lyrics

Here are the lyrics to "Expression," if you're unable to listen on the web (or even if you are, but just enjoy reading lyrics, like I do). I hope they're right--if they're not, sorry Charlie!!

Expression, Charlie Dodrill

Danny sits in an orange jumpsuit,
Awaiting trial in a criminal lawsuit
Yesterday, he finally met You
And gave his old life away

A favorite son in a small town high school,
A lifeguard at the city swimming pool
And everybody thought Danny was so cool
The day he drove away

Years passed and he began to immerse himself
Into a life that went from bad to worse
He thought that all his blessings had turned into a curse
And he longed for yesterday

So far away from his former glory,
Caught holding up a liquor store, he
Lived long enough to tell the story,
and died another day

If it were me, I’d hang my head and try to cover my face
But according to You, he’s got his feet planted in heavenly places
What would You do if we’d exchange our condemnation for grace
and become the glorious expression of Your Son?

Mary Beth didn’t have many friends, see,
A broken home and a broken family,
She knew if she could meet the perfect boy,
He could turn her night to day

Then came Rick in his red Camero,
Must be the answer to her prayer, oh,
He left her flying like a broken arrow
With a daughter on the way

She recalled, when she was eight years old
She took a step into the Shepherd’s fold
She forgot that You’re the one who makes her whole
She led herself astray

She said, “Lord, You know my life has become crazy
I love You, Lord, but I made a mistake, see,
You made a promise that You’d never forsake me
So here I am to stay…"

If it were me, I’d hang my head and try to cover my face
But according to You, she’s got her feet planted in heavenly places
What would You do if we’d exchange our condemnation for grace
and become the glorious expression of Your Son?

Oh, mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of the Lord
And all of the faces of His people
When I see Your life get poured out
Into broken earthen vessels
Who begin to live anew
When You heal them of their brokenness
And place them inside of You

When it was me, I hung my head and tried to cover my face
But according to You, I had my feet planted in heavenly places
What would You do if we’d exchange our condemnation for grace
and become the glorious expression of Your Son?

What do we do? We hang our heads and try to cover our faces
But according to you, we’ve got our feet planted in heavenly places
What would you do if we’d exchange our condemnation for grace
and become the glorious expression of Your Son?

grace and the glorious expression

Watch/listen to this song.

This song has been in my head all weekend. I love Charlie’s music, and this new song just struck a chord in me. Grace is something I’m always learning about (mostly learning how little I understand it!), and he managed to put words to my inner feelings and experience of God’s grace. Grace is a fascinating, liberating, exhilarating spiritual truth that is too little understood and too scarcely taught in the church these days (IMHO). It’s the foundation of any real, meaningful experience of living in Christ. As long as we think we deserve it or can earn it, we’ll never really understand it. Grace reminds us that we don’t deserve it, that we could never earn it, and yet somehow, wonderfully, surprisingly, fantastically, God has given it to us anyway. The experience of grace is a breath of fresh air into a life that is weary of the uphill climb, worn out from the weight of sin, and exhausted from trying to outrun the ugliness in a heart that has been forgiven but most of the time does NOT feel like it. Grace says, “the race is over—you can rest now.” Grace says, “your sin is too heavy for you to carry—why not give it to me instead?” Grace says, “I know all about the ugliness in your heart…but I can give you the strength to face it without shame, because you have a new identity now, and who you are is no longer tied to that ugliness. You’re beautiful to me!”

Yes, grace has the power to bring liberating feelings and experiences to our interactions with God…but it is so much more than a feeling. It is a truth that we can stand on. It is a place we can really and truly “plant our feet,” and in my experience the foot-planting must come before the heart feeling. The choice to stand on the truth comes first, the feelings and experience of the truth follow. The Bible even tells us that grace is something we must stand in.

“…I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.” – 1 Peter 5:12

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” – Romans 5:1-2

So anyway, this is a recurring theme in my life, and this song reminded me of the foot-planting side of it….the choice to turn my face from the ugliness I know is in me, and instead to stand on the reality that God tells me is true—that because of Christ, I am forgiven, I have access to God, and there’s more grace and freedom and love and kindness than I’ve ever known. And I can choose to act on it even if my feelings aren’t there yet.

