Musical Mondays - Francesca Battistelli - "Strangely Dim"

So I decided the other day on my way home from class, that it would be really cool if I took the lyrics of songs that speak to me and share them with all of you. I'll go through each song bit by bit and dig into what each songs says to me. Some of these will be songs on the radio, some will be older, and some will be my own writings. So, to start it all out, I want to introduce you to a fairly new song by the wonderful Francesca Battistelli, called Strangely Dim.

I've had all these plans piled up sky high
A thousand dreams on hold
And I don't know why,
I got a front row seat
To the longest wait
And I just can't see
Past the things I pray
Today

But when I fix my eyes on all that You are
Then every doubt I feel
Deep in my heart
Grows strangely dim
All my worries fade
And fall to the ground
Cause when I seek Your face
And don't look around
Any place I'm in
Grows strangely dim

Sometimes where I stand
On this narrow road
Is in a raging storm
Or a valley low
But oh

When I fix my eyes on all that You are
Then every doubt I feel
Deep in my heart
Grows strangely dim
All my worries fade
And fall to the ground
Cause when I seek Your face
And don't look around
Any place I'm in
Grows strangely dim

I don't know, I don't know
What tomorrow may hold
But I know, but I know
That You're holding it all
So no matter what may come

I'm gonna fix my eyes on all that You are
'Til every doubt I feel
Deep in my heart
Grows strangely dim
Let all my worries fade
And fall to the ground
I'm gonna seek Your face
And not look around
Til the place I'm in
Grows strangely, strangely, strangely dim.

So, the first time I heard the entire song in full, I instantly knew that this song was going to be a song that will get me through a lot of hard times I'm going to face. Very upbeat and springy, but also very real. Francesca definitely does not sugar-coat her feelings in this song. So let's dissect it, shall we?


I've had all these plans piled up sky high
A thousand dreams on hold
And I don't know why,
I got a front row seat
To the longest wait
And I just can't see
Past the things I pray
Today

The first verse is something akin to what I believe many people my age feel. We feel like we've come through this time in our life that we've had planned out by adults, and now that it has come to an end, we wonder what happens next. We, I especially, have all these big dreams and plans that we want to have happen in our lives, and we are not a generation who likes to wait. We want things to happen quickly and we want things now. So when Christians my age get to this point, we look around and feel as if we're not quite adults yet, and yet we're not kids anymore. It's another awkward stage in life, almost as awkward as those dreadful middle school years. When we pray for guidance, and ask God for those dreams that we want to have happen, we end up getting stuck in this cycle of waiting, and a lot of times, waiting can lead to uncertainty an anxiety. I know that right now, I'm waiting for several things. I'm waiting to hear from Current Canada and get my placement e-mail; I'm waiting on graduating; I'm waiting for the right time to pursue a relationship; I'm waiting for a job; I'm waiting to move out and go to a university. There are so many things my generation is waiting for, and we get downhearted by the wait sometimes and can't see past our immediate surroundings to God's bigger picture.


But when I fix my eyes on all that You are
Then every doubt I feel
Deep in my heart
Grows strangely dim
All my worries fade
And fall to the ground
Cause when I seek Your face
And don't look around
Any place I'm in
Grows strangely dim

This is the chorus of the song, and it full of spiritual truths. When we turn to God and come to him with every single one of our burdens and we focus solely on Him, everything of this world falls away, and nothing else really matters but Him. Every doubt, every fear, every struggle we deal with, it all fades in comparison with the assurance and hope we have in Christ. All the things we worry about tend to fall by the wayside when we look in God's Word and actively seek His promises and blessings.


Sometimes where I stand
On this narrow road
Is in a raging storm
Or a valley low
But oh

The second verse is pretty self-explanatory. Sometimes, life gets hard. There's no way around it. When we stick to the path God has laid out for us, we are going to go through hard times, whether they be chaotic, or just dark. But that doesn't matter, because God is on our side.


I don't know, I don't know
What tomorrow may hold
But I know, but I know
That You're holding it all
So no matter what may come

The bridge of this song states something that is very obvious and that is told to us several times in the Bible. We don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. We can't see the future. If we could, we might all go crazy. But we have the knowledge that God knows what happens next, even if we don't. All we have to do is simply trust Him, because no matter what happens, we look on the face of God, and he will lead us home.

Praising Him,

Emily E.

