Lately I’ve been stuck on this album called Mansion by an artist called NF. The whole concept of the album is that his mind is a mansion, made up of different rooms which represent memories and times of his life, some good, some not so much.
He basically gives us the key to his mind and expresses some of his deepest thoughts and emotions through his music. It’s an album I’ve really connected to simply because of just how raw and real it is. I have always been the type of person who gets caught up in my mind. I overthink things and at times end up acting irrationally because of it.
The other reason I’ve connected with this album so much is because I feel I connect with the artist in a very personal way. He expresses his passion for music on a track called all I have. “In the back of my mind thinkin/am I wasting my time dreaming/and I ain’t got no money in my wallet but I guarantee there ain’t no way that I’m gonna leave this/I need this. I swear to y'all I need this.”
In the same way that NF expresses his need to create music, I NEED to be able to create in my own art form. Photography is something that has been an expression for me to create and release some of my inner most emotions and thoughts. A lot of times my photos tie in with lyrics that mean something to me and some times they just capture things that catch my eye. No matter what it is, it’s always a release for me. Without it I honestly feel I would shut down.
But my mansion also has rooms that are beautiful, most of them include the presence and memories a girl named Grace. Sometimes my mind feels broken and my eyes well up because I can’t get past the things in my own thoughts, but somehow Grace comes in, hugs me, and tells me it’s okay and I’m not broken. Grace makes me whole and cleans up the rooms that I’ve trashed.
Somewhere in the darkness of my mansion, there are rooms that I can go into and feel the light in my soul. I keep those rooms especially close to me. I don’t let many people in them, mostly because I only want to let the people in that I know won’t leave me.
Every once in a while I open a window and climb out onto the roof of my mansion so I can breathe the fresh air of a new perspective. In these times I gain specific revelation that can only carry me through the dark times.
These days I breathe a little bit easier knowing I don’t have to walk through these times alone. Grace walks beside me and brings me out of my own mansion to see things from a beautiful mindset.
Even when I’m in my darkest times, grace comes and reminds me that everything is okay. I’m not who I was in these memories. No longer am I out of control of these thoughts. She comes in and cleans up the floor, patches up the holes in the walls… But more than anything she fixes the broken mirror in the middle of the room. No longer does it reflect a broken person but it shows a whole man. I see myself how she sees me. Grace in this story represents both my wife and the Holy Spirit. They both show me that I am more than a broken man and that I’m not the only one who has a busted mansion. We all do. Will you let Grace clean up your mansion?
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