Bon Jovi-isms

Being in the Northeast, you'll come across many a Jon Bon Jovi fan. I, fortunately, am not one of them. [I'll elaborate on this later. Just hang tight for a moment.]

Over the past few weeks, perhaps months, I have heard a voice speaking from the depths. A whisper that I have tried to tune out with my constant ramblings. It's been sticking in my ears, clogging them like the pool water that lingers after a swim. And, I try desperately to push them out. Hopping around, hoping for the relief from the exodus of these unwelcome thoughts.

You're life is not your own.

I hear it everywhere.

At church in my pastor's weekly sermons. Messages that feel like a punch in the gut - completely out of the blue and knocking the wind out of me.

At work, while I'm trying (and failing) to find sanity. And wondering how life could have steered me so wrong, so far away from where and who I thought I'd be.

At our weekly Home Groups, where the discussion of the day is discipline for self to find ourselves in a deeper love and obedience to the Father.

At home as I read the Bible. [Refreshing, humbling, punch-in-the-gut moments in their own right. Moments I've missed for a lifetime.]

And daily as I come across life in general.

Your life is not your own, Annie.

YET...

The song that keeps playing in my head and in my heart of hearts is that all-too-familiar Bon Jovi "hit", the chorus of which is the battle cry of this generation.

[Here's where that Bon Jovi reference makes sense. Sorta]

It's my life

It's now or never

I ain't gonna live forever

I just want to live while I'm alive

(It's my life)

My heart is like an open highway

Like Frankie said

I did it my way

I just wanna live while I'm alive

It's my life

All my life I've been having a shout-out with God. Trying to see whose song would be louder, find more airplay, and for all my life I think I did a pretty good job of fooling myself.

But now (NOW)... Ugh.


With today's sermon still ripe in my memory, I find myself struggling. It's uncomfortable, this change. I'm going through some growing pains here, people. And, Annie no likey!