“Once more, with feeling…”

When I took vocal classes, my first time singing a song was the toughest. I’d spent the week working on it, but now the nerves kick in. At the end of my struggling rendition, the professor would smile and say:

“OK. Once more, with feeling…”

Sometimes you have to get past the first try before you can succeed. Though you want your initial attempt to be perfect, the pressure to produce often works against you. Best to get the first try out of the way, then move on without the nerves.

For many people, this past year was tough. I’ve noticed the usual grousing about how, like my voice lessons, folks are glad to get it over with. 

For me, coming to the end of a relatively good year makes me thankful. I’m especially grateful since I remember the really tough years where it felt like we were getting hit from all sides. We would have just finished licking our wounds and then BAM – here comes something else. Sometimes it’s just relentless.

No doubt you’ve faced some tough things as well. So I’m writing to tell you, after some gut-wrenching years of loss and disappointment, exactly what we did next…

We tried again. We gathered up all our self-pity and pain and poured all that passion into the next year. We stepped into the next season with faith in our hearts, despite the wounds we still nursed.

But the easy thing to do is instead just crawl into a hole and never come out. Once you’ve been bitten, you’re indeed “twice shy”. So we retreat, ignoring the pain of others around us and live a safe, sequestered existence of self-indulgence.

Our culture actually encourages this kind of self-possessed narcissism.

“I deserve a break”

“When do I get some ‘ME-TIME’?”

“I have a right to be happy!”

Sure, I get it. At times, you simply get overwhelmed by all the darkness and want an intermission.

We fight evil, but then evil pushes back. We show love to the hurting, and the hurting bite back at us. Eventually, you start to realize happy endings aren’t guaranteed, and the misery you battle in this world has a funny way of following you home at night.

Why did we ever think life should be easy: that evil would just give up without a fight?

Darkness counts on us giving up. It depends on our love of comfort and safety. And in the process, it robs us of our destiny as heroes to the hurting around us.

But even with all that hovering over us, I’ve determined to start over each year. We look for new ways to help people, God led us to a new place of ministry, and we are stronger and wiser for the whole experience. 

The one thing I guess I’m proudest of is this: we didn’t give up. We kept doing what God had called us to do.

And we’re not just going through the motions, either. We’re not tippy-toeing around, playing defense, being cautious. We’re doing it “once more, with feeling“, with all the passion we’ve got, holding nothing back.

No, you can’t just sleepwalk through it, only going through the motions. Passion is what your Enemy is trying to take from you. Your passion is the fuel that you throw on the fire of God’s work. Without it, you’re just a pile of wet wood.

Like they say, “Go big, or go home”.

What about you? What knocked you to the ground this past year?

Whatever it was, do this: get up, bandage your wounds, and try it once again. Fight the numbness in your heart left by all the pain. And don’t hold anything back – give it everything you’ve got left.

Try it “once more, with feeling”.

Because like my voice lesson, the second time might just be when the real music happens.

pond

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