We have been so busy around here that I haven't had time to watch it at all. And we don't DVR or anything like that, but Friday night I had a rare night completely alone (not something I recommend, I missed everyone so bad I could hardly stand it) and I was able to catch up on all of The Voice episodes I had missed by watching them on the computer.
Oh how I pray that someone out there is as sappy as I am because let me tell you, THIS kid, Jake Worthington, brought me to tears, not once, but two or three times!
It is true that he could have brought me to tears because every Keith Whitely song brings me to tears, or the thought of Keith Whitley's life, or the so very sad circumstances of his young death due to alcohol addiction. And yes, I do believe that is part of why I was tearing up. But by the third time I was tearing up, I had to ask myself, why is this Jake getting to me so much? And I knew it was because of exactly what the judges said....he is so REAL. Even before they said that about him, I had been sitting there, as a parent, thinking, "God, I can only pray that you allow my children to be as real as this kid is."
I love to be optimistic. I think it is something that my faith brings to the table and I find it easier if my glass is half full, but, like many of you out there, I had a really rough week. The reality is that most of you probably had a way rougher week than I. Still, I could hide behind a "blog facade" and write about something frilly and nice and wrap it all up like a fairy tale at the end of the blog, but this week was just plain hard.
Goodbye's alone are enough to break a week, but throw in there the rest of life...this week I have prayed for my mom who is sick, my aunt who is not feeling well. I sat with The Yankee as he tried to reach out to a friend over the phone, hearing a conversation that broke my heart. Another person dear to my heart confided in me of a conversation that seriously hurt someone she and I both love, which also was heartbreaking. I even got pulled over by the police for crying out loud!!! Really, I did!!!
And as I look back, what I can take out of all of it that is positive is this..goodye's are hard, but they are real and they come from a place of The Yankee and I trying to live out a genuine life that God put before us and doing our best to live in a real manner that He would have us live. Listening to my mom be sick over the phone when I am too far away to help is hard, but it is real and she is just about the most real person I know. I heard my husband be so heartfelt with his friend over the phone and heard that person just use excuse after excuse after excuse, making me all that more grateful for loving someone who knows how to be real.
I think there are a lot of people out there like me, who long to live in a world full of real, genuine, heartfelt people. I think it is why country music is so popular. I think it is why the Jake Worthingtons and the Scotty McCreery's of the world soar to popularity in these reality show contests. (For the record, I have never watched American Idol, but I do love Scotty Mcreery.)
Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it’s anything but that. Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.” Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast. So let’s live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread—simple, genuine, unpretentious.
I look at this Jake and I look at my kids and I say, "Dear Jesus, help us to raise them as genuine as we can." I have always worn my heart on my sleeve and was convinced until Friday night that it was a bad thing. Then this kid just puts it all out there and hides no feelings from anyone and it takes watching a 16 year old kid that I don't even know to make me realize that it is ok for me to be real! Even though I had already known it was in God's word to be just that!
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