Amazing Grace was played in church the Sunday after I re-launched this site, sharing my big secret with everyone. If you think I had a dry eye as we all rose to our feet, singing perhaps one of the most recognized and powerful hymns known to the western world, you don’t know that I’m especially prone to crying.
I tear up unexpectedly, at the drop of a hat, particularly when music is involved. Prime example, at the end of the movie Elf, Zooey Deschanel is leading a group singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in the middle of Central Park. The film’s climax is the moment when the skeptical, Scrooge-type “Dad” character in the movie finally joins in and Santa’s sleigh takes flight over the crowd. Every, single, stinkin’, time, I get choked up, overwhelmed with the Christmas spirit. Yes, I’m a nerd. Moving on.
That Sunday after my Independence Day, singing Amazing Grace, understanding the weight of the phrase, “that saved a wretch like me,” I was in a suspended moment. I felt completely full and totally empty, simultaneously. I was whole and time was irrelevant.
Happy tears.
Amazing Grace popped up on my internet radio playlist last week. This time, a different lyric captured me, but brought me to a similar weightlessly full moment:
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.
Again, the gravity of the lyrics opened up a well in my soul. I wasn’t simply acknowledging the concept of eternity, I was briefly touching it, understanding that my pedal-to-the-metal MO will be completely useless in Heaven.
Suspended, timeless, touching a thin place.
This past week, when I find myself overwhelmed, fixated on my t0-do list, I stop and sing in my head. “We’ve no less days,” because there are no deadlines on Heaven’s eternal clock. The world will not end if I don’t cross off all of my to-do’s, but my soul will dry up if I don’t slow down to accidentally wander into timeless moments.
Have you had any timeless moments recently? I’d love to hear about them! Use the comments section to share your stories.
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