Do you sing to your mirror?

I've started this kind of impromptu weekly question on Sundays. I asked you if you danced in your kitchen, and if you lost yourself in a good book, and now I have another question. 

Do you sing to your mirror?

When I was in DC in October, I wrote a blog post about why we sing into hairbrushes, why we remember that we are here to be joyful and laughing. And at that time, the post was about that horizon question of boys, and dating, and what it means to be single or not, what it means to be dateable. Now, the post reads differently, and the part I wanted to remember today wasn't the part about dating, but rather just this image:


And if you are like me, you immediately begin to sing to your keyboard, your monitor, your room at large. You forget that you share a small apartment with four other girls who probably don't want to hear your off-key rendition of "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain or your garbled "Everybody" by Ingrid. You forget that you are NOT, in fact, the leader of the next great hip hop dance team and you cannot one-two step like Ciara. You believe for 3 minutes and 51 seconds that everyone is listening to you sing in pure awe and wonder.


Today, friends, I came home from church and I did just this. Yes, in my room that has no mirror. In my church dress, my bare feet tapping their way across the old floorboards, the world for a whole three minutes about nothing but the joy of dancing around my room singing at the top of my lungs. 


My siblings and parents must wonder what that stomping noise is, and why they can hear country music blasting from behind my door, and what in the world I am thinking while I do this. 


I want to make the story of my life be one more colored with joy than with frustration. And so, this is the image for today. Singing with abandon. When I wrote the post in DC I was discovering that being myself included things like singing to every song I know the words to (and some I don't) and having dance parties and reading books for hours on end. Being Hilary means scrunching my face up in laughter and jumping up and down and trying to open my heart, even when it's hard, to the good things lurking in every day. 

(my beautiful friend, Hannah and I in California!)


And so, I wanted to ask you: do you sing to your mirror? Do you let the bass guide your foot in time with the music and let your voice, tenor or alto or mezzo or somewhere between fly free? Do you laugh halfway through and start the youtube video over, just so you can have 3 more minutes of uninterrupted fun? Psalm 134 says, "Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who minister by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who is the maker of heaven and earth." And I believe that part of praise is the unabashed seriousness of singing to your mirror, and the delight of good music, and the wonder that comes from making it. 

Sing to your mirror, to your floorboards and your scattered shoes, sing and dance your way through three minutes of joy. Because the Lord is the maker of heaven and earth and His goodness is everywhere, and we can hear it if we laugh and listen closer. 


Today, I sang the following:


Country Girl (Shake it for Me) - Luke Bryan
You Lie - The Band Perry
For Good - Kristin Chenoweth & Idina Menzel
Celui - Colonel Reyel
Just a Kiss - Lady Antebellum
Mean - Taylor Swift
Mountain and the Sea - Ingrid Michaelson


And many more are still in the playlist waiting for their turn!


Love,
Hilary