It’s a beautiful thing when a song you’ve known and sung for over four years just wrecks you. Comes out of nowhere, totally blindsiding you.

Just… there it is.

Staring you in the face.

I knew the song right when it first came out. Elevation Worship was newly on my radar, and it was one of their more popular tracks from their latest album (Here As In Heaven).

I listened to it.

I sung along to it in the car, at church, even at a concert later that year (2016).

But while I have a few distinct memories of singing the song, I don’t have distinct memories of singing the specific words. These lyrics. These beautiful, life giving truths.

Sitting here, summer of 2020, years later, and now even 3,000 miles away… I can tell you exactly why.

Everything that this song proclaims. Every drop of truth that it brings… it is EVERYTHING that I needed for so many years, but it’s also everything from which I was unknowingly running as fast and as far away as I could. Having grown up in church and grown up loving Jesus, I couldn’t possibly be the one who felt unforgivable to the point of suicide… could I??!!

Long story short, not only could I possibly be that person… I undoubtedly WAS that person. And I HAD been that person for so many years, I just had no idea.

I was that person even long before this song was released early in 2016.

So… I figure that’s why I don’t really remember singing any of the specific words in this song. Even though I didn’t really know it yet, my subconscious heart and mind was doing everything it could to distance itself from the brutally hard truth. I didn’t know it, but I was running.

Listening to this song, now a lifetime away in 2020, it gives me this picture of someone who is weary. Someone who can’t take another day, who can’t face another moment. They’re so tormented by their failures and shortcomings, they fear that one more moment and they’ll take a solution for that pain into their own hands and get rid of the darkness in the only way they see how.

I hear this song, and I picture God speaking words of healing directly to the heart of that person… and that alone is enough to wreck me.

But then listening to it some more, I am reminded that our God will stop at NOTHING until we are safe in His arms. Even as we run, He is chasing us. Waiting patiently for us. Loving us. Never once giving up on us. 

The specific timeline of this song and my own journey is the final piece that gets me.

Long before I could even BEGIN to see it myself… my Heavenly Father was there. With His arms open wide, waiting for me. Waiting patiently for me.

So, dear friends… just when we think nothing good could ever come from our lives again… Remember. There He is. Turning those ashes into something far more beautiful than anything we could have ever imagined.

Are you hurting and broken within
Overwhelmed by the weight of your sin
Jesus is calling
Have you come to the end of yourself
Do you thirst for a drink from the well
Jesus is calling

O come to the altar
The Father’s arms are open wide
Forgiveness was bought with
The precious blood of Jesus Christ

Leave behind your regrets and mistakes
Come today, there’s no reason to wait
Jesus is calling
Bring your sorrows and trade them for joy
From the ashes, a new life is born
Jesus is calling

Oh what a Savior Isn’t He wonderful
Sing Hallelujah, Christ is risen
Bow down before Him For He is Lord of all
Sing Hallelujah, Christ is risen

Bear your cross as you wait for the crown
Tell the world of the treasure you found