Beauty From the Ashes

I don’t remember where the heck I found this song. It’s called “Esther,” and the band is called Esterlyn. Honestly, I think that one day I just decided I wanted to look up random, virtually unknown Christian artists and listen to their music. See if there was anything good. Regardless of how I found it though, there’s one thing I can know for sure–my stumbling upon it was not an accident. I believe everything happens for a reason, and God definitely had a reason when He put this particular piece of music into my life.
When I’m down in the dumps, I often go through this set routine that involves curling up into a ball on my bed, turning off all the lights in my room except for the white Christmas lights on the wall all the way around the room, and listening to worship music, including this song. For some reason, “Esther” is one of the first pieces of worship music that I turn to when I’m feeling low. Maybe I like it so much because it’s peaceful and calm. The majority of the song is just a few single notes on the piano, and the lyrics are sung slowly and softly. OR maybe the reason I like it so much is because I like to sing along to it. The lyrics are pretty catchy after all–”A father to the fatherless. A healer to the brokenness. You make beauty from the ashes.” OR perhaps the reason this song means so much to me is because no matter what I’m going through, no matter why I’m upset, or why I’m hurting, this song speaks to me. It reminds me that God is my “Father.” It reminds me that He is “Love.” It reminds me that He makes “beauty from the ashes” that is my pain. In the times when I feel like I’ve been burned in the flames of life’s trials, and all that’s left is a pile of measly, fragile ashes, God picks me up and makes me a beautiful creation of His once more.
On top of that, the bridge in the song reminds me that even though I am in pain, and life is difficult, I’m not alone. The lyrics in the bridge read “Give us your heart, Lord. Help us love the unseen. And give us your eyes, Lord. Help us love those in need.” This is a reminder to me that living a Christian lifestyle will involve trials for any and every person, but with God’s power and strength working in us, we can overcome those trials and turn towards serving others–”those in need.”
In the end, though, I feel like the music, the lyrics, and the meaning of the song all work together. The simplicity in the music and even in the lyrics at times forces the person listening to slow down and realize that God’s still in control. He’s still got my back, even when I feel like He’s not there. In the times when I need to slow down and put things into perspective, God speaks to me through songs such as this and reminds me that He is my Father who loves me, and that He will make beauty from my ashes.

“Easier to Love”

My family has always been big Switchfoot fans, especially my Dad.  I remember listening to the song “Easier to Love” with my Dad one afternoon in the car and, being the sheltered child I was, feeling confused about the lyrics.  The first verse goes “Sex is currency. She sells cars. She sells magazines.”  Since “sex” was still a “bad word” at the time, it took me a while to work up the nerve to finally ask my Dad what the lyrics meant.  He asked me to think of all the car commercials and magazine covers I’d seen and pointed out how people use sexy women and sometimes men to advertise their products.  Even on game shows, there’s always some “lovely assistant” modeling the new cars won.  The same goes for clothes and jewelry.  If girls go to Target to find a top and see a picture of a curvy, attractive young woman modeling the top, they’d be far more apt to buy it than if it was simply on a hanger.

The lyrics of the Switchfoot song continue to say “Sex is easier than love” and “Everyone’s been scared to death of dying here alone.”  Again, as a young girl, these lyrics made me cringe with discomfort.  But now I realize how true and blunt they really are.  However, as Christians, we need to realize that we have the greatest love we could ever imagine staring us right in the face.  We’re not alone; we have a God that IS LOVE!  Consequently, we don’t need to, or rather we shouldn’t, fill our lives with sex. “What have we done? What is the monster we’ve become? Where is my soul?”  If we truly believe what God’s word says, then we can ask ourselves these questions boldly and turn our lives back to Christ no matter where we’ve been or what rabbit trail we’ve taken.  When we realize that we are God’s children, and that He loves us more than anyone ever will, we can rest in the knowledge that He holds us in His hands, lifts our spirits, and points us back onto His path of righteousness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsHLWv1TJq8

Dipping My Toes

Just the other day, I was chit chatting with some friends in the coffee shop, when we all decided it’d be fun to head back to my room, pig out, and watch a chick flick together for the remainder of the evening. We quickly and easily settled on a movie we all loved called “He’s Just Not That Into You.” The film includes several different relationships all intertwined in some way or another. Some of the relationships ended well and others ended poorly, however, every relationship ended the way the audience (at least this particular audience of college girls) wanted it to. As we all waited in my room for the last girl to show up, we discussed the movie’s storyline. “I like everything about it, except for the affair between Scarlett Johansson’s character and Bradley Cooper’s,” one girl said. I responded with, “Yeah, I usually skip all the scenes with them, because it really irritates me.” The relationship between these two actors consists of a married man cheating on his wife, simply because he found this “other woman” more attractive. While the affair in and of itself was positively horrid, what we found most annoying about their affair is that both the characters spend a good amount of the movie justifying their sleeping together. Bottom line was that we could all agree that the relationship between the two was sickening, revolting, disgusting, take your pick, and the fact that they actually don’t end up together in the end thrilled us. Still, every girl in the room lacked the motivation and energy to get up and skip the scenes, so we just decided to grin and bear it—which is exactly what I believe Hollywood wanted us to do. Most of the time, if I see an advertisement for a movie in theaters that looks completely worldly and, like the affair in “He’s Just Not That Into You,” revolting, I won’t go see it. However, this movie was easy for my friends and I to justify for a few reasons. (1) The affair was only a minor part of the major storyline of the film. (2) Seeing as how the relationship between Anna and Ben didn’t end well, we all assumed that the movie was portraying affairs as a bad thing (which we knew anyway). (3) The other relationships were adorable, and those were the relationships we really wanted to watch unfold. Still, I wonder—is it wrong for Christian college students to sit down and allow ourselves to watch a movie with such an appalling series of events? Each and every one of us in the room knew that the affair was wrong, as I mentioned, but does that make it ok for us to watch it? A year or so ago, I was really struggling with this question when it came to movies, and I eventually stumbled across a verse that helped me process my thoughts and understanding of God’s will a little better. The verse was Psalm 101:3, and it reads, “I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it.” I immediately took this as “God wants me to be more careful about what I put in my mind.” However, when studying the verse a little more intently, I find myself confused once again. My eyes bounce back and forth from “I will not look with approval on anything that is vile” and “I will have no part in it.” Can I watch a movie with something that is “vile” in God’s eyes while also not looking upon it with approval? Or should I simply have no part in anything that is vile? The conclusion that I find myself at is this—I can watch movies with “vile” content. In fact, I believe I could go so far as to say that I should watch such movies. The trick is that I can’t allow them to affect me in such a way that would cause me to question my convictions and beliefs. can’t escape the culture that I live in, and I need to experience the culture at least somewhat so that I will be better able to relate to those that are fully submersed in it and be able to spread God’s word. At the same time, I still need to be careful that I don’t get “fully submersed” in the culture around me as well. In conclusion, I must allow myself to simply dip my toes in the water, while keeping in mind that, in this modern world, there is a fine line between dipping my toes and cannon-balling into a pool of worldly, media-centered, ungodly culture.