So Much More in Everything

           Over and over again in life, people have told me that music lyrics are only poetry lines, and I have accepted that until now. It makes perfect sense, after all! Poetry is a way to express feelings and such in a way that has rhythm. Sounds a lot like music to me! But after last night, I realized it is so much more to me.

            The person I talked to last night had agreed to read over my most recent song for rhythm and theology errors and was doing so at the moment we began chatting. “Abigail, you have a real gift when it comes to poetry,” she told me. That small statement caused the wheels in my head to begin to turn. Music was not just poetry to me. But if that is so, what is it?

            I lost some sleep thinking over this, for it troubled me greatly! In a way I could not put into words, my music, and hymns and such, seemed like much more.

Prayer. Praise. Life.

When those three words hit me, confusion struck. Poetry expresses those three things as well, right? Right.

Wrong.

WHAT!?!?!?

My confusion and frustration continued to mount. And suddenly, I had the answer. The problem was my view. When I thought of poetry, my mind always paired it with “boring stuff we kids do for schoolwork”. For me, that’s all life really was. School… more school… oh! Let’s eat lunch… oh wait. Can’t do that. I’ve got more school… school… SCHOOL! Because for a high-schooler, what else does life seem like?

But then the humbling fact slapped me in the face: my view was wrong. Completely wrong.

Poetry wasn’t just school. Life wasn’t just school. I was not created solely for school!

Poetry means nothing unless you have someone to write it for, whether yourself, a friend, a teacher, etc. I focused only on my teacher, what she expected me to write. I wanted to write a sophisticated poem for her so much that all the meaning really became lost. I wrote for man’s glory, lived for man’s glory… seemingly did everything in life for man’s glory.

At a time like that, depression should have kicked in. But it didn’t. Why? Maybe because… STOP. Assumptions are beginning to wear me down so much, let me turn to truth.

God opened my eyes. God works in me. God wants me. God… He’s everything! And now, I knew who I truly wanted to write for: Him. My Creator, Protector, Redeemer, Friend. My Everything. And that made me happy

Poetry equals school unless something more comes into the equation. Life equals school, stress, you name it, unless something else is added. Why? Because a human plus nothing else equals nothing. Lower than nothing, if such a thing existed. And because of that, humans try to find something to fill that nothing. School, relationships, a good job, etc. But it will never work. That would be the depressing part if it was left at that. But it’s not. Why?

Because… nothing + God = everything.

Songwriting does equal poetry put to music. But poetry does not equal school. Poetry equals prayer and praise, life failures and God intervening. Poetry equals a glimpse of God, even if unintended by the writer. Poetry, no… life means so much more than school when God comes into the picture. Because although we are nothing, He is everything.

He.

Is.

          Everything.