Dealing with Failure

Failure. Disappointment. Not good enough. Chances are, most of us have been called one of these at some point in our lives. Whether it was by a parent, friend, teacher, or ourselves, somehow we all get this label. I can't recall many times where other people have called me a failure, but I know I have called myself one many times over my relatively short life.

Many of these times have been when it comes to the areas of academics and extra-curricular activities. I remember the first time I got an F on an assignment. It was a 3rd grade math assignment, and I didn't see there were more problems on the back. When I got the paper back in my take-home folder that Friday, I was so shocked, I dropped the folder on the floor. I had never gotten anything below a B (I think), and I was so scared. I remember thinking I was going to be in so much trouble when mom goes through the folder. I then sat and gave myself a very harsh mental scolding, saying that I was stupid, and why didn't I check the other side of the paper, and GOSH you are an idiot, Emily. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Another time, in 7th grade band, we were having our last chair testing to see who would play what part at the end-year recital, and I had been 1st chair the entire year, so I was really cocky about this test. Ends up, I was a little too confident, and ended up messing up terribly. I ended up going from 1st to 5th. There were eight clarinet players, so that was a pretty bad. I'm pretty sure I cried myself to sleep that night, after thoroughly beating myself up mentally for being such a terrible musician, and you don't deserve to even be in symphonic band, who do you think you are, you'll never be good enough, you should just quit, you sorry excuse of a clarinetist...

Of course, thanks to my parents being godly people, I've never experienced that kind of verbal abuse from them, or anybody now that I think about it. Of course, many people are never told by others that they are failures, they thrust those ideas upon themselves, which leads them to believing them for their entire lives if they're not careful.

As Christians, we are not promised that we will succeed in everything we try. Christ never said life after salvation was going to be an easy, breeze through everything you do kind of endeavor. No, life is going to be hard, there are going to be challenges that you are going to face, things that you are going to have to do, and as hard as it is to admit, sometimes you're going to come short of your own goals.

And you know what? That is okay. Nobody but you can give you the drive for you to achieve, no one else can place your goals upon you. Only you can do that. So when you don't quite make it to those goals, the only person you're letting down is yourself. Everyone else is just proud that you took on that challenge. They didn't hold you to an impossibly high goal, and if they did, it was because they believed in you, not because they wanted to see you fail. You tried, and that is good.

Earlier today (2/16/13), I got my scores for the January SAT, and my score was about 300 points away from being eligible for the largest Bright Futures Scholarship (the Bright Futures Scholarship is a scholarship program by the state of Florida that is given to outstanding or exceeding students, and is funded through lottery money). I was really confidant in my scores, and I thought I might have a chance, but I added them up, and I just barely missed the mark. I was so disappointed, but then I looked back at my scores. My math score had gone up 80 points. I went from a 490 to 570. I actually got in the 500's in math this time. This was my fourth time taking the SAT, and I finally got a math score in the 500's. That was one good thing. The other good thing was I still over-qualified for the second-highest scholarship. And there is always the March SAT if I want to take it again, but I don't think I will.

There are two ways to approach your apparent failure. You can either wallow in pity and self-depreciation, or you can analyze what happened, and find the good in it. What did you learn from this? After turning in a half-done assignment, I learned to always check and make sure I did everything that was asked of me. After dropping to 5th chair, I learned to not let my abilities get to my head, and that I still needed to practice, even if I was better than everyone else without it. I'm not quite sure what I learned from the SAT yet, other than it is an evil test, but I'll let you know when I do.

Smiling through the problems,
Emily E.

Thoughts on the Future

I don't know about y'all, but I tend to get really nervous thinking about the future. Or thinking about change, for that matter. I don't like it, I get uncomfortable with the idea of some unknown experience or variable that pops into my short range view of my life. I like the way things are. Most Christians like the way their lives are; they are fine with being comfortable.

But we are Christians, we are supposed to be in Christ and of Christ. We are meant to live like He did. Jesus wasn't comfortable. Jesus wasn't allowed to be comfortable. If He had been content with comfort, He would have never come to Earth to live as a human. He would have stayed in Heaven where He could be Christ in His full glory and power. But instead, in order to save our dirty sinful souls, Jesus became uncomfortable willingly. He stayed awake for days on end, to a point where it became unhealthy, to serve people, to heal sickness. He never had a bed or a house to call His own, he was constantly traveling. He went through torture to save us.

