Friday night my brother had a cookout at his place.  Lotsa great friends, amazing burgers, baked sweet potato fries, a swimming pool and mosquitoes.

Gabe is known as the ‘musical one’ of the fam.  He has a knack for it – always has – and can sing and play guitar incredibly well.  With his ear for fantastic music, he always seems to find off-the-wall, great musicians.  He also discovers hidden music of well-known artists.  Friday was no exception.

He was trying to sell us on the talent of Katy Perry… yes, the ‘I kissed a girl’ singer who most have likely written off as scandalous and fly-by-night.  I had my moments, truth be told.

Then Gabe played several ‘unplugged’ songs of hers.  Expecting the not-so-great radio voice I’d gotten accustomed to, I was shocked  to hear her gorgeous words!  We all fell into stunned silence, falling in love with music all over again.

One song caught my attention.  You know why?  I didn’t at the time, but it’s been swirling in my thoughts all weekend.  Then I realized it, what her video captures: Katy Perry opening her heart.  No edginess.  No kissing girls and liking it.  No superficial lyrics.  This girl grew up in a strict Christian home, then moved to LA and got lost in the worldly whirlwind.  But this night you can see it in her eyes, and in another song she sang: she knows and remembers.  And more than anything, she’s struggling like us single ladies who have a guy on our hearts who doesn’t seem to care, or notice us.  What’s a girl to do?

Katy demonstrates something I’ve been trying to put my finger on for years now, something many women are lacking.  Something all girls are born with but that most ladies shut off after getting burned.  What?

Our hearts. 

Yet in this song, this ‘far away’ girl most believers judge displays what I’ve failed to see in many godly women: her true heart!

A recent book I read talked about this very thing… that when a man pursues a woman, she has a choice.  To open herself to him, or to shut herself down from the potential pain.  If she offers herself to a man, not just physically but altogether, all of her, a woman exhibits what this author called stunning vulnerability.  This leaves the man with 3 choices: to pursue her further, to walk away, or to exploit her openness.  This vulnerability is “stunning” because she risks much by it: rejection, or far worse, being taken advantage of by someone stronger than her physically and emotionally.

As a woman, I’ve encountered all three… and let me tell you friends, there’s a reason ladies shut down after men do the latter two things.  It hurts! 

Not to glorify Katy… she’s just another woman like many of us… but I was captured by this young girl who’s been just as confused and lost as I have yet who opens herself to this guy anyway and pours out her heart.  On Friday night, everyone in the room was genuinely taken by her, in a pure way.  All eyes were on her.  She was, after all, being a woman… saying she needed this man.  Saying he was incomparable, and no other could fill that need in her life but him.  And we were drawn in by her!

She displays a little girl’s heart in a grown woman’s body.  Even her painted face can’t hide the heart and depth behind this song.

Watching her today, I realized how long this takes for a woman to do… to reach this point of strength to be honest with the man in your life about how much you long for him.  Most women offer themselves to the wrong men, prematurely in their lives or in their relationships, and then miss their moment down the road because rejection taught them to hide themselves.  The right man appears, but these women have learned to hate the vulnerability men stir in them… so they shut it down.  And once you shut it down, it takes a miracle of God to awaken you again.

But He does.

He promises us that He makes everything beautiful in its time, and what is more beautiful than a woman displaying the heart of God — His heart that says I need you.  Draw nearer to Me.  I long for you, for you are irreplaceable to Me! — to another of His creations?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRETavYtsKU]

Comparisons are easily done
Once you’ve had a taste of perfection
Like an apple hanging from a tree
I picked the ripest one, I’ve still got the seed

You said move on, where do I go?
I guess second best is all I will know

Cuz when I’m with him I am thinkin of you
Thinking of you
What you would do if you were the one who was spending the night
Oh I wish that I was looking into your eyes

You’re like an Indian summer in the middle of winter
Like a hard candy with a surprise center
How do I get better once I’ve had the best?
You said there’s tons of fish in the water so the waters I will test

He kissed my lips, I taste your mouth
He pulled me in, I was disgusted with myself

Cuz when I’m with him I am thinking of you
Thinking of you
What you would do if you were the one who was spending the night
Oh I wish that I was looking into your..

The best, oh and yes I do regret how I could let myself let you go
And now the lesson’s learned, I touched it I was burned
Why, oh you should know baby

What you would do if you were the one who was spending the night
Oh I wish that I was looking into your eyes
Looking into your eyes
Looking into your eyes

Oh won’t you
Burst through the door and take me away
No more mistakes
Cuz in your arms I’d like to
Stay…..

~Katy Perry