By now most of us have seen Susan Boyle's performance on YouTube or Britains Got Talent. Whoever we are, wherever we've come from - I think we are moved by this clip of humanity. I wanted to dance watching this unlikely piece of talent open her mouth and turn jeering faces into open mouthed wonder. To see some one's dream come true right in front of you is uncommonly beautiful. Her voice was powerful. She paired her voice and life with the perfect song. She sang her heart through every word. Seeing the judges look past her outward appearance and be stunned by her vocal talent gave me a small measure of hope for our often shallow world and my often shallow self. As much as I loved ALL of this....my favorite part was watching Susan walk off the stage unaware that the judges were calling her back. It looked like she thought she had lived her dream and lived it well. Little did she know, her dream of singing in front of a large audience had been fulfilled and had just begun at the same time. Her little dance of unbelievable fortune was one of the most precious expressions of joy I have seen. Her life will never be the same for bravely risking to live out her dreams.
What if this story was true for you too?
I know it sounds too good to be true. Believe me, I know. The reason this story grabs our souls is that it is written down deep in each of us. To matter. To have such a powerful gift to reveal that the world will not be the same for our reveal. It is a hunger in me. In you, I believe. And IT IS TRUE of you. You do have such a gift to offer. Sometimes it's buried under ill-fitting clothes and a bad hair-do. Or sometimes under fear and disbelief. But it is there. You are there. And you are needed. There is only ONE of you. We need you.
Your gift may not be unwrapped by such a large audience as Susan's. But each time you offer your deep heart, your deep gift to even one person, the Christ in you touches the Christ in the other and each of are changed irreversibly.
My question is this: What do you long to offer to the world? To your friends, your family, your neighbors? And will you risk running after it in humility with God? I dare say if you do - when you think you've offered all you can - you'll have just begun.
This is the story behind the hearts of The Well Project. Each of us rising above pain and unbelief to offer our words, our music, our voices because it is the great love of our hearts and (we hope) a power for the good of Uganda.
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Wow, I too was amazed by her, by the whole deal, by the general cynicism before she opened her mouth. I'm her same age, when I see my story through hers, it gives me hope and unsettles me.
ReplyDeleteI love how you've noticed that she was walking off, and what that revealed... and beyond there being "more", I think it also shows that her singing comes from the core of her identity, and that her performace there was reward in andn of itself. If they told her she was a "special guest" and really wasn't in the running for the contest, I have no doubt that her performance would have been unchanged... it comes from the naure God has given her.
Dan Allender's work in "To Be Told" helped me a couple of years ago to be purposeful in looking at the story God wrote in my life; some of the things I couldn't change, like who I was born to and my genes (Levis of course), and the circumstances of my life (some of which happened to me, some of which I chose, but all of which I can choose a response to) and that God invites me in this moment to co-author what is and will be in my life.
I feel like Susan Boyle (ok, a bigger hairier male version)... I know God has invested in me, and I keep doing the equivalent of Susan singing in the shower... and I live in the tension that if singing in the shower was all there would ever be, it would be enough, but that there might be a stage somewhere... that the little story I live in is part of a bigger story, and somehow God is inviting me into the bigger story. I'm just having trouble finding the stage door, and to be honest, I don't know which theater I should be at.... so I humm and sing, and kick all the doors I find, in a figurative sort of way. I know though, that when it is time, it won't be my kicking and humming and singing that opens the door... it will be so much better than an accidentally opened stage door.
-vern-