Music of my heart. . .

...listening to Kevin Kern piano on Pandora radio along with a little James Todd cello, while noticing how quiet and still the Hobbit Hole is there beside the orchard, just outside my window. Suddenly, I am missing Bob with brand new disbelief and my heart has become sodden with the heaviness of grief. The music probes until it finds my soul, then wraps around the intimacies of my heart, lifting them out from where they are hidden.  "Why do I do this to myself?" I have to wonder. Surely, if not for the music I have chosen, I would be distracted by the day’s tasks at hand and perhaps preoccupied with thoughts less intense.  My spirit would be ‘safe.’  To answer my own question, I think it’s a good idea, and a healthy one, to venture away from those emotional ‘safety zones,’ occasionally.  I’m not saying I intend to ‘wear my heart on my sleeve,’ constantly or that I expect my heartaches to prevent my journey from moving forward.  I’m saying that there are times (and I know there will always be) when I need to ‘visit’ that hiding place, briefly…but it is not where I will choose to ‘live.’

 By the grace of God, I have learned to choose joy, not just in the ‘peaks’ of my life when it is easy to do so, but in the ‘valleys,’ too!

……thankful