I can do this without you, y’know.
I don’t need you to show me anymore
how I ******* things up or how I’m not enough
for anyone to legitimately love me.

You shove me around
kicking me when I’m on the ground
with your cutting words within my soul
telling me again and again that
if I would just do better I would fill this hole

And holy crap
It blows my mind that I bought the whole thing!
That constantly criticizing myself would someday bring
some semblance of success or self-love
that this was the key to rise above all my pain

How insane that I believed you at all!
Who ARE you? Where did you get the gall to tell me I was worthless?
Worth this knife in my chest,
told to bleed till I was at my best and
obsessing over every last mistake I made as if this was supposed to save me?!

As if by shaming me you gave me reason to try harder—
oh, like you’re why I got that much farther
don’t bother trying to sell that garbage to me
like you’re some sort of savior that set me free.

I believe there’s only one Savior and he’s not like you.
He never beats me down or tells me that he’s through loving me
or shames me for not being perfect as if I had to be
or tells me that if I try harder then maybe I’ll be free

No! Jesus loves me!

And he loves me for me, not for being the person YOU say I should be,
and while you swore no one would ever fall for me,
he laid down his life on Judgement’s Tree,

Yes, for me.

So say what you want, I don’t care!
But don’t you ever dare say I need you again
Don’t you dare tell me that you’re my friend
Or that I need you to reach a happy ending

I’m done spending my life trying to please you
I’m worthy and loved, I don’t have to believe you
ever again, yes, this is where you end
I’m good enough now and was good enough then

And you’re the only one here who’s better off dead.

All that said, I’m gonna listen to Love today
I’m gonna believe that my sin debt was paid
No longer slaving to get a perfect score
I’m adored as I am, not as future version of me
that has it all together and is completely free
oh please, spare me, save your fantasies

The stone rolled away, my Jesus risen from the grave
proclaims to the universe that I’m worthy of love today.

Did I choose this life
Or did it choose me?
Did I take the path I took
believing I was free?

Was it me that took the first step?
If it was I'm not sure why
my ankles and wrists have scars
from where pain pulled me along
and all the while you know
I sang a happy song
convinced that I'm right where I belong

Here.

Here is where my deepest
fears are all covered up by
dear friends that I just met yesterday
But it's like I've known them my whole life
convinced beyond all doubt that
this is what freedom feels like

They like me after all
These people who chant the happy song
along with me, blissfully unaware that
none of us are really free.
In reality it's all one big scheme
cooked up by our darkest memories
because remembering hurts too much
with pain we'd all rather not touch

or talk about

God forbid we doubt this happy song we sing
or realize all the pain that truth might bring
So we'll carry on in hope
that our pretending doesn't go up in smoke

So let's have a conversation now while we can
about all the things kept behind the door
to your closet filled with ***** laundry
that's been there for years
damp with tears that no one ever saw you cry
You swear you'd die if anyone did.
Because in there you hid after what you did
or what you had done to you

Me too.

If I'm honest, I need you
The monster got me too.
Trauma and tragedy that turned me
into whatever the heck I am now

but somehow I'm still here

And believe me when I say I know;
Underneath all your fears
you're dying to hear that
you weren't the only one.

You weren't.

We didn't choose this road
pain told us we had to take it
that we had to fake it or get eaten alive
that this was the only way to survive
but if this is all there is I'd rather die!
Don't tell me that all I can do is hide
Don't tell me to just pretend away
all the shame and self-hate
as if I were assigned some cruel fate
Where I feel like I'm nothing forever

Never!

I refuse to keep living a lie
No, pain, you can't make me
though I know you tried
I'm awake now and your credibility is fried
your access to my heart denied
I've cried enough in solitude and silence
Your violence ends today.

So in this my brother I pray for you
That you find that this is true
That your life is more than an empty tune
That pain said you had to sing.
The you that God intended you to be
Let him out, He set him free
Through blood spilled to wash him clean

This is the new song we have to sing.

When the storms rage in my head
When I'm drowning in my dread
When I'm living like I'm dead
There You are

When I have no hand to hold
When I've lost sight of control
When I can't be strong or bold
There You are

And even though I see no sign above
I'm asking You to give me strength to trust

God You say that You're good
but everything I know
seems so out of control
And I can't make sense
of where you are in all this mess
and all I feel is my distress

But you say You're here
Could I know You're here?

Lord, You set the stars at night
You command the sun to rise
And when I open up my eyes
There You are

Oh, You calm the wind and waves
raised a dead man from his grave
with an arm that's strong to save
There You are

And even though I see no sign above
I'm asking You to give me strength to trust

God You say that You're good
but everything I know
seems so out of control
And I can't make sense
of where you are in all this mess
and all I feel is my distress

But You say You're here
Could I know You're here?

