March 19 – “Song stuck in your head”

So what do you do when you get a song stuck in your head?  Is there really any way to consciously destroy the refrains that simply refuse to depart after they have served their effectiveness?  And what is that effectiveness, anyway?   Yesterday Chris and I worked outside again.  It started off like any other manual labor kind of day.  Beautiful weather.  Chris' determined spirit.  Determined to finish something on her list so she can check it off, that is.  Cailyn had spent the night with us, so we had a bit of a reprieve in the morning.  I mean, we had to play with her, didn't we?  Her parents arrived just before lunch, though, so I knew then that time was running out.  I even began my warmup procedures by pulling some of those evil, grow-in-a-circle, produces-imposter-stickerburs weeds from the front yard while Chris fixed some spaghetti for lunch.  And that's when it started.   Now it's not that unusual for me to sing songs while I'm working outside.  Especially since I rarely sing them out loud.  It's amazing just how good I am when I serenade myself from inside my head.  And most of the time I don't even make a conscious decision to sing this song or that one.  They just seem to rise up of their own accord.  The music within begins.  Most of the time the songs are the ones that we sang the Sunday before at church or on Thursday at home group or maybe ones that I heard on the radio in the truck.  Wouldn't usually hear songs in the car because Chris doesn't particularly like to have the radio on when she's driving.  She doesn't mind the music.  It's the incessant chatter of the deejays that drive her batty.    I don't remember what progression of songs I went through to start my private jam session, but I can't forget where it stalled.  Don't get me wrong, the song was not a bad one.  In fact it's an antique hymn, for crying out loud.  The name of it, I think, is One Day.  Goes like this: Living he loved me, dying he saved me, buried he carried my sins far away, rising he justified freely forever, one day he's coming, oh glorious day.  There are verses that go with it, too, but unfortunately they never made it.  It was just those words.  Over and over and over.  I tried mixing them up.  Living he saved me, buried he justified.  Didn't really work.  Every time I tried to change it, the song would fight back and I'd hear it four or five times in a row – the correct way.  I thought maybe telling Chris about it would help.  You know, acknowledge its presence and the loss of mystique would dampen its resolve.  Not so much.  By this time we were painting the back side of the house, a task that we had been putting off for more than a year at least.  We did finish it, by the way, and Chris got to cross it off her list.  And still the song remained.  I couldn't even effectively replace it with a different song.  In fact I couldn't even think of a different song.  Living he loved me …  Over and over again.  We put the paint away and moved to pulling weeds from the lawn on the back.  Dying he saved me …  Over and over.  I finally gave up and began contemplating why this particular song.  Best I could come up with was that since we have been studying the Apostles' Creed, and since the Apostles' Creed is a statement of belief, and since that song was also a statement of belief, maybe I could somehow use it as some kind of illustration for the teaching on Sunday.  Sure.  Practical application.  That had to be it.   That proved to be it, indeed.  As soon as I started thinking about practical uses the song began to fade.  Wait.  Now I want it.  Come back.  How did that song go?  It was right in the tip of my tongue.   Isaiah 55:6-7 says, "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.  Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.  Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon."   Father, I really do thank you for living, and dying, and being buried, and rising, and promising to come back.  Even if I don't always remember the words to the song.  Amen.