Viva Cicadas!

Between an impromptu trip to visit family and then a couple days at the lake... Nashville has been TAKEN OVER by cicadas.  I mean seriously -- when we left late Tuesday afternoon there were seriously 10 times less of these critters then there were this morning when we arrived back in town.  The noise is deafening.  They fly in your hair.  They COVER every tree.  They get into buildings.  They are squashed all over the roads.  You almost need an umbrella to use as a shield as you walk...  but still, I don't hate these bugs.  There is something so intriguing and i don't know -- genuine about them.  13 years they wait.  Their lives are less than a month.  But yet, they cry out and sing...

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How often do we forget our circumstances, forget the "woe is me" and just sing for the true fruitfulness of our lives?  I fear we more often get lost in our impatience (or even fear) for what is yet to come and settle in the dissatisfaction of what our lives hold around us.  The cicada's cry is not a lament.  It is a cry that says "I am alive.  I have today.  I have a song to sing."   

The truth of the matter is that life IS short and life CAN BE quite overwhelming.  Storms WILL come.  BUT hear this -- YOU are alive.  YOU have today.  YOU have a song.