Push "Record"

I have always loved music (Disclaimer...What does that actually mean anyway? Ha! As in, I don't really know anybody who doesn't like or love music)

Ok, I'm digressing. 

I have always loved music. Growing up, I remember my mom playing the piano, and sometimes Kelly and I would play with our stuffed animals around her. My dad would put on the record player, and the sounds of Steve Miller Band, Tina Turner, and others would fill the house. After a year long stint with chorus in fourth grade, I took quickly to band in fifth grade, and even though I was mostly self-taught with a lot of frustration along the way, I was a dedicated flute player from then until I graduated high school. Even as an adult, it's hard for me to be at work without Spotify on. 

My curiosity was peaked the other day when, on Facebook, I came across an article, and its first few paragraphs were all about mixtapes. You know, cassette tapes from the 80's and 90's that you popped into your Walkman and usually wore out within a matter of weeks? I definitely had a few. The article's title, however, was: "God Wants You to Stop Beating Yourself Up." I mean, right then I was drawn in, because, hey...I've been doing a lot of that lately. 

Naturally, I had to keep reading, and...Well, do you ever feel like something was written just for you? I did then, and for this post, I wanted to share what I took away from it, and how it relates to what I've been struggling with. (Text from the article is in blue) 

But we have a different kind of mixtape these days. It doesn’t play the awesome melodies of REO Speedwagon or Journey. I’m not even talking about iPods, Sirius or Spotify. No, these mixtapes are invisible, and they play in our heads and hearts. They play up our fears and insecurities. They play a soundtrack of our failures. They pump out the discouraging tunes of self-hatred with lyrics like:

I need to _________ better.

I should be further along than I am.

My life doesn’t matter.

Have you heard these songs before? They strip our stories of hope and life. They drown out possibility. I’m not sure where these tapes come from, but I know a lot about them. Every verse. Every chorus. Every melody. Every bridge back into the chorus. It’s all pure evil echoing inside our brains like elevator music.

And have you noticed this about your mixtape?

The messages aren’t that creative. The lyrics aren’t catchy or original. They are like a horrible jingle that gets stuck in your head. They repeat the same thing over and over again. “You stink. You stink. You stink.” It’s like being stuck on the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland, but the music you keep hearing sings, “You’re a loser after all.” How unoriginal. What crappy content. How long do you think we should listen to it?

I kind of got that icky uncomfortable feeling, you know the one I'm talking about. I've struggled for a LONG time with not feeling good enough, and while I so wish I could say that those thoughts have packed up and left for good, the truth is that I'm still taking it one day at a time. I go through periods of deep discouragement, wondering if I'll ever change my ways, especially when sneaky ol' pride rears its head. I've tried talking it out, which I've recently realized that no matter how many times I hash it out, I can't change what has happened in the past trying to find a point of origin for the way that I am. I can only try to modify the behavior. Which has proven to be quite difficult. 

What you might call, hopefully, some modicum of an "a-ha moment", came in the next part of the article: 

But then I realized I didn’t need a new life or a new job. I needed a new soundtrack. I needed to deal with the mixtape in my head.

It hit me, and maybe is still hitting me: I am in need of a new mixtape! 

The article goes on to give a few strategies for dealing with the mixtape in your head: calling out baloney on the lyrics, taking control of the buttons, and listen to the mixtape of grace God sings over us every single day. He is not disappointed in us! 

I really like what was said about "taking control of the buttons": 

It’s nice to think we are powerless victims who have no choice but to wallow in self-hatred. It’s convenient since it requires no action on our part. Many of us chose a destructive soundtrack for our lives and actually like the beat and the vibe. It feels familiar. It’s all we know. But just like my gray boom box, the music in our head has buttons such as Play, Pause and Stop. More important, we have a Record button.

If you pushed the red Record button and the Play button on my boom box at the same time, something amazing happened. A new song recorded itself over the old song. So when Madonna stopped being awesome, and I was sick of listening to “Lucky Star,” I could smash down the Play and Record buttons and cover it up with the Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill. On the same tape! 

We have buttons. We get to choose which buttons we push. When the song wears out or it wears us out, we can change it. It doesn’t matter how much we love a song, we can still get tired of it. Trust me, even the best song in the world can start to feel stale. Just like telling yourself over and over again, “You’re stupid. You’re hopeless. It will always be this way.” It grows tiring.

Some of us have stopped listening to the words on our inner mixtapes, but that hasn’t stopped their impact. The music is so much a part of us that we feel the effects even though we don’t hear the tune. The words that play are no longer the tape’s words but our words. And that’s when it gets really scary because we end up in a place far from who God made us to be. We end up completely defined by a lie.

I don't want to be defined by lies! I get to choose which buttons I push, and I know I need to ask God to help me hear His grace-filled mixtape that He plays for me, His daughter. He truly does not want me to beat myself up. He does not want me reacting with pride. He wants me to believe, with everything in me, that I am more than good enough, because of the price He paid on the cross...for me! For all of us. For you. He wants me to record over the mixtape I'm used to hearing, the endless repeat of "You are not good enough", and hear a new mixtape, one that says, "You are my child, and I love you. You are good enough for me, because I died for you. Your husband loves you. You are not a disappointment. You are not full of failure. Receive my grace."

Lord, help me get used to hearing that! I don't think I'd ever get tired of that! 

Full text article can be found here: God Wants You to Stop Beating Yourself Up