This is Your Life

At my roommate's wedding two weeks ago, there was a slideshow. It was put together by her brother and, like all wedding slide shows, contained pictures of her and her new husband. The song her brother chose to play as these pictures scrolled through struck me in the weirdest way and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. The song was "This is Your Life" by Switchfoot. Now, I don't normally like posting song lyrics because it's so overdone, but one line of the chorus has been running through my head the past two weeks and it's really a very simple statement:
"This is your life, are you who you want to be?"
That's it. That's what it is. The rest of the lyrics to the song are mediocre, in fact, some of them don't really make much sense at all, but that line, that one line which is sung over and over, really hit me. This is my life. This is what I've got. Am I the person I want to be? The question isn't, "am I the person I want people to perceive me as being?", it's "is this who I want to be?" I have to differentiate that in my mind because that is a large struggle that God has brought me through in recent years, the whole life struggle of worrying about what other people think of me, and while I'm not totally there 100% of the time, I am happy to report that most of the time I don't really give a rip what people think of me.
But I care what God thinks of me. And I care if I am living up to my committment to being a woman of God and to be honest, I don't think that I have lived up to that in the past 2 years or so. I've made stupid decisions about how to spend my time and money, invested emotions into relationships I knew were bad, and have not lived as though I represent Christ. This realization makes me sad.
A friend asked me tonight what my dreams and goals were for this coming year. Having no idea what I want to do for a career or even where I will be working one month from now, I found that I had a hard time answering this question. But as I listened to the girls talk honestly about wanting to spend more time with God in the coming year, I realized that my goal and biggest dream this year is to start making life choices that reflect who I want to be. And who I want to be is a woman of God.
So this is my life. Am I who I want to be? Well, not exactly. But at least I'm going to do something about it.

Landslide

Uh huh. Those are the Dixie Chicks. For real. I saw them. They waved at me. They think I am cool.
I went to their show last night with my friends. Now, let's just set the record straight: I do not like country music. In fact, I detest it. I do whatever I can to avoid it. So, obviously, when my roommate asked me to go to the Dixie Chicks concert I said yes. No, actually I semi-laughed and said, "well, I sure wouldn't pay money to see them". Another thing you should know, I have always thought that the Dixie Chicks were especially obnoxious-sounding country musicians. So, "no", I said, "I don't want to waste my money on their concert". "oh," Alicia said, "well, my dad offered me four tickets for the Cargill box for the concert." Sweet."Heck yes," I said. I don't have to pay money to see them. Neither do I have to deal with people on the floor. Because we had BOX seats. It really pays to be connected to a high-ranking executive of a major corporation. It also helps if that person connected to the high-ranking executive is you roommate who loves you. It ALSO helps if said people are extremely generous. Which they are. w00t.
Anyways, we went and I was supremely impressed. This doesn't mean that I have converted to a country music fan, I still detest it as much as yesterday, but I have a huge respect for those three women we know as the Dixie Chicks. The musicality they possess is inspiring. They each play a myriad of instruments and play them very very well. They rip out vocals like it's nobody's business, and they genuinely seem to have fun. What's more, they look smokin hot doing it. Seriously. I applaud their hotness. They strutted the stage, playing their fiddles and banjos, for over 2 hours, in stillettos. Not a word of a lie. Huge, hot stillettos. H-O-T. I strive for hotness like that.
So, my point is, the Dixie Chicks have an unbelievable amount of musical talent. I can't deny that. Do I still think that Natalie Maines has an obnoxious voice? Yes. But their songs wouldn't sound the same without it. And she sings so effortlessly, it's impossible not to admire her. Last night made me remember why I am so in love with music. As if I could forget. Although the guy that is trying to sing on Canadian Idol right now is making me wish I didn't have ears. Pain. Lots and lots of pain.