Often in my writing, I use songs as jumping-off-points for my musings. Oftentimes, they are worship songs that I hear at church or on the radio.
A few weeks ago at church, we introduced a new song by Tim Hughes, called “Holding Nothing Back.” It’s a fun song, with some good lyrics, but didn’t stand out to me. I’ll come back to it, though.
About two weeks ago, I had to make my very first employment decision based on Louie. I had been working 40 hours a week and preparing to move up to management, which would entail working 45 or more hours per week, but included salary and benefits. In a hard decision process, I realized that working that much wasn’t actually a reality. As it was, I was working and sleeping and working and sleeping. Everything else that I care about or enjoy had been cut out of my schedule. The only thing I had kept was a few hours of ministry per week, but that was about to get cut too, when I talked to my bosses. As hard as it was, I really didn’t have enough energy or strength to make the decision to work more. In hindsight, it was a great choice.
So, since I all of the sudden had a lot of time on my hands, I got to do more ministry. Due to some transition at church, there actually was a lot more for me to do than usual, which was exciting for me. Still working a few hours a week at my job, I was working 50-60 at church. Yes, it was hard, but relationships were growing, I was getting to do something I love and teach others to do it.
After an entire week of days lasting longer than they should, most without a nap, I drove to church in the early-morning hours of Sunday. The sunrise was beautiful! I went inside, and set up for a crazy day of artists and musicians and technicians and God. By this point, Louie was getting jealous of all the attention other things have been getting, and he started acting up. But then the worship team started running through the set for the day, including this song.
As I ran around like a crazy chicken, up into the catwalks, checking on painters, rounding up stage crew, this phrase kept running through my head. “Nothing’s gonna hold me back.” I was dancing!
Often, I think, it is our decision (more or less) what we’re going to let hold us back. Maybe we change our standards a little, and don’t get held back from what we love. (When I was 18 and 19, I did 30-40 hours of work at the church, the same amount at my job, and was in college full-time.) It would have been easy to let pain or swelling or exhaustion keep me from doing what I love, and what I had set out to do, but I didn’t. It was only by God’s grace that I made it, and did my job as well as I could.
Granted, finding the balance between what our bodies and diseases want and what we want to be able to do is tough. After spending 6 long days working, I felt like I had been hit by a truck, and spent an extra 6 hours in bed the following day. This, though, was worked into my schedule. I saved that Monday for nothing other than resting, giving Louie the attention he wanted, and doing silly things like laundry that had been neglected for a week.
What’s holding you back? Should it be? What do you want to do and how can you make it happen?
I read this quote on someone’s forum page, and it resonated within my soul.
“Perhaps we are like race horses - one of the old traditions was to 'handicap' the greatest horses so that they would not run away from the pack. They would pile on lead weights; whatever was needed to get up to the amount of weight the handicapper said they should carry. We're handicapped because otherwise the world could not keep up with us.”
