I went to a concert with some girlfriends last weekend. I’d kind of been having just a blah week, a blah month maybe? Constantly overthinking, overestimating, overstepping, just all over the place and I was over it. The musician we had come to see was at the very end. The aftershow of course and after feeling old and melting for two hours in the Illinois summer heat, I felt I’d once again overestimated my endurance and tolerance for late nights and drunk girls.
But we stayed to hear Jordan Davis and I’m glad he broke it down for me.
He put down the electricity and told the guys in the band to have a seat for a minute. He picked up his acoustic guitar and began to play music that he’d grown up listening to. He played and felt and dealt, and it was broken down to just his voice and his heart laid out.
I love this broken down place and should go there more often.
Words sound so much prettier pouring out of our lips when they’re untouched by anything other than our hearts.
When we lay down our noise and clamor in exchange for the beats in our chest and the songs we’ve been singing our whole lives, that’s beautiful and that’s broken down.
People won’t always know the words to sing along to our song. They may get unsteady because they’ve never heard it. And sometimes our broken down places will not be met with open hearts and kind faces. But we sing anyway, without the lies and drums they think we need in hopes that one day they’ll hear us for who we are. Maybe then they’ll get it.
So with our hands shaking and our faces blushing red. We just might find we never needed the accompaniment, just our raw voices poured out instead.
Only then can we get broken down to the grit of who we are. A brokenness that will help us focus less on where we’re going, and to wholly embrace and live right where we are.
Maybe you think I’m foolish for sharing feelings for all to see. But maybe my broken down feelings are helping someone other than me.
Fit Grit & Grace 