Bend me, shape me...any way you want me..."

"Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me
Long as you love me
It's all right
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me
You got the power to turn on the light…"

It's always fascinating to me how a song can wriggle its way to the surface of thought and find new air.  This one, by, The American Breed, was a number one hit in 1968 and I loved it.  But in those days, I had very typical tastes in music for a teenager of the 60s.  Like most of my friends, I loved songs like "Happy Together" by the Turtles, any thing by Diana Ross and the Supremes, and all things Beatles, Beach Boys, the Association, and Tommy James & the Shondells.  My near worship of the singer/songwriter/poets of the late sixties and early seventies was just taking root and I would soon fall in love (an enduring love that has lasted for over thirty years) with the works of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Neil Young, Dan Fogelberg, Carly Simon, Leonard Cohen, and on and on.

But once again, I digress.  This morning, as the blue light of dawn sifted through the stained glass transom above our bed and cast a subtle pattern on the pear-colored walls of our bedroom,  it was this song that shook me free from dreaming.

At first I smiled.  It's a catchy little tune, and I don't think I ever thought much about the lyrics in its verses, but the words in the chorus sang through me, resonating like a tuning fork struck soundly setting a perfect pitch to my day.

As I lay there letting it echo through my hopes and my heart, I found myself grateful for an absence of "agenda" in my desires.  I am finally malleable, flexible enough…the way saltwater taffy is softened by twisting and turning, pulling and stretching…breaking down the sugars and glucose fibers…to be bent and shaped, molded into what God wants my life to be.  The wheres, the whos, the whats…they will be (and always have been, whether I realized it or not) at His behest.  

There have been so many clearly imagined models of what I thought my life would've, could've, should've, looked like.  The wheres, the whos, the whats of being a woman, wife, mother, daughter, friend, healer,  thinker, writer, neighbor were so rigidly held to and pressed into the mold of my imaginings,  that there was no space for movement.  But I am realizing today that none of those images matter in the light of this longing to be bent and shaped according to His plan.  To know Him…to want to see myself, and the world, through the lens of His love…and to live in that love all the days of my life – this is my greatest hope…my greatest dream.  I want to bend to His calling, be shaped by His demands upon my heart…be moved by the sound of His voice drawing me nearer and nearer to Him. 

In church last Sunday we sang a hymn that said,

"The longing to be good and true
has brought the light again…"
- Mary Alice Dayton

I wept.

Perhaps it was that moment in church, perhaps it was the salt in those tears melting away the last icy hardness of my own agenda, perhaps it was years and years of watching all my own pushing and planning fall into place and yet not bring true peace, contentment or joy…whatever it is dear Father,

"Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me
Long as you love me
It's all right
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me
You got the power to turn on the light"

Kate