{"id":879,"date":"2012-01-08T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2012-01-08T15:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=879"},"modified":"2012-01-08T23:19:42","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T05:19:42","slug":"the-music-in-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=879","title":{"rendered":"The Music in Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was an American author, poet, doctor, and teacher of the 1800s.\u00a0 Ever since I read his clever poem the Deacon\u2019s Masterpiece <\/a>about a one-hoss shay in high school I have been drawn to his work.\u00a0 So many quotes are attributed to him and here is one of my favorites\u2026\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u201cAlas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always wondered what he meant when he wrote that.\u00a0 Is it that we allow the shattered hopes, disillusionments, unfulfilled expectations, hurts, rejections, and broken promises of life to beat us down so much that the \u201cmusic\u201d that lies within us will never be played?\u00a0 Or is it that the \u201cmusic\u201d lays within us because we are too timid to sing?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always thought it was referring to fear.\u00a0 Maybe we are just afraid to step out and do something.\u00a0 We are afraid of what others will think.\u00a0 We are afraid we will make a mistake.\u00a0 We are afraid we will be hurt.\u00a0 In many ways we can be our own worst enemy.\u00a0 We talk ourselves out of happiness, success, relationships, and usually what we fear or anticipate is far worse than what actually happens.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example.\u00a0 A few years ago I had a tooth pulled.\u00a0 It was what they call a \u201cdry socket\u201d which has a very painful healing process.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m deathly afraid of dentists.\u00a0 It took every bit of courage I had to just go get the tooth pulled.\u00a0 So when the dentist said, \u201cIf this gives you any pain, come back to me and I\u2019ll take care of it for you,\u201d I thought, \u201cYeah, right!\u201d\u00a0 I conjured up visions of Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist in Little Shop of Horrors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first couple of days I had excruciating pain.\u00a0 I called and got a prescription for some high-powered painkillers but even they didn\u2019t do the trick.\u00a0 About the fourth day I became \u201cpainfully\u201d aware that I would have to go back to \u201cSteve\u201d for some relief.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I tentatively came in and told him my problem.\u00a0 He put me in \u201cthe chair,\u201d looked me over, smiled wryly, and said, \u201cI\u2019ll fix you right up.\u201d Then he took a piece of gauze, dipped it in a solution, tucked it in the cavern where my tooth once was, and presto, change-o, NO PAIN.\u00a0 So for four days I had suffered unnecessarily because of what I feared would be done to me. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I wonder if people fear pursuing a relationship with Jesus Christ for the same reasons.\u00a0 They fear they are unworthy.\u00a0 Well, yes \u2013 we are all unworthy but that shouldn\u2019t hold us back.\u00a0 After all, that\u2019s why we need Jesus in our lives.\u00a0 People fear Christ will force them to make changes in their lives \u2013 changes they don\u2019t want to make.\u00a0 Actually, Christ\u2019s way isn\u2019t generally one of forcing.\u00a0 If we come closer to Him, we may choose to make changes, but those are our choices.\u00a0 He pretty much loves us just the way we are.\u00a0 (John 3:16, 17)\u00a0 He loves us with all our problems, unworthiness, and imperfections.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whatever our heart\u2019s desire is, we shouldn\u2019t let fear hold us back.\u00a0 Fear robs us of what could be.\u00a0 We all have some kind of music in us.\u00a0 Music is a metaphor for our hopes and dreams.\u00a0 But unless we overcome our fears and actually \u201csing\u201d or do something about it, that music dies within us.\u00a0 How sad!\u00a0 It would be better to \u201csing\u201d slightly off key than to let the music die in us.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was an American author, poet, doctor, and teacher of the 1800s.\u00a0 Ever since I read his clever poem the Deacon\u2019s Masterpiece about a one-hoss shay in high school I have been drawn to his work.\u00a0 So … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}