Monday, April 6, 2015

Happy Anniversary

Today is my thirteenth year anniversary of life in the Savage North.

Anniversaries are often a time when I reflect on the journey.  This year I enter the teenage years of this life as a mother and suburban stay-at-home mom.  There is a chaos, and even a healing, that comes only after you do the same job for more than a decade.  My reflections have caused me to realize how much has changed since that day in 2002 when I arrived on the doorstep of this life.  I realize how much healing has taken place, how much calmer, braver, and passionate I am about life.  I realize how many walls have come crumbling down and how much my three little ones have brought out a better version of me.

There is a song by Matthew West called “Do Something.”  This song talks about how we notice all the injustice in the world and wonder…if there was really a God, why would all of this injustice happen.  We shake our fist and ask God, challenge God even, to do something.  In the song, God answers, “I did, I created you.”  For me, that sums up the journey.  I started out a pregnant, twenty something, who had a vision of how life should be for her to be determined a success.  Then I quit my job and committed to a very different life in the Savage North.

I spent a lot of time pouting and shaking my fist at God, demanding He do something different.  I wanted more, different, easy.  And I somewhere in the journey of feeling it was just not very fair, I realized it isn’t suppose to be.  If I want to see change, I need to start where I can make the changes.  If I wanted to raise children who are doers instead of complainers, then I needed to be a doer instead of a complainer.  I stopped complaining and I started changing.  I would like to say that the more, different and easy followed; but, the opposite was more often true.  I lost friends.  I got my feelings hurt.  I felt alone.  I learned where my walls stood; and how much those walls held me back.  I learned the meaning of courage and love and how often they go hand and hand with pain.  It seemed I had mastered the more and the different in a painful way, but the easier was nowhere in site.

And then, the journey took a turn.  I started to see my way out of the dark.  Or maybe, I just began to realize that pain meant growth and growth is good.  I broke down the walls that held me back and entered the arena willing to try.  I got dirty and I got my feelings hurt some more.  I felt like a failure a lot of the time.  But I realized that failure is growth too and growth is good.  I found people to support, laugh, walk and talk with me on this journey.  And, I started to see that my three little ones were becoming doers instead of complainers.  And, after thirteen years, I think that is pretty good progress. 

This is all imperfect progress, but progress all the same.  And I am grateful to the Savage North for all these lessons.  I know we have a long way to go on this journey.  I know there will be good days and not so good days.  But, as I look backward today, it is pretty amazing how far we have come.  And, as I look out from here, the view is pretty spectacular. 




"Do Something" by Matthew West

I woke up this morning
Saw a world full of trouble now
Thought, how’d we ever get so far down
How’s it ever gonna turn around
So I turned my eyes to Heaven
I thought, “God, why don’t You do something?”
Well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of
People living in poverty
Children sold into slavery
The thought disgusted me
So, I shook my fist at Heaven
Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”
He said, “I did, I created you”

If not us, then who
If not me and you
Right now, it’s time for us to do something
If not now, then when
Will we see an end
To all this pain
It’s not enough to do nothing
It’s time for us to do something

I’m so tired of talking
About how we are God’s hands and feet
But it’s easier to say than to be
Live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves
It’s alright, “somebody else will do something”
Well, I don’t know about you
But I’m sick and tired of life with no desire
I don’t want a flame, I want a fire
I wanna be the one who stands up and says,
“I’m gonna do something”

If not us, then who
If not me and you
Right now, it’s time for us to do something
If not now, then when
Will we see an end
To all this pain
It’s not enough to do nothing
It’s time for us to do something

We are the salt of the earth
We are a city on a hill (shine shine, shine shine)
But we’re never gonna change the world
By standing still
No we won’t stand still
No we won’t stand still
No we won’t stand still

If not us, then who
If not me and you
Right now, it’s time for us to do something
If not now, then when
Will we see an end
To all this pain
It’s not enough to do nothing
It’s time for us to do something

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