1 July 2013

the tainted


Don't touch me please 
I cannot stand the way you tease 
Tainted love

We made our angled moves and shapes to the staccato synthpop sounds of the early 1980’s. Fashions and make up still flouncing through yet another androgynous cycle. My best friend and I shared many Saturday evenings and early mornings in our late teens dancing away to these sounds, shouting out the words in unison with the room and stumbling bleary eyed into church a few hours later.
                                                                                 
We had spent our schooldays dressed in blue. It started out as a specific shade of royal blue (only stocked by the independent department store) but rules relaxed to more general shades of dark blue as we moved through the classes. Near the end permission was given to wear knee length blue socks, enabling us to dress from head to toe in blue.

Recently b/f and I went away as part of our 50th birthday celebrations for a weekend away. We also met up with two other friends who we’ve not seen since schooldays. Chatting, raising glasses, dividing pots of tea and breaking cake, we shared our stories of the years. Each of us giving space for another to speak, joys and sorrows that we have known well and sometimes worn heavily. Broken and imperfect love featured strongly in the different chapters and we gave room to hear the hard things, but we quickly cheered and applauded all the anecdotes about our dearly loved children. We laughed hard until we cried, recounting our own days in blue and wondering how the path of life and love had worked for others.

Yesterday I stood in the presence of God with His people wearing a new royal blue shirt which I had bought during that weekend away. The keyboard player led into the middle of the song, and we repeated these words before singing the whole song:

Your majesty, I can but bow
I lay my all before You now
In royal robes, I don’t deserve..
I live to serve Your majesty

Tears welled up, blurring my blue eyes and dropping on my cheeks. Overwhelmed in the moment that I don't deserve. That He holds back what I really, truly deserve, all for love and to clean my tainted heart. Not only when I’m wearing blue and not in the same way every week, but even so.

(And I think sometimes I sense just the smallest hint of a gentle tease along with an eye-twinkle, when He tells us twice). 







#concretewords prompt is the tainted over at Nacole's blog & hosted by Ruth this time. Link up, join in - go on, go on, you know you want to!

1 comment:

  1. I love that song ;-) I really enjoyed this post, Jo. So full of truth and important reminders and I love the imagery, with the colour blue running right through the middle of your words. So glad you linked up!

    ReplyDelete