Awaken My Ears

Have you ever had an itch you can’t seem to scratch? You try to itch it, and it’s not in the place you feel like it is. You scratch around where you think the itch is, but you still don’t manage to hit the spot.

This is exactly how I feel about some of the things that I’ve been wanting to do with my life. When I was in high school, I had this secret dream. All throughout my life, I could hear symphonies and songs as I walked from class to class. It sounded much like a soundtrack for my life, except I wasn’t trying to do it, it was just automatic. So when I was in high school, I tried to actually play what I heard in my head. It was pale in comparison, because I don’t have access to a full orchestra, but even being able to hear a shadow of what was in my head was incredible. There was a sense of anticipation that maybe if others could hear what I heard in my head, it would change the world.

But something happened after I graduated. I didn’t fully even realize it at the time, but as I faced one disappointment after another, I gradually stopped hearing the beautiful music in my head. I stopped feeling passionate about it. I stopped knowing what to create.

I was left with this undeniable itch to create something, but I had no idea how to create. Instead, I watched as people around me would create masterpieces, in awe of whatever they were creating. I wanted to do that too, but I didn't even know where to begin.

What a foreign feeling that is. I felt like there was a piece of me just waiting to be revealed, waiting to come out, but I didn't know what that looked like anymore. I knew that it was somehow linked to much of the confusion about life circumstances that I was dealing with. I KNEW that the songs I used to hear were anthems of hope, even in the midst of painful situations. But maybe the way I dealt with those painful situations had somehow changed. Maybe I began to believe the lie of disappointment.

Here’s how I see it: I believe that creativity flows from the heart. We all have creativity locked inside of us in one way or another. But when painful, stressful, difficult, or disappointing things happen in our lives, we are going to react one of two ways: we will either open up our hearts and grow through it, or we will begin to put up protective walls against the pain and disappointment, ultimately leaving us with a heart that is shutting down. Maybe if that goes a little too far, those walls end up blocking even us from seeing what’s inside. The deeper the pain, the deeper the hiddenness. 

Some people live like this their entire lives, and don’t even know it. They don’t know that there is a hope beyond what they have experienced. It’s the worst when your circumstances actually confirm the lies you were already believing about your identity. The crazy thing is, you may not even know that you’re believing those lies. 

Like for me, the one of biggest lies I believed was that I am a toxic friend, and if we get too close then I’ll end up somehow hurting you. The funny thing is, if you actually asked me if I believed that, I would give you the logical answer: of course not! But that’s the lie I was reacting to every day- afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid of how to react to situations, keeping a distance from certain people, fearing that my vulnerability was somehow too much. All of these reactions were based off of situations and circumstances that had confirmed that fear inside of me. Locked up behind one wall of lies after another, so that I could never see what truly was in my heart.

But we all long to see the real things, the more vulnerable and honest things. A good piece of art is created when the artist is completely raw about who they are and what they believe.

How can anybody be vulnerable when they can’t see what’s hidden inside of them?

This is the thought that I’ve been contemplating recently. Is it possible that the way that I’ve reacted to my own pain, confusion, and fear has caused me to stop seeing the world in color? What if the lens I look through is tainted by lies I am believing about myself, and I actually can't see the fullness of the beauty around me?

So what is the answer to unlocking that crazy creativity inside? I’m on a journey to learning what that looks like. But I do believe that it has a lot to do with allowing God to tear down those walls. That means being honest with yourself and asking yourself the hard questions, such as, “is the way that I’m responding to this person or situation based off of a lie that I believe about myself?”

How do you know it’s a lie and not the truth? You’ll never know just by looking at the lie. You have to see the standard. You have to see the One that created you. You have to know what His thoughts about you are. And the crazy thing is, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done in your life. If you've been washed by the blood of Jesus, then He sees you as pure no matter what you’ve done. That means that He can show you your full, pure identity in the midst of situations where you have even messed up. That means that now you can look beyond the things you didn’t do perfectly, and see that who you are is so much more than that. He looks at us and sees us for who we are, all of our potential and all that we were created for. It’s up to us if we want to believe Him or not. But I will say one thing- the more that I have chosen to believe what He says about me, the more I’ve become that person. He's the only one who knows what's in the core of me.

And what's in the core of me is a song. A song that is not tainted by pain. A song that's only made more beautiful through the pain.

I found a prayer I wrote in my journal a few years ago that actually reflects what I want to convey so perfectly, so I’ll end with this:

March 16, 2016 (slightly edited):

"The only thing that extinguishes my dreams in You are my fears and shame. For every moment, there is a song. A song that You sing to our hearts, and a song from our spirits in response. Awaken my ears to your song. And awaken my spirit’s song. I am so tired of compressing it. I want to know Your song so well that I can sing it in my sleep. I have so many dreams inside of me. Do not tame them, but fine tune them to Your will, so that I can hit my calling on the spot!"