the sun comes up

I try to stay writing. And it’s funny how what I write goes in cycles. For a long time, I’ve had a general goal of writing at least one song every month. Some months I’ve written many more…and some none at all. Recently, I’ve been missing the mark. I haven’t felt much like writing songs, haven’t found any.

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This week has been the most charged week I’ve been through in a while:
(Act 1)

The first few days were not good, not good. I worry about the future a lot. How the heck am I going to pay for college? What exactly am I aiming for out here: relationships, career, spirituality? Some bad choices and the last push at the end of the semester had me feeling really heavy.

Wednesday morning, on the way to school, the verse of the day app *dinged* a notification. I played the audio from the chapter – Jeremiah 33. (And no, it’s not “I know the plans I have for you”). Towards the end, it goes like this,

“The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah; “This is what the Lord says: ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time, then my covenant with David my servant…can be broken. . . . This is what the Lord says: ‘If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant. For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them.” – Jeremiah 33:19-21, 25-26

And I was driving through the bitterly cold morning in a small red car thinking, wow – that’s quite a statement. His promise to these people, that he would restore them and have compassion on them, was as sure as the day coming after the night – as sure as the laws of gravity. He said if you can break that covenant: the one that says the sun always comes up after the cold dark night – that a ball will come back down if you toss it up, if you can break that one, only then do have cause to fear his rejection.

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(Act 2)

Wednesday afternoon, after I finished my last class of the day and met with two professors, I walked down the hill and sat on the hood of my car to eat a bag of Doritos in the sunshine. I got a phone call from the college admission lady I’m assigned to. Her number crunching has proven quite suspect…but if she was right this time, it looked like tuition was going to be $2,000 cheaper than we had thought – knocking it down to right around my target number of $7,500 a year. Math not being her forte, I was hesitant to leap for joy…but this was potentially great news.

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(Act 3)

Today (Thursday) at work, I got the pretty much official email saying that it was true. Glory! I will be less broke next year. I printed it out and stashed it in the pocket of my bag, protected by a blue folder. At 4:35, I started walking home from work. And I reckon is was about 4:40 when I checked the mailbox. There I found a letter from an old friend. It was the most beautiful letter I’ve read in a long time. Something like folded arms opened wide. And it reminded me of a song I wrote back in April, back when I felt like writing songs – a month that I wrote three. I had already made a demo of it…and I don’t reckon I could play it any better in November than April anyway.