Music has a way of weaving its way into day-to-day life, providing a soundtrack for the daily grind: chords both dissonant and harmonic, capable of helping us to navigate the seasons.
There are occasions both joyous and challenging in which a specific song becomes burned in time, allowing us to revisit those occasions in our minds as often as we desire. For me, there have been many of these snapshots in life but none more vivid than the one that replays every time I listen to “Yellow” by Coldplay. This particular song has a way of reminding me to look for and hold on to beautiful things regardless of what is going on circumstantially.
It was May 2003, and my 74-year old grandmother was in her final days on this earth, suffering from melanoma. For Mothers Day that year, we all got together in what would be our last family gathering with her present. Though she was alert and her usual peaceful self, there was a weight of anxiety filling the air that my cousins and I decided we needed to escape for a moment.
So we took a drive to play basketball, and I can still remember listening to the radio on the way. My cousins and I didn’t share the same taste in music: I listened to primarily Christian rock and CCM, and they listened to probably just about anything except country.
I remember paying particular attention to the lyrics when “Yellow” came on, lyrics that reminded me there is something beautiful in all of us because of what our savior did for us.
Your skin
Oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
And you know
For you I’d bleed myself dry
For you I’d bleed myself dry
No matter what life throws our way, this song and that moment serve to remind me that we are all beautiful in the eyes of our creator and to look for beautiful moments and things around us.
Rock On Purpose 