Hello old friends, new followers, and fellow bloggers- 

Happy Friday!  Do you have a favorite album? One that you can listen to from start to finish every single time?  I have a list of ten favorite albums, all significant, speaking to a particular period of time in my life.  I can remember where I was the moment I heard the first track and exactly how I felt at that moment.  Relient K’s Forget and Not Slow Down Album is one of those albums for me.  It is a body of art that leaves me speechless every single time.

Well today, I was searching for something to listen to when that body of work came to mind.  I turned it on, sat in my room and just enjoyed this album.  Y’ALL THIS IS RELIENT K’s BEST BODY OF WORK!!! Hands down, underrated,  most genius collection of amazing music.  Rumor has it that the lead singer wrote all 15 of those songs after going through a significant break-up.  He turned his pain into a masterpiece and found healing as he penned the narrative of a young boy losing love in the process of becoming a man.  It’s breathtaking what his pain produced. I listened to the last song and began to talk to God about all the pain I’ve endured.  This was his question to me:

What will your pain produce?  Will it produce something beautiful and breathtaking?  Or will it perpetuate pain to others?  What will your pain produce?

The same way I was finding hope, wonder, and beauty from Matt’s process, there is a group of people waiting to find hope as an aftermath of mine.

Perspective is a lovely hand to hold.  – Matt Theissen.

How we view our circumstances, how we choose to heal, and how we decide to see our place in the world determines how others will benefit from our stories.  Pain is not wasted if it creates something beautiful.  It’s not wasted if our greatest bodies of works are created as a result.  Our pain is not wasted if millions of people connect to us and find hope.

What will your pain produce?  Will it produce courage or life lessons for others? Will it give people something to believe in?  Will your pain connect people to each other?  What will your pain produce?  How will you use it to create beauty here on the earth? How will you use it to bring glory to God?  

Forget and Not Slow Down is my favorite album.  Well, one of my favorites… and I’m grateful that Matt wrote the songs that he did.  After a pretty heavy break-up, I listened to this album for days and I found hope in things coming to an end.  He allowed his pain to produce hope for listeners like me.  That, my friends,  is beautiful!

Today, I’m encouraging you to see the pain you’ve endured as a tool to create beauty here on the earth.  That is my challenge to each and every one of you.

To all my music lovers, make sure you check out this album!

Have the most amazing day ever!

Xoxo,

Simone 

FIC: ©Relient K, “Forget and Not Slow Down” released October 6, 2009.  The album art is an oil painting on canvas, by Linden Frederick, Matt Thiessen’s uncle.