I have sung a jillion songs, written a bunch, and met more people than you can count. I have sung at religious conventions and in the tiniest of churches. I held the hand of the president of a major jewelry company and sang “You Light Up My Life” to him, as we stood spotlighted in the middle of a ballroom. I have sung the goodbye anthem at the home going of many precious saints, and some not so precious. I have sung the proclamation of the strength and longing of young love as they promised, “before God and this company,” to hold on to each other through the bad times as well as the good times. The recompense for my labor came in many forms, money—the folding kind—sometime even enough to cover my traveling expenses, and on one memorable occasion, a note card with the words, “Thank You,” printed on the front and nothing more. But money was never my goal or I would have taken another road. Singing is a labor of love.
Even with all the songs I have sung about “victory,” “love lifting me” and “I still believe,” I was not prepared for the events that led to my sitting up here on the top of the trash heap. But here I am and the world has a very different look from this tremendous height. From up here, surrounded by the junk I once considered treasured possessions, there’s a special light that shines and can be found in no other place. Truth is what shines on top of the trash heap. Everything else has crumbled and the only thing left is Truth.
It is from the top of the trash heap that you can see people for what they really are, just individuals scrounging around in their neighbor’s trash looking for a valuable trinket to steal away. The funny thing is, from this vantage point, the air is pure and refreshing. In the middle of being cast aside by people you trusted, cared for, and exposed your heart to, God is closer and He makes His presence known in a stronger way than is possible down there where all the living is taking place. Maybe the trash heap isn’t such a bad place to be. I know one thing for sure, I don’t want to return to the artificial life again, I want to produce an “honest day’s work” in return for the Master’s Touch.
Paul said it so eloquently, “I know what it’s like to be rich and I know what it’s like to be poor.” Paul committed his enemies into God’s hands for justice to be meted out however and whenever God chose. I commend Paul for that type of forgiveness, but that kind of thinking only comes from the top of the trash heap where there is nothing else to lose. Paul also stated, “I have fought a GOOD fight, I have KEPT the faith, and henceforth, a crown of Righteousness is laid up for me in heaven.” At the top of the trash heap, the only thing that remains is you, your honor, your loyalty to God, and your right-ness. You are stripped naked before God, the Righteous Judge, the Truth, the Everlasting Father, and the account is tallied. Paul had been stripped and tallied and only then could he proclaim he was worthy to receive a crown of Righteousness.
It was from the top of the trash heap that Paul sang praise and worship choruses to God at the midnight hour in that raspy preacher’s voice of his. I can imagine the words, “I will praise the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord, the humble shall hear thereof and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my sin.” You see, Paul didn’t mind being on top of the trash heap, because he had been there before and would probably be there again. It seems that this pleasure seeking world resents being reminded that deep inside each of us is a giant void that only God is big enough to fill completely and when He does, it really doesn’t matter that you’re on the top of the trash heap or not. You are basking in His presence receiving the “tan of His Glory.” It is on top of the trash heap that you realize that “It’s not about you at all,…..It’s ALL about HIM!”
August, 2002
Beverly Parr
