I'm a Hazard to Myself

I try to wake up every morning with some kind of praise to God. Sometimes it's just a simple "Thank you, God, for another day."

Often I literally wake up singing "Holy, holy, holy". Or the "Te Deum a version of which I have on CD. Sometimes I have a differnt song in my heart, but always, it's a hymn. When I initially made the resolution to begin my day with "Praise God", it was just a spoken prayer. Maybe nothing more. But God rewards small steps, and before long, even without my initially realizing it, that short, simple prayer became a song. Even when I've dreaded the day, that song of God's choice is playing in my heart.

It's not in my conversion story, but music was one of the ways God used to bring me home, because it's ALWAYS been music that inspired me, and to this day, it communicates something deeply to me that nothing else ever would.

So my habit has become more ingrained over time, and even when my heart is heavy, I at least try to begin the day by praising the Lord, offering my suffering and acknowledging His supreme glory, His will in all things, singing if that is the morning prompt. It's hard to sing, though, when your tasks for the day turn your stomach into knots and your early hours into your own personal Garden of Gethsemene.

St. Francis de Sales acknowledged that it's difficult for us to embrace our crosses because doing this goes against our very nature. But then we have to remember that our nature is sinful, ordered towards self-love, and so we have to resist this. He acknowledges that God understands our nature far more than we do, so the first thing to do is to offer to God our unwillingness to embrace those crosses that come our way. Alone, we can do nothing...but God can do all things. And he rewards our meager offering of even recognizing to Him, not that we can't - but rather, that we don't WANT to - embrace our crosses.

My post for yesterday is basically my spiritual temper-tantrum, telling God that I don't want to embrace my cross. And perhaps it is time to put it down, and embrace another. I have not fully discerned this yet, but I am completely aware that the end of one cross is the acceptance of another, different, yet unknown cross. And that's the scary part.

So this morning, dreading my day, fearful I would shoot off my mouth and hand in a verbal resignation, I offered the day to God as usual. It was a bit disturbing, though, that my first "song" upon waking this morning was not "Te Deum", but rather, it was the litany and drum beats penned by Pink in her hit song:


I'm a hazard to myself
Don't let me get me
I'm my own worst enemy
It's bad when you annoy yourself
So irritating
Don't want to be my friend no more
I wanna be somebody else
I wanna be somebody else


I literally woke up with those words in my head, humming along, and it's been with me all day. I haven't even HEARD that song in AGES! But I've been "listening" to it ALL DAY LONG!

God has a sense of humor. Don't ever try to tell me different.