Time to Rise and Shine!!

I had an interesting experience this morning.  I was in my Thursday routine of getting the kids to school.  They always want to listen to the “John Tesh Radio Show” and I grudgingly oblige them each morning.  It’s not that I’m against music or radio or John Tesh, it’s just that I have a habit of it being quiet when I drive because it’s honestly the only quiet time I ever get.  However, I know the kids enjoy the music so I turned it on and turned it up.  I had dropped them off this morning and I was on my way home and there was a song that literally reached out and grabbed me.  After I went home and looked it up, I found it was Coblie Caillat’s song, “Try.”  The song’s verses sing out these lies that the world system tells girls all the time, and then the chorus sings out a message that you don’t have to try, try, try, try, try to fit into that mold.  Just look at yourself and love yourself.  Now before everyone goes, “oh yeah, more positive thinking blah blah blah” you have to know how the song ends.  It again says to look in the mirror and love yourself and then ends “Because I love (like) you.”  As I was listening to the song, I felt God stirring in me.  I knew I myself had listened to all sorts of lies, and I had tried very hard to fit into all sorts of molds to fit in:  the perfect and successful doctor, the awesome dad, the loving husband, etc., and I had blown it on all fronts.  However, here was God, using the song from a “secular” pop star speaking loudly and clearly to me with a very simple message:  “Be you.  I like you.  So like yourself, and be you.”  It rocked me in my very core.

I began to think after this how often I have heard God speak to me through the “secular” world.  I began to remember one time how one of my spiritual moms asked me what was in my heart while we were in the middle of a church class, and I began to play the song “One” by U2.  Someone in the class got very offended, but if you’ll look at the lyrics, they are amazing.  

I then began to think of how the Bible speaks of the glory of God filling the earth, and then there are verses that speak of how the knowledge of the glory of God will fill the earth.  I thought of how the Bible says it is the glory of God to hide a matter and the glory of kings (mankind) to discover it.  I began to see that in just being me, I was seeing God release His goodness and creativity through ALL music and art and film and work, not just what happens in a church or religious setting.

As I thought of this, it hit me.  This is my opportunity in life.  I have an opportunity to share with others that it is time to relax and be you.  It’s ok to let go of the wounds that have occurred at the hands of others when they judged you and criticized you and ostracized you.  It’s ok to let those go and be you.  It’s ok to enjoy what you enjoy.  God is in it.  I even predict that you’ll start hearing Him quite clearly in things that most religious groups would tell you to get away from.  God has put His glory in you.  Let it shine.  Don’t cover it up with masks that others have made for you.  I think one of the most effective ways to step into good emotional and mental health is to just be YOU.

Shine, bright one.

We all need your light.

Love ya!  Dr. C.