Somewhere in the spring, when I was having a particular time saying good-bye to the life that I thought I would always lead, and hello to the one that has still not quite revealed itself (we are getting there, but any prayer for the final puzzle pieces to drop into place I will gladly take) I needed a distraction.

And it seemed that everyone on the internet had been listening to Hamilton. But there was one problem. Surprisingly, at 6 months in, I am still more or less following my ban on buying new things. And Hamilton is new. In the shouts of just how amazing it was, I had somehow missed the fact that you can stream it free on Spotify, or on Prime Music.

Alexa! Play Hamilton Soundtrack! I got Christian a fancy Amazon speaker for Christmas and that is, I think, the only thing we have shouted at it since May. After about a week of my obsessive listening, my husband sat down with me one night as we listened to the soundtrack and followed along on the Genius article. I came home the next day to a husband that had half the lyrics memorized. It really is as good as everyone says it is.

With the constant listening, and the small children who can come in on the chorus parts (LA-FAY-ETTE!) and the googling of historical revolutionary war heroes because you are trying to figure out if there actually was a guy named Hercules Mulligan or if that part was just made up (it is true) comes the finding of every clip on the internet that has Lin-Manuel Miranda’s face in it.

Every single clip I have ever seen of Lin-Manuel Miranda performing Hamilton, from the White House to karaoke car pool to the clip of them in a high school cafeteria, his face lights up. When Hamilton comes on, Miranda’s face lights up. You would think by now he would be sick of it. He wrote it, workshopped it, performed, performed, performed. And when he gets somewhere and they play it, he does not roll his eyes and say “oh this again.” He doesn’t say “listen, I have done this a million times and I don’t want to do it anymore.” His eyes LIGHT UP and he delights in coming in right on cue.

I guess you could say, of course he does Abby – do you have any idea how much money Hamilton has made him? (Not enough. It is a work of genius and we cannot put money on that.) And I guess you would be right. But as much as he is enjoying the money and the fame, I don’t think he wrote it for those things. I think he wrote it because it came into his brain and he was delighted by the idea. I think he thought the hard work of working it out was worth it. I think every time he hears it, probably for the rest of his life, he is going to be delighted by what he created.

I believe in a God who is as delighted by his creation as Lin-Manuel Miranda is delighted by Hamilton. I believe in a God who is as delighted in ME as Miranda is delighted by the score of his play. I believe in a God who isn’t annoyed by me leaning into my gifts of writing, speaking, teaching. I don’t think God thinks, oh MAN, this again! I mean I created her and she is pretty great but…can’t she do something new and different?  I think God is all, OH YEAH! THIS AGAIN! I am totally delighted by how amazing this person I built is!

I think it is so easy to assume we are annoying other people, or even God. I think that it is easy to say “Oh man, this again? I am doing this again, saying this again, all about this again. No one wants to hear this anymore.” But they do. We are Hamiltons, people. We are a really amazing work and God loves us every single time.