song for this world

There's a stone around my belly
Keeps me up at night
Makes me want to feed it
Makes me want to fight with the world
[ Lyrics from: http://www.cloverlyrics.com/e68984-darrell_scott~theres_a_stone_around_my_belly_lyrics.html ]

god tells us his grace is sufficient.  I like to think of it as more than that, as abundant and overflowing, and I know it is, but it is interesting that how he describes it is merely sufficient.  enough!  exactly enough.  when I want over-the-top and beyond-my-wildest-dreams, the heavenly hosts pull me back down with whispers of sufficiency.  and when I am bored and stagnant and can't imagine putting one foot in front of the other for one more step, it is still sufficient.  and when I am overwhelmed and spread too thin, sufficiency is still the name of the game.

Got a heart full of darkness
Got a headache full of dreams
Got a lifetime of memories
I don't know what they mean to this world
Is there a place in this world for a dreamer
If dreaming were all he could bring
Would you listen to a man with a stone around his belly sing?

my struggle is contentment.  I want it all at the same time and then I want it all to leave me alone.  it has always been this way for me.  I want to have grand adventures all over the globe and I want to settle down to offer my children roots and stability.  I want to live in a small town and I want the diversity and variety that comes with living somewhere bigger.  I want to open our home to those who need it most and I want to protect myself from the hurt and sadness that opening can bring.  I want to be valued and appreciated but I don't want to be blamed or used.  there's such a fine line between all those things.

There's a reason for the sadness
There's a reason for the song
I have reason to believe that i won't be too long for this world
Sixty years seventy-three if I'm lucky
Take this stone take this belly to a cabin in kentucky

but the important part is that it doesn't matter what I want, so much.  my plans aren't the important ones, my feelings of coziness aren't the focus.  this is all a part of it, this great tapestry my life is, the dissonance and the lack of resolution, the push and the pull and the tearing apart.  balance is a goal, but never a constant because the center itself if fluid and in motion.  and there is balance in the off-kilter teeter of my life.  that's all part of it, too.

Well I've been up on the mountain
I've been rollin' like a stone
Searchin' this whole world over
For a place to be alone
Alone to see the sunsets
And to count what i have lost
Alone to read aloud walt whitman
And to live like robert frost

so I will say yes to little babies that I might not get to keep.  and I will take the tears that come with phone calls that hurt more than heal.  I will love as deep as I can reach even when I know that isn't nearly deep enough, even when I know there are cracks and crevices I will never be able to fill.  even when the job is thankless and harder than I'd imagined I will do it over and over again because I know that there is sufficiency just in answering what I have been called to do.  and I know that it is part of my song for this world.

(lyrics by darrell scott.  see you in october, darrell!)