Here’s something I never thought I’d ever admit to anyone, not ever:
I’ve written lots of songs.
I actually never admitted the truth to myself, not till a few nights ago when my phone warned me it was running out of space. Since I can’t in good conscience delete photos and old text messages, I headed for my voice memo folder, where kids regularly record themselves blah-blah-blahing (literally, they say blahblahblah for entire minutes).
There were a handful of tunes I’d recorded in bathrooms–accompanied by ukulele, guitar, or mandolin, whatever I could attach chords to in the midst of kids splashing noisily in the tub in the background. A couple were done in the car, acapella, obviously with a fair amount of restraint lest curious onlookers discover my soul-bearing ways. I deleted an original Christmas carol and two very cheesy wedding songs. Only a lucky few made their way to the impressive studios of Garage Band.
I’ve had my phone for five years now. It’s no surprise my creative packrat tendencies show up in voice memos. But I can’t bear to delete the music.
Five years ago, I was sinking. Four kids doesn’t seem like a lot to many people. To others, it seems like an army. To tell the truth, I love kids. They fascinate me. Four didn’t always seem like a strong number–if I was tough like I thought, why wouldn’t I have more? I had a burdensome conscience no doubt influenced by a certain moral upbringing, and it did me no favors in regards to family planning (not that family planning was ever on my radar, but I digress).
The kids and responsibilities and unsure future and sleepless nights overwhelmed me, especially five years ago. Everything landed square on my shoulders, it seemed. It was too much. I wasn’t managing anything well.
I still wonder how most everyone else seems to keep things under control but I cannot. Can’t manage a career, can’t manage my house, can’t find a shred of assurance that I’m raising my kids exactly right. I’m not a worrier, but I do wonder and just downright marvel at my lack of git-’er-done in a world of folks who keep the balls spinning. Will I ever have something of value to tack on a resume, or will it always feel like I’m sitting in a trail of dust?
But then I see the tiniest bit of sun shining through the clouds, er, iClouds. I’ve been at home doing my turtle work, head in shell, scratching here and there and not making many dents.
I’m making piles of art, ebenezers of remembrance.
Art that doesn’t mean much to anyone–but maybe God. Maybe it matters–no, it certainly matters to Him.
And it has come to my attention that my kids have always been right there, as I strum and find just the right chords, as I arrange and rearrange words and then ask them to listen and tell me what they think about the new song.
I was just your average, humble, stay-at-home mom, thinking life might pass me, but also not finding the energy to fight it. I was just watching kids all along and keeping my hand and mind busy, filling in small cracks of time with notes and words and music. And all those wearisome years of changing babies and collecting dust ended up as worship.
Looking back, it has made whatever shame I held evaporate.
It is better to live in worship; shame cannot hang around.
Those songs won’t ever be an I Can Only Imagine (and thank God for that, because I’ve heard it enough, haven’t you?). No one will have to hear my voice on the radio and wonder why the tune they once thought was catchy is now a relic of an earworm. I’ll never have to explain to anyone why I bothered for two years to turn the laments of Jeremiah into memorized melodies I can sing–my very own prayers for my people who, like the Israelites, have eyes, but cannot see and ears, but cannot hear (Jeremiah 5:21). I will sing of repentance–my own, and for the people I ache to know forgiveness and wholeness.
I will sing because it helps me memorize and internalize God’s word. I’m hiding it in my heart.
I’ll write because it is art, and art always imitates the Creator.
Imitation is worship.
These are the Mary years, the years at the feet of Jesus. Maybe the Martha years come after the kids grow up, or at least when they are back in school. As I look back on Jesus, the Mary years mattered more to Him than the git-’er-done Martha ways.
He was there to be worshiped in the flesh, and Mary recognized it as an opportunity to sit and worship. Martha excused herself from the situation, chalking it up to enneagram (j/k, sort of)–she was a 2, or perhaps a 1 or 8, and Mary (probably 4, 5 or 9) annoyingly lacked energy and motivation.
But whatever you do or don’t do, or are doing or aren’t doing–all of those little pieces of time add up and paint a bigger picture of what is worthy in your life.
Martha thought she needed to do x,y,z… But Jesus told Martha what Mary had chosen was better, and even though it didn’t look a whole lot like getting things done, he commended her for it.
I had all the opportunity in the world to perch on the closed toilet seat of a weeknight and strum a guitar or read my Bible, or both! all while watching my babies stick foam letters to the sides of the tub. I spent mornings with piles of library books and crumbs on the couch, kids flanking my elbows so I could hardly move to turn the pages. I boiled hundreds of packages of macaroni, wiped down the same high chair a million times. It felt like small beans at the time, a so-what-who-cares type of existence.
But it is not.
Your Father sees what is done in secret.
He rewards what is done in secret.
(Matthew 6:4)
I do not regret a single moment of it. The hidden, the secret and sacred. The art-making and kid-minding.
What does God want you to create? What is He asking you to let go?
What could you offer to Him in your Mary years?
What if no one ever saw it but Him?
I don’t think you’ll ever regret it.
