Stories Behind the Songs

Daily Gratitude Year 7-Day 300: Today, I am grateful for the stories behind the songs.

I adore ballads. Story songs have been my favorite from childhood.  I cut my teeth on Johnny Horton and Johnny Cash. For some songs, the song is the story. On the other hand, the best songs almost always have stories behind them that touch us in places we don't always share. Soul illuminating lyrics that make us feel something beyond the words. A prime example is Bart Millard's "I Can Only Imagine". 

Many know Danny Gokey from American Idol. He has built a career in Christian music. His first American Idol audition was only a month after his young wife died after what should have been a fairly routine heart surgery for someone with congenital heart disease. Her survival rate was 90%. She fell into the 10% who did not make it. Devastation is not just a word... it is a place visited in our darkest moments. God is there in the hard stuff, but it still hurts. 

Flash forward to this interview from 2015. 6 year past his greatest grief of losing his wife... and this song comes his way. It came from a songwriter who witnessed an open heart surgery. That alone would grab Danny's heart, but listen to the whole story. It is worth a few minutes. 

The Great Physician is enough. We lack nothing. Dark and light cannot co-exist. Light always destroys darkness. God wins. 

Job (Job 9:32-35), breathless and broken, begged God for a mediator. Someone to plea for mercy before the Father. God always answers our prayers, but in his own time. Jesus came... and then he sent the Holy Spirit when he returned to heaven to be our comforter and constant companion. "I am with you always."

"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,who will never leave you.  He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you." -John 14:16-17

We can get through the hardest days because we are never alone. We can survive the darkest night when His love crashes in to illuminate our trial with his love and faithfulness. We can tell our hearts to beat again. 

Enjoy the video. 

Today, I am grateful for the stories behind the songs.