"some will seek forgiveness, others escape" by underoath

It's a rather awkward title. That's what I said when the Joyful Noise pitch passed around D.D.'s a cappella arrangement of this song. We sight-read through it, the JN alums and the current members, and a lot of us laughed at the end. At such a somber choice for the first song during our jam session.

A part of me had a hard time moving past this first song, though. After I came home from the craziness that was Carnival, I looked it up on YouTube....and discovered that I liked D.D.'s arrangement a lot better than the original song itself. There is a quiet moment of truth in the midst of this ultra-emo song (with its mostly melodramatic lyrics and screaming at the end that I found incongruous with the words the singer's screaming out). This quiet moment of truth that brought flashes of images to my mind, while we were singing D.D.'s version of this song together in UC Room 303. Images of me yelling at my husband, of me crumpling up photos, of me writing angry words, of me wanting to end my life.

These are the words that made me remember them:

Hey unfaithful, I will teach you
To be stronger, to be stronger
Hey ungraceful, I will teach you
To forgive one another

Hey unfaithful, I will teach you
To be stronger, to be stronger
Hey unloving, I will love you
I will love you

My son was being extra clingy today during naptime, and refused to sleep unless I held him and walked to and fro in the bedroom. So I did, and then as I stood still and rocked him in his sleep, being bored out of my mind, I remembered these words again.

So true, they are so true. They are what God has been doing in my life. To an unfaithful, ungraceful, unloving someone like me, he has taught and is--everyday--teaching me to be stronger, to be more forgiving. By loving me.

And, as Good Friday tomorrow will remind me again, by first showing his love for me through dying for me. For this broken, sad world.

God, truly I love you because you first love me. I know there will be a time (there already has been some) when my son just wants his own way, and throws fits and acts like a real jerk. I look forward to these opportunities to love the way God loves. These opportunities that are very small simulacra of the way he loves me and the world.