Our modern day society was not the only one focused on comfort. People in Jesus' day were, too. Many people, not just the Twelve, would follow and travel with Jesus, listening to His teaching. But as soon as Jesus said something that didn't quite fit with their idea of comfortable things, they said, "Ooh, that makes me nervous. I don't agree with that, because that would involve me stepping outside of my comfort zone, and that's not okay". Those who were uncomfortable with His teaching left and went back to their families and their homes, where they knew it was safe and predictable.

But we are Christians. We aren't allowed to be content with being comfortable. When we become comfortable, we become complacent. We don't care about what God wants for our lives. We start to forget what God has done for us and called us to do, and that's not okay. We begin to become autonomous, living and functioning freely from the rest of the world, focused solely on our own lives and our ideas of important things.That is not okay.

I'm not saying that Americans and other Western countries are committing a terrible sin by living in a way that the majority of have beds, and a variety of foods to eat, an abundance of clothes in our closets, and a house we go home to every night. I'm saying we as Christians should start being scared about the idea of spiritual comfort. We are meant to be learners of God's Word and of God's Will. Being comfortable means not being stretched, not learning. What is a Christian if he does not grow? We should always be spiritually willing to allow God to stretch us and call us to new experiences and new revelations.

I'll be the first person to admit it, I do not like the idea of going on trips. Vacations are good, because they are planned and re-planned several times, so everyone knows exactly what's going to happen, when you're going to get to your destination, and what you're going to do when you get there (although there is always the possibility of a vehicle breaking down, or of bad weather putting a damper on your happy little group, both of which have happened to me and my family).

No,vacations are great, exciting. But trips that are specifically taken to find out which direction your future is going to go, are absolutely terrifying. My family and I are going to visit two colleges over Spring Break, and two others on different weekends. I don't want to go. The idea of assessing a college and it's campus is slightly overwhelming. Of course after that I have to choose a college. I don't want to have to do that either, because that means that I am accepting the fact that I am leaving my family. I don't want to leave my family, as much as I can't stand them sometimes. They are a source of comfort for me, why would I want to willingly leave that?

Because in order to grow, you must stretch yourself to what you know you can be.

After college visitng, comes graduation. That's a pretty big deal to me. I once thought that I would not graduate, not because I wasn't good enough in school, oh no. I know I'm smart, I'm an accelerated student who did better in most of her college classes than the actual college kids last semester. No, it wasn't because I'm not smart enough. I thought, and I'm sure my parents thought this as well, that I was never going to graduate because I was making choices that would have led me down the path of a self-destructive, homeless drop-out. Had my parents allowed me to stay in the environment I was in, I would have become unrecognizable. I look at the choices those former friends or mine are making, and I cringe, because I would have made those same mistakes, and I would have destroyed my life just like they did. But now, with graduation in my sight, I am reminded almost daily that this was not something that I accomplished; this was the work of my Savior. I shouldn't be here, as a dual-enrolled college student, writing a blog about spiritual matters. I should be the girl crashing at a friend's house because my own parents refuse to support my lifestyle. I should be long gone.

And right after graduation, is Canada. I have gotten to the point where I just want to pack up and go already. As much as I don't like thinking about the future, I don't like waiting even more. I was never a patient person, whether it be waiting in line at a theme park, or on a long car ride, or waiting for my parents to finish getting ready for church. I don't like waiting, because there is always the possibility that you waited too long, and you end up getting there late. (I don't like being late, I loathe it. It is a terrible, terrible thing that comes from being unprepared, and it makes you look like you don't care about everybody else's time. And that's not cool.) I don't even know where in Canada I'm going yet, but I want to go. I don't want to sit around anymore. But at the same time, I don't want to go at all. I just want to stay here at home, and go through the summer with my friends and family like I always have. None of this packing up and being gone for two months, I want to stay here.

But as much as I contradict myself, I have to always, always remind myself that I am supposed to be willing and let God stretch me and grow me into the best person he wants me to be. It isn't comfortable, nor is it always going to be a pleasurable experience. But that doesn't mean you won't be happy when it happens. Because if you are willing to let God move you, and you stay planted in His Word, you will always have a peace and joy about you that won't ever let you go.

Emily E.

A Hard Pill to Swallow

This has been a very emotional week for me and my friends. Our youth pastor and his family, who have been with us for four years, are being called to a different church. This wasn't something any of us expected, nor is it something we wanted. So many questions have been running through my head since Sunday, I just don't know how to take it all in.

On Wednesday in the youth group, he talked to us about where we went from here. What happens now, if you wish. It was so hard not to simply cry my eyes out in front of everybody as I listened to him, because even though it was his last time talking to us, what he said, God had already spoken to me throughout the week in my personal times with Him. And everything he said was hard to swallow. The biggest for me was most definitely to not get sidetracked and distracted when these things happen.

