Your words won’t set you free
Nothing that springs forth from this earth can save you
Only grace can save us
The grace we’re all searching for

The reason we watch movies
The reason we play games
The reason we lose ourselves in music

To find ourselves, to find the part of us that calls out
for more, for some adventure, some joy, some fight
Living someone else’s life
Their journey, their dream, their love
Filling ourselves with their story

But the screen always goes dark
The pages run out of words
And the music fades
And for one brief moment in-between all the sound
were left with ourselves
completely alone
completely empty
wishing that we could be
the stories we know

and so, we pretend, invest, and consume
trying to live the life we love and desire
trying to become what we are not
by denying who we are

All this world does is try to distract us
Try to give us another life to live
Away from the ones we hate
And as time passes it all becomes more and more real
the falseness of the lives we live only become more convincing

I’m so tired of living out the lives of other people
so tired of not facing the emptiness
I don’t want to fight it anymore with movies, music and games
I want to become something real
I don’t want to hate work or school or pain
I want to embrace it, fight it, and overcome

Because that’s what they do in the stories we see
They fight the darkness inside themselves and in the world
And that’s what we want to do, why else would we watch them
But were to weak
Too weak and too feeble to stand up for ourselves
And I don’t mean against the bullies at school
I mean the bullies in our minds, the ones that keep us from our dreams

You know that moment after the story ends
Where they live happily ever after
We never get to see that part do we
Because I’m sure everyone that’s made it there
Who’s won the fight and finished the race
they’re all too busy being caught up in the love and the joy
to come back and tell us about it, to come back and teach us

why do we feel so broken and empty after stories of such strong emotion?
Whether it ends in love or pain
not because they create that feeling in us
but because they draw out what’s already there
the anger, sadness and the emptiness that we’ve denied
all the junk we’ve thrown in the closet
they only ever open the door to send it bursting forth
littering these hearts of ours that seemed so clean
making us ashamed of all we’ve hidden
only to pick up the pieces and hide them all over again

well I’m tired of hiding everything behind closed doors
this time I’m going to set it loose myself
get rid of what doesn’t belong
go work for what I need
and find what I’ve been looking for
but was too scared to face
become something real
love, fight, struggle
be saved
oh God
please
give me the grace