Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Half of My Heart

Last week something wonderful happened. I finally liked a song by John Mayer again. Before last week, I was living in the past as far as he concerned. I fell in love with his Room for Squares CD back in 2002 and still play it til this day. There was a time when I couldn't take a car ride over that was over an hour long without it. It is one of the five CDs in my life that I can listen from start to finish without having to skip any of the songs because of annoyance. So last week was the first time I really listened to his song, Half of My Heart featuring Taylor Swift. For those of you who have never heard the song, the chorus lyrics are:
Oh, half of my heart's got a grip on the situation./Half of my heart takes time./Half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you that I can't keep loving you (can't keep loving you)/Oh, with half of my heart.
Based on recent events that inspired my last blog "Can I Love Something Enough to Let It Go?" this song really speaks to where I am right now. Lately, I've been feeling a lot of different emotions about my life. One day I'm happy that I made it this far. The next day I feel like a failure for all of the unfinished projects that are on the laptop I'm typing on right now. The day after that I'm crying because yet another person in my life has found the love of their life. The following day I'm all, "screw them all. Screw it all, really." The proceeding day I feel bad that I personalize a lot of things and can't be happy for someone else without being sad for myself. The day after that I feel at peace with being happy for them and where God has placed me. On the seventh, well, I'm resting (thanks Genesis for the wonderful idea). Today, listening to the song for the 100th time at my cubicle, I began to make a list of the things of what half of my heart is feeling right now.
Half of my heart:
  • Doesn't want to go back to school.
  • Doesn't like what I do for a living.
  • Is in love.
  • Wants to live closer to my family so that no matter how hard my day was I can touch someone who looks like me.
  • Wants to get rid of cable so I can go back to living like an Amish and read and do word searches more.
  • Really wants to risk being 30 with braces if it means that I can close the mile markers on the right side of my mouth.
  • Wants the whole heart to grow a pair so we can really pursue some things.
  • Wants the other half to speak up so it can shut up.
After making this list, I read a bible verse on my lunch break about the heart that I think God put in my sight to comfort and it kind of worked (on one side of my heart anyway).
This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. - 1 John 3:19-20
I Google this verse to find out what it meant. After reading various interpretations, I looked at the part that struck me the most. For God is greater than our hearts. God is greater than anything that I'm feeling right now because he is the one that molds my future and being. Some of the things I listed that are in my heart I feel bad about, especially those things that I know God wants from me. However, when I think God and his love for me, I know that whatever is in my heart will not top what He can and Will do and the fact that if he has no place in my heart, then my heart really means nothing. I have to have God in my whole heart. Not half and not part of the time. I don't feel 100% Christian everyday mostly because of the thoughts that come into my head. But when I think about my life now versus the old me, I know that I'm a Christian and no matter how confused I am about the present and especially the future and what I should and shouldn't do about it, I know that God is in my heart. All of it.

This week John Mayer and I have kissed and made up and I've forgiven him for the last eight years of junk. I wish I could thank him personally for writing a song that made me feel human and okay with my feelings. I like using only half of it because I think I have been able to be 100% honest with myself about how I feel and why. My only prayer for myself this week is that God can help me discern of this half of my heart is on to something or if the other half should come back from vacation soon so I can make whole decisions.