vivid and real that they take my breath away. That stage one day, on a tour I've done so often that I've lost count, singing my song for the millionth time. And thinking, Oh God, I have so much to be thankful for. 



~Margaret