One-Hit-Wonder

My husband loves classic country, but I’m not talking about 90’s country gold; I’m talking about 1950’s songs about cattle drives and trapping animals. I hadn’t heard many of those songs before (much to his chagrin), but he put together a playlist, and I’ve come to love those old songs. There’s a particular song by Guy Clark called Hanging Your Life on a Wall that always hits me in the heart, and the chorus goes: 

Those lines have been stuck in my head for a week now and make me wonder, how often do we forget to keep living after we’ve accomplished our goals? How often do we forget to keep dreaming after our dreams come true? It can be so easy to take our accomplishments, ribbons and medals, hang them on a wall, and forget to keep living. But life isn’t only about achieving; it’s about enjoying and learning from the journey. We don’t learn from winning gold medals, not really. We learn from the hours of hard work, dedication, and grit that it took to get to the podium. And that’s where I think the magic of life is found, not in the winning but in the steady perseverance of everyday living. 

You’re not a one-hit-wonder; you have more than one great thing or dream in you. So, take a moment to admire how far you’ve come, but then turn and set your sights on the horizon because you have more adventures left in you. The Lord has so many things planned for your life, but you can miss them by wishing for the things of the past. There are still lessons to be learned and things to be done. But you’ll never get there if your eyes aren’t focused on the path the Lord has set in front of you. 

It can be scary to press forward after we’ve finally achieved our dream because it can feel like there’s nothing left for us to do. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are so many beautiful things out there for us to experience and quests from the Lord to go on. You are a wildly complicated and lovingly created person entrusted with glorious goals and hopes in life. Goals and hopes you’ll spend your whole life working towards, Lord willing. Friends, let’s not get so lost in remembering the glories of the past that we miss out on the wonders of what is yet to come.