Here I lift this knife
Poised to take this life
You say stay your hand
Oh please, stay your hand
There's a better way
I will take your place
And you'll never be alone again

God I know that You're good
Take everything I know under Your control
I don't have to make sense
of how You're using all this mess
with love eclipsing my distress

And You say You're here
And I know You're here

I wanna talk like it's romantic
but in all honesty it's tragic
you see the way we fell in love
you came and kissed me like a dove
in sunny springtime

You got me through some cloudy days
made all the sadness go away

for a minute

and the more we laughed and played
my soul felt it was saved
so long as I had you

but one day there was something strange
we had a little more than an exchange

let's cut the crap, we had ***

and afterwards I found myself vexed
at all the things I felt in my chest

I wanted to believe that we were friends
that I could keep you--we didn't need to end
but what I wanted, I couldn't pretend
It was wholesome ever again
It was sin

"Us" became an argument I could never win
a logic I could never spin
around enough times to make anything come full circle
the innocence I thought I knew
in that one instance blew away
into the past before that spring day
that our lips touched

It feels just too much
to admit that you were lying
trying to get my attention
long enough to where I'd want more

I went from a stupid kid to a *****
and my heart is sore for all the shame it bore
since then
how could I still find myself wanting more
knowing that what we had was never real?

Your friendship has become an agony
that I wish I never had to feel.

Caught up in a cacophony
of curses and the tragedy
of forgetting that You love me

I wring my hands tight
with every single fight
that I watch myself lose again
and again
and again
and again
and my sin
whispers words that
fall like anvils dropped from
the empire state building
and that cacophony gets that much louder.

And I come to find I certainly lack the power
to do anything that seems even of the slightest
worth
to me, to you, to every friend that I threw
away
because those anvils that hit me yesterday
hit me just a little too hard and
I don't want to get hit again because
I just might die next time.

My memory offers me nothing but unrest as my
conscience is put to the
test that I keep forgetting that I was supposed to study for
and it's easy to blame it on the dog because it ate my textbook
or at least I say that because I don't want to look
at the words of life that I come to find only condemn me
for all the things I know I was supposed to do right the first time.

You know,
there was a song You sang to me
the day we met for the first time
a resounding sound so sublime
a melody of mercy and love
washing white all I had ever done
and somehow by some incredible mystery
you won my heart then.

But now all I seem to do
is wonder why I can't hear the melody
only ever feeling guilty
that the grand staff where you wrote that song
strikes nerves instead of chords
leaving me feeling depressed, broken and even bored
and around the song you've composed an impossible score
that I'm sure I could never perform
well enough to feel like I was worthy of Your love.

But the person you sang that song to back then
I'm pretty sure he hated you
only longing for his sin
that he was head-over-heels for
a nightmare he said was his best friend.
He had broken all the rules
Spent his youth trading treasure for fools
gold that he dug up
and buried the truth in its place
He cared nothing for mercy
And felt no need for grace
I still remember very well that he even spat in your face but that person...
You still took his place.

Instead of striking him dead where he stood
and pouring out all the wrath you could
It would have made so much more sense
to take his life
To make him, to make me pay the price

I mean, You never did anything wrong
It should have been me, but in that song...

The lyric rings, "Jesus paid it all."

Oh Lord, how I long
that the cacophony
be drowned out by Your symphony
that I would hear every curse
Reorchestrated to instead sing of mercy
That every anvil that falls
in a hope to fell me
would cast into the infinite sea
of grace where my body was buried
and it was!

The old me is dead and done
only a memory and no longer
what I'm doomed to become
because the price You paid

I confess, God, it's enough.

There's this thing about worship
that I often forget.

You see it's not just this thing
that we do on Sunday.
It's every day;
Every breath and movement of our hands
is done because we understand
that God's grace is not a prize we won.

It was a selfless giving of His only son
that He gave to rend our chains undone
and bring us into relationship with Him
by the victory over sin that we proclaim He won!

Yet somehow life still becomes some kind of rat race
trying to appear holy and saving face
with no admittance that we still need grace
and our response to that grace just kind of...

Disappears.

And then I wonder why I don't see His face,
why I'm not moved by His Word
why I'm not changed by His grace.
I wonder why I don't want Him around,
while my wrists are secretly bound
with shackles I like too much to take off.

But on Sunday morning I pray to be free
to realize that this Jesus did die for me
so that I could be with Him where He is one day,
yet day to day, I almost never say

God, I need you, and I'm not okay.

And I know it doesn't have to be this way!
I know He gave His Spirit, He promised that He'd stay
With me until the end of the age
and even in my deepest darkness His love for me is still the same
But God, oh God, I'm so ashamed
of all the things I've done while periodically praising Your name.

But there is no condemnation from You, You say.
You invite me to turn and run away
Into your arms and that I'll be changed--
That You will give me a new heart
and remove all of this shame
If I'd just confess my sin to You, You'd take the pain.

So I beg, and beg, that every day
My response to You would be the same
To run to You and admit my need
For Your grace, for Your love
above everything.

That I'd never not be responding
with my life, my work, and all my talking
to the Christ that stepped into time
to make me His, and make Him mine.

You didn't just call me out
But you called me in
Into marvelous light
Not just out of sin

And I can't bear to stay
But I'm afraid to go
God, I don't even know
What it is I'm holding onto
anymore (x2)

Aren't You worth it?
Aren't You worth it?
You're worth all I have
and then some

God, You're worth it
You're worth it
I'll give all I have
and then some

And I don't have to stay
I'm not afraid to go
God take all that I have
all that I've been holding onto
Make it Yours