And So I Sing

A happy heart makes the face cheerful.
Proverbs 15:13

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
Matthew 12:34

So, I'm having a second honeymoon with God. I think it might be evident to others because they keep asking if I got my hair cut? No. Lost weight? I wish. Am I in love? Why...yes, I am!

When I was in seventh grade, I was a chubby, mullet-sporting, clarinet player with huge glasses - obviously very popular with the boys. All year long I had a secret crush on a boy named Matt Bailey. As far as I was concerned, the sun rose and set on him. Basically, I wanted to marry him and have all his babies. The one tiny problem was I didn't think he knew I was alive.

But during our 7th grade party something amazing happened. As the DJ put on Richard Marx's Right Here Waiting For You, he came and asked me to dance. My legs were Jell-O, but somehow I stood. He took my hand (!) and led me to the center of the gymnasium floor. We faced off and embraced each other in true middle school fashion - his hands on my waist, my hands on his shoulders, both of our arms fully extended and elbows locked as to keep maximum distance between our bodies.

And then we danced. And it was magical. It was just like in my dreams.

Afterwards, I remember floating out of the gym and falling into the backseat of my parent’s car, permagrin in full force. It was dark out and I sunk low into the seat and closed my eyes so I could be alone with my memories. It was over 15 years ago and I can still remember precisely how I felt that night.

Have you ever seen a bellow? Those accordion air pumps that some old fireplaces have nearby to fan the flames? I felt like the left ventricle of my heart was hooked up to the tip of one of those and Big Foot was playing hopscotch on the flat section - pumping, pumping, pumping large channels of air into my heart until it stretched so much it almost popped - and then my rounded heart hovered, floating in my chest, bouncing up and down against my ribcage like a helium balloon bumbles and skirts across a ceiling; full, but light and airy.

I could feel orbs of happiness, like little rubbery balls, ricocheting around the expanse of space in my belly, colliding together and forming larger pools of liquid joy which rose up into my lungs and over the banks of my trachea, bouncing back and forth in the folds of my epiglottis, jumping around to tickle my uvula, dancing the meringue on my tongue and finally melding into pure bliss, rising and bubbling out of me like a pot of boiling water that has been sitting unattended on a hot stove.

The giggling started then. And I couldn’t stop. My parents became suspicious. I told them nothing. I wanted to keep my special night with my special guy my special secret.

Forgive me for what I am going to say next, for as cheesy as this sounds, there is not a better way to describe it. Lately, I feel this same sense of bubbled-over bliss for God. If my friends heard me say this, they might gag and hit me in the face with a throw pillow. But it’s true. I’ll say it. I am one of those people I used to run from. I am sold out Christian. A Jesus freak. So full of God that if I popped a zit right now, I think 100% pure joy would come squirting out. David Crowder explains it much more eloquently than I in his song Wonderful King: "God, you fill our hearts with more than we could hold inside and so we sing... "

La La Laaaaaaaaaaaaa!

<3