I just want to understand

As much I am addicted to personality tests, I’m starting to feel sick of them lately. Yesterday, Bev told me that I’m definitely more of a choleric than a melancholy. That threw me for a loop (and I think she might be wrong), because I’ve always been a melancholy-phlegmatic—all of the tests say so. I’ve always thought of myself and understood myself in melancholic terms. As she was talking, I recognized some of the choleric characteristics as being true of me, but now I’m all confused and I feel like I no longer know what box to put myself in. Obviously, I mean that a little tongue-in-cheek, because taking the categories too far can be just as unhelpful as ignoring personality differences altogether. I’ve taken enough personality tests over the years, that I think I’ve got myself mostly pegged. So without using type indicators (mel-phleg, ISTJ, etc.), here are a list of things about myself that I don’t need a test to tell me:

General:

• I like to feel in control.
• I tend to get into ruts and have difficulty finding my way out of them.
• I struggle with change.
• I’m analytical.
• I’m detail-oriented and have great difficulty seeing the big picture; I “can’t see the forest for the trees.”
• I tend to see things as black and white rather than in shades of gray; I take things literally and at face-value. When you say something to me, I usually don’t spend time thinking, “Now what did she mean by that?”
• I’m both messy and orderly. My thoughts are orderly, my surroundings tend to be messy (although the mess bothers me and I prefer for things to be neat, I still tend to be messy. I don’t get that one.).
• It’s typically easy for me to be content, as long as things in my life are consistent and predictable.
• I'm more rigid than I am easygoing.

People:

• Kind words mean a lot to me, and make me feel loved more than anything else.
• I’m a peacemaker; I don’t like conflict, I prefer to resolve it straightforwardly, and I enjoy helping others resolve conflict.
• I’m a people-pleaser; If I think someone is upset with me or doesn’t like me, I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to figure out ways to win their approval.
• Time with people tends to drain me, while time alone tends to recharge me.
• I feel uncomfortable and awkward around strangers. It’s hard for me to make new friends, and I prefer the company of people I already know well.
• I often feel the need to “fix” things, people, and situations. If I see a problem, my brain tries to find a solution.
• However, identifying problems still comes more quickly and naturally than finding solutions (ie. I can be critical and negative, complaining, etc.)
• I enjoy trying to understand people, and I enjoy helping others understand each other.
• I tend to see people as a means to an end, rather than an end in themselves, to be enjoyed (I don’t like this about myself, but I think it’s true).
• Because I’m a people-pleaser, I can be sensitive to criticism; I try to be sensitive to others’ feelings for the same reason (I don’t want to piss anyone off).
• However, for some reason, I can be impatient when I feel that others are being overly sensitive. “Solving the problem” is sometimes more important to me in the moment than understanding the other person’s feelings. Inside, I often think, “Why can’t you just get over this so we can get to the real issue and deal with it?” These two leanings are often in conflict within me.
• Perhaps the previous two bullets are why I can sometimes be very diplomatic and concise when addressing an issue, and yet other times I can be very passionate, fired-up, extreme, and irrational. Sometimes I’m cool-headed and logical, other times I express strong feelings that may not even be rooted in reality, but instead rooted in my narrow “trees” perspective.

Productivity:

• I like categories (this list is one example—it started out as one big list, then I got overwhelmed and put them under headings). I think they help me keep my thoughts straight, rather than getting bogged down and overwhelmed by details.
• I value timeliness.
• I need structure to help me function.
• I’m not good at creating structure, however. If someone else creates it, I will implement/follow it, to a fault sometimes.
• I prefer to know what’s going on (have a schedule, agenda, etc.) and spontaneity is difficult for me.
• Thinking “on the fly” and switching gears are also difficult for me; When I get moving on a task, I’m more like a freight train than a sports car.
• I don’t like things to be open-ended, and I feel anxious until a decision has been made.
• However, I have difficulty making decisions myself and tend to rely on others to help me make them.
• What others find mundane and tedious, I typically find comforting and relaxing. It takes a long time for me to get bored with something.

Anyway, that's me as I see me. If you see something different, tell me. I'm always trying to figure things out and understand, and maybe that's part of my problem. Maybe that's part of what Bev's always telling me, about how I fear being misunderstood. Maybe someday I'll figure out why that is and learn to get over it. In the meantime, you've just found out more about me than you probably cared to know :)

WDYTGFT?

My first year in college, my friend Leah and I used to play this daily email game where we'd ask each other "What did you thank God for today?" (WDYTGFT).

For a mel-head like me, it was a good game because it helped me focus on the positive things and it reminded me to cultivate a thankful attitude.