When our pastor announced he was leaving, one thought that ran through my mind was whether or not I should still go to Canada. As many know I am a Senior in high school this year, and I feel as I have some kind of leadership position within our youth group. With that position, I can't help but feel as if I need to stay here over the summer and help the group transition between pastors. But our youth pastor, and my mom later on, said it so truthfully. God has called me to Canada to do a ministry that no one else can do. And if I stay here, I am going to hinder ministry both here at home and in Canada. God will still use somebody else, but the results won't be the same, I will miss out on that relationship with God that is forged on mission trips, and I'll miss the opportunity that God has given me.

As true as that is, it is so, so hard to accept. Which led me to thinking today, what other things to I know in my mind but in my heart I refuse to accept?

What are we meant for? Why are we here? Are we here to take up space? Or are we here to help people? As Christians, we are here to show, share, and be Jesus to the lost people. We are not just here. We have a reason. Ultimately, we all have the same job - to show people the way to Christ. How we do that is different from every person, but is all the same in the end.

WE have a job to do, whether we realize it or not. WE are not here to party, to work, to just live. We are here to live for Jesus.To live in a way that glorifies God, not ourselves. And every day, we should live in a way that reflects the love of the Man who died to save us. Because whether or not we realize it, someone is always watching, be it our friends, coworkers, family, or a child. Someone is watching everything you do, listening to everything you say.

That right there, is something that most Christians refuse to accept in their hearts. But you know what, I determine right now, to accept that, and do live it. It's one thing to say something, it's another to live it out.

One thing that I find really hard to accept, no matter how many times it's brought up, is that according to the world, I know nothing of value, because I'm only seventeen years old. But according to God, I know so much more. Because I'm young, people are watching, waiting for me to screw up.

But what if I didn't screw up? What if I didn't fail? What if I succeeded, if I won? What if I proved them wrong? Then, I wouldn't just be looked at, I would be looked to. I would set an example, be a leader. People would look at me and say, "She's a good girl. She follows God's Will". God doesn't just want me to be good, he wants me to be excellent, to be everything I need to be in order for His work to be done.

Sometimes God, the Great Physician, gives us hard pills to swallow. Whether they be life circumstances, ideas, or convictions, it's all the same. Nothing is going to hurt any less than something else. God's conviction on a sin in your life is not going to be any more or less painful than losing a loved one. And that's simple the way life is.

Still in the valley, but looking towards the Son,
Emily

In the Valley

There are times in your life when a part of your life that has been so stable, so constant for so long, is suddenly ripped from under you. There's no warning, no signs of change; it just happens. Of course, things go on around you without you knowing, but when it comes to light it's so shocking.

When things like this happen in my life, I, like so many other people, begin to ask questions. I don't voice many of my questions aloud, but they're there nonetheless. When did this happen? Why does it have to be this way? Why now instead of later? What happens next? How do I handle this correctly? Recently, a very prominent question I have thought over is, How do I help others get through and transition between now and later? Do I take on the weight of other people's sorrow, do I stand and encourage them? Or do I sit and let everyone absorb this at their own pace?

Whatever happens though, as hard as times become, we have to remember to keep moving. The world is still spinning, the sun is still shining, the seasons are still changing, people are still living their lives. Most importantly though, God is still Sovereign, He is still in control, and He still has a plan.We don't see that plan as he does, but it's there, and He's still walking us through it.We don't have to understand why something happens, we just have to understand that God knows what He's doing, and trust that whatever happens brings glory to Him.

Nobody ever said life was going to be easy, and nobody ever said that there wouldn't be times of darkness. The Bible says there will be times of darkness, when you're in the valley between the mountains, where darkness and fear of the unknown tend to overtake you. But the Bible also says, that though you will end up in the valley, you're not alone if you are a Christian. Jesus walks with you. He keeps you safe and comforts you.

When I look around and all I see is empty darkness all around me, that is when I look up. Because even though I am surrounded by darkness on every side, the sky is never gone. And in the sky, in Heaven, is Jesus. Jesus, who protects me, and loves me, and keeps me sheltered. He is always there, no matter what I go through or where I am. And so I know, that even when everything around me seems hopeless, there is always something better on the horizon. My soul may be in the valley today, but my mind and eyes are on the Lord, who gets me through it all.

In the valley for a moment,
Emily E.