Luke and I spent a lot of tonight finding random songs from our younger years and talking about where we were at that moment and what the songs reminded us of.  For instance, PFR makes me think of 4th and 5th grade, and the mixtapes Alli used to make for me (with everyone from dc Talk to Susan Ashton and Jars of Clay).  Hi Alli!   I didn’t really listen to Jennifer Knapp until I got into high school, but her music reminds me of a close friend of mine that I lost, and everything that was going on in my life at that point… dc Talk’s Supernatural and Rachael Lampa’s first cd remind me of Rockpile, and Jeremy Camp’s first cd puts me squarely on stage with echo, wondering just how the heck we were actually going to open for him.  Rascal Flatts puts me in the living room with Jess and Lauren.  Imogen Heap reminds me of how excited and nervous I was when Luke and I started dating.  All the memories were so intense.  So much has happened in my life, and it is almost overwhelming to be enveloped by it all at once.

It made me laugh, though.  I never consciously sat down and thought about those songs at those moments in my life.  They were just there, becoming a part of my life and who I am.  I wonder what songs I hear now that will be “that song I always listened to when…”  someday in my life.  I am excited to see what the future brings.  I could never have imagined today when I was ten.  What will life look like in another fifteen or twenty years?  How am I living today fully to get to those next years?  

“What we are today comes from our thoughts from yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow.”  - the founder of Buddhism, whose name I have currently forgotten.  (I know, I know…)  

What I plan for and work towards today makes me who I will be tomorrow.  God didn’t create me already completed.  I have to keep stepping forward today, planning and hoping for tomorrow.  And He will work things out in me, in my heart and mind to make me the person He’s made me to be.  And I like that idea.  I am imperfect and unfinished, but I will not always be.  No one starts out to build a house with an already completed house.  They start with a foundation, and wood and glass and concrete.  Then they add carpet and furniture.  Then they try to paint a wall in their bedroom a really pretty chocolate brown that gets screwed up and they have to call an interior decorator to come fix it.  (Oh, wait.  That was me.  Never mind.)

I am learning to appreciate the process of life.  I can’t even tell you how much I love and appreciate all the many people that have been around me, teaching me to walk and talk (hi Mom and Dad!), teaching me to love, teaching me to be alive and real, calling me out on things when I am a broken disaster, picking me up when all I want to do is sleep, staying up all night laughing, driving through snowstorms with me, dancing with me.  (You all know who you are!)  All these people have made me who I am today, and I still carry their influence in my life.  I am so grateful to all of you.  I have a pretty sweet soundtrack in my life.