The other day I was talking to my aunt in California, and she's been trying to do something similar lately, to help her focus on the positive things in her life. As we talked, she'd randomly add to her pretend list of positive things. ("See, that's #847.") I've been in kind of a funk lately, so perhaps it would be good for me to practice thankfulness again. Here--I'll share from MY pretend list of the top 1000 things I'm grateful for. In no particular order:

#437. My (slowly healing) cat. This morning, before I shut him away in his jail cell, I was petting him on the bed. He was on his back, just purring and letting me rub his tummy. I love that.

#945. I have a good, reliable car. That's an easy thing to take for granted until you don't have it anymore. I've been there before, and I'm thankful I'm not there now.

#274. My husband. He's amazing.

#847. My job might not be perfect, but I have a lot of fun here. I've had jobs that I absolutely dreaded each morning, and this one's not like that (thank God).

#568. Little babies. I was playing with little Mary in the church nursery on Saturday night, and she just makes me smile. Babies are great.

#126. Music, including the random stuff my friends share with me (that I'd probably never encounter otherwise)....such as:

• the random Coyote song ("Whoo-wup, whoo-wup, whoo-wup")
• the entire CD of techno music (a'la Libby)
• Jamie Cullum ("After years of expensive education, a car full of books and anticipation...I'm an expert on Shakespeare, and that's a hell of a lot, but the world don't need scholars as much as I thought...." Thanks Shannon :))
• the mix CD created entirely from "Track 5" songs from various albums, including a random song about returning a bag of groceries (thanks Adrienne :). I stick to my assertion that every #5 track on every CD is an extra-special song)

#1. I'm thankful for Jesus. Who knows who/where I'd be now if he hadn't found me that one summer.

#769. Summertime. Isn't it wonderful to walk into work in the morning without having to wear a coat? I feel 10 pounds lighter in the summer, probably just because of the clothing/outerwear factor. It's fabulous.

#391. Words. Reading them, hearing them, writing them, singing them. Words are fantastic.

Okay, now it's your turn--what are YOU thankful for today?

random things

• Just finished a week of vacation. Very relaxing. I was ready to go back to work today, though.

• Tried to make it to Erik's memorial service, but started having transmission issues when we were about an hour away. Ended up spending 1-3 pm in a service garage in Richmond, IN. By the time the car was shifting again, the service was over and we just went home. I was disappointed.

• Had our 3 yr anniversary last Wednesday. How these 3 years have flown by!

• Watched some of the clips from the memorial service on the website today. It was, surprisingly, more inspiring and encouraging than sad. Sad, too, but less so. I think it's what Erik would have wanted. He lived his life for eternal things. It's fitting that his death would point toward that same horizon. It filled me with hope.

• After 1 year, 7 months, and 25 days at my current job, I finally have a cubicle to myself. All of us newly undoubled people are saying the same thing--it's nice to have the space, but I'm going to miss Jen (of course, the others are going to miss their cubemates, not mine, but you get the point).

• I'm feeling melancholy today. Just lots of profound thoughts going through my head, lots of deep things I feel like God is teaching me right now. I even had to bullet those in my journal because the thought of processing through each one in detail was exhausting. Why'd I have to be born a mel-head and a deep thinker? Do you ever just want to take a vacation from your own brain?

• I recently discovered a new favorite ice cream: Breyer's Heath Bar something-or-other. Toffee-flavored ice cream with carmel swirls and chunks of Heath bar. Heaven in a 1/2 gallon. Yummmmmmm.

• Also a recent discovery: I love wines made from concord grapes.

• I'm almost finished with Lesley's curtains. I feel bad for taking so long. No more sewing project promises for awhile. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Erik

My friend Kelly's husband Erik passed away last night at 8:30 pm.

Read more about it on their website: http://erikandkelly.ministryhome.org/

Please pray for Kelly and for their two young boys, Alex (2 1/2) and Jensen (10 1/2 months). My heart is grieving for them.

At the same time, however, there is a sense of peace and relief that Erik is finally free of pain and that his struggle is over.

Even in the midst of devastating pain, God is real and has been very obviously present in this situation over the past year and a half. Both Erik and Kelly have mentioned experiencing God more closely through this than ever before, and both of them have spoken with a strong assurance about God's goodness and realness, right in the midst of their suffering. Their faith is a strong testimony.

This is an amazing couple, and their lives have impacted more people than they probably realize. Kelly has been a friend to me and a comfort to me during difficult times of my own. Please pray for her and their boys now, that God would give her that same comfort in the midst of her grief right now.