Take a Chance on Love

It is with careful steps that this bird walks onto the wire called the blogging world. Yes, I am the girl who signed up for a Twitter account (so that I could get a free burger from some place that was giving them away if you had an account) and has only tweeted one time. So, the one who never chirps on Twitter is now writing a blog! Brace yourself, I have no idea what is in store.

I was inspired by a book that I received one Christmas called 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die which includes reviews on all genres and decades of music from classical, jazz to rock. The tagline on the back of the book says “The Musical Adventure of a Lifetime” and that was really intriguing to me. What if I was to listen to albums from the book and then share whatever ideas or inspirations come forth from that?

So, here we go. I crack open the first page of the book and the first album entry: ABBA. What could be better for a Monday morning? I dust off the CD and start clicking through the songs to the hits “Dancing Queen,” “Take a Chance on Me,” and “Waterloo” and find myself wanting to have my own personal dance party complete with a hairbrush for a microphone.

What is it that I love about this music? Somehow when I listen to this, I find myself waking up inside, pushing aside my insecurities, and daring to be who I really want to be: vibrant, alive, courageous, and brave enough to have karaoke with my hair products. For 4 minutes and 4 seconds I can confidentially stand in the skin and identity of who Christ made me to be and sing “take a chance on me.” I want to be known for that—for wearing my heart on my sleeve no matter how messy or foolish that may seem. To love deeply.

Isn’t that our hearts’ desire? To be really seen, with all of our failings and fears, and to be accepted and loved anyway. In this season, I am learning to believe that, to really believe, that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. There is no place too far that we can go. Fear does not have a hold on us. We are compelled to love by a love that purses us. God laces up his running shoes and runs to find us to remind us of who we really are and how much he loves us. Once he finds us, he wants to have a dance party to celebrate.

And ABBA will probably be on the stereo.