This week I cried at an article about a cross country runner from a little neighboring town, McCool Junction. I shared it on Facebook and my friend and fellow songwriter, Ken Hall, suggested there was good vittles in there for a song. He was right and I was itching to write something anyway so I wrote the song based on the article. You can read it here:
And now it’s been viewed over 5,000 times- way more than my earlier biggest hit, “I Write.” Pretty cool. It goes to show that you never know what’s going to strike a chord or resonate with people. You never know what people’s hearts are craving and it reminded me to keep showing up, write what you feel called to write, be the biggest brightest version of yourself as you can be and God will put you where he needs you.
Then, another songwriting friend, Andrew Dunn, joined in and together we’re working on cleaning up the first draft and making the song even better. That feels like a surprise blessing and, to have a co-worker equally invested in the song to make it the best it can be, is energizing and super cool. I should find co-workers more often.
Then I drove to Omaha with some girlfriends, first through the drive thru and then to the valet parking we accidentally bought with our Jen Hatmaker event tickets and now I never want to park by myself like a sucker ever again.
It was an evening of laughter and reflection and beautiful music and unexpected love that I’m so thankful for.
God will show you beautiful things and loving people and generous hearts even while hurricanes and tsunamis destroy coastlines and legacies. Even while fighting and division declare whose with us and whose against us and more and more we’re tempted to believe it.
There’s this book by Max Lucado called, “You are Special” and it tells the story of the Wemmicks, wooden people carved by the maker and how they spend all their day sticking stars and black dots on each other. Stars and dots, stars and dots all day long like it’s their duty to stamp “good” or “bad” on everything they see as if the maker himself didn’t know one way or the other.
One particularly sad Wemmick covered in black dots meets a fellow wooden creature with nothing on her at all. She’s free of the good stars and the bad black dots. Asking her how she did it she answers the sad Wemmick by saying, “Once you get to know the maker the stars and dots don’t stick.”
That story makes me cry every time. To the point that when I read it at bedtime, my boys always couldn’t understand why mama was crying at the end every time (Just like “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”).
You know why the cross country runner is so inspiring? Because the stars and dots don’t stick on him and it’s magical. Same for the writer of the article, Jay Slagle- he was just writing with his heart the story he wanted to tell. You know why I feel thankful for writing that song? Because I wrote it at a moment when the stars and dots were the furthest thing from my mind. That’s when the magic happens. When we look past the grading scale, the paycheck, and the appearances and we do it anyway like we’ve got the audacity to believe we can act in the freedom of a love poured out to us by a our maker who knows exactly what he’s doing.
That’s cool. Now go throw away those stars and dots and go be awesome.