This week has been a very stressful and difficult week for me. I have been stressing out over school work and so many exams that have been coming up. On top of all of that I am very active in school and I have so many meetings to go to, so finding time to study and relax can be very difficult. Sometimes dealing with school, extra curricular activities and my social life can be very hard to balance. Most of the time when I am stressed my way of calming down it to listen to music, preferably gospel music. One of the songs that makes me feel better is a song by Kirk Franklin called “More Than I Can Bear.” It is a song about how nomatter what you could be going through and nomatter how hard things may be, God will never put more stress or difficulties than you can bear. The lyrics are very simple and repetitive and basically state “I've gone through the fire and I've been through the flood. I've been broken into pieces, seen lightnin' flashin' from above. But through it all I remember that He loves me and He cares and He'll never put more on me than I can bear.” The lyrics are not fancy or complex, but they are very positive. Sometimes the most simple words are the words that make the biggest impact and thats what most gospel music is. It is not about making the best beat for the song and having the best singers to sing it, its is about sending out a message. I feel like this song sends out a perfect message. Many times people feel as if they can not overcome the difficult times in life and they are not as strong as they really are. They do not have to have faith and believe in God either. Songs like this are just reminders of ones abilities and they would not be facing these problems if they were not able to overcome them.
It's so cool how music can have such an effect on people. It's awesome that this song has the ability to calm you down and destress you. I'm not sure that I agree though that we never get more than we can handle. I think there are lots of instances where people break because life gives them more than they can deal with at the moment.
ReplyDeleteGospel music is such a unique style of music. I grew up singing in a traditional church choir, and we once held a festival of sorts and invited a gospel choir from Philadephia. Needless to say, they "stole the show." Even though I had never heard gospel music before that, I felt an immediate release of all my anxieties. People around me broke down and at first, I was a bit uneasy about it, but I realized that everyone has troubles, and music allows them to release those worries and share that release with others. It's wonderful that you have found that kind of song. I listen to music a lot, and I can't say I have a particular song that always cheers me up. Hopefully I can look into this song and see what happens!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Melissa: God hasn't been giving ME special treatment. The feelings that the song may evoke are a great coping mechanism, but I'd wager that going through life thinking that God will certainly deliver you from more than you can bear is a little naive, and it could lead to a much greater shock when you do have to face true adversity.
ReplyDeleteI love music too, especially the messages they send. And I love that you chose these lyrics because they can defintely apply to everyone. I've always heard that God will never make you do anything that he knows you can't handle. You just have to remember that, even though its hard, when its over you are even stronger than you were before. Music is very calming and sends us all messages we can relate too. It reminds you that you aren't the only person going through this. Obviously the artist made a song about this subject because he believed many people needed to be reminded of it.
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