1. |
It Didn't Even Rain
03:39
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It didn’t even rain
My grandma died when I was little
And I remember standing at her grave under a tent
Cause it rained
My uncle said that God was crying cause we were sad
So if God cried when my grandma died
why was it so sunny today
We dressed in our best
Not sure if we should wear black or not
Cause we were joyful that his pain had ended
But selfishly sad that he was gone and it was sunny
I watched my friends walk down the warm sidewalk
It was December but it seemed like everyone was sweating
Our eyes sweat like raindrops that were empty from the sky
And when you looked into them
it seemed like everyone was empty inside
And we all wore fake smiles, although some claim them to be real
But I still wonder how you can smile
when after a week of torment you’ve forgotten how to feel
And the hugs came in swarms
Like the locust of moses
And although they seemed to sooth for a moment
When a pair of arms lets go it always reminds me
of how empty they are
It was a week before and everyone I knew fell to their knees
We prayed “God we’re selfish but don’t take him please”
And we cried, not the soft kind or single tears
We wept like our lives depended on it
Our tear ducts ran dry like a well
The church was so big
And empty it seemed like it could fit a million
But as it filled I selfishly wondered why more people weren’t here
A man like this deserved the world
He changed the hearts of my friends
And burnt his wick at both ends
And yet somehow a disease had taken him over
And we sang
We sang words that we hoped to be true
Praying that if they left our mouths
that somehow they would bounce
From the ceiling to our hearts and that this would all be over
“whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul”
But God it’s not
And it’s so hard for me to see past this
I don’t want to love you
when the world is without someone like him
And people promise that he’s in a better place
And some even say that you took him on purpose
That heaven needed an angel and no one fit better
But I can’t believe a God who loves his children
would rob them of a blessing like him
I know these are only words
And my heart begs that they not be true
But everyone around me seems to be trusting in you
So why is it so hard for me
When death comes
Like a thief in the night
And robs your children of the blessings
Of the gift you call life
God why can’t we get some answers
Why can’t you send some angel
Like you did for Mary
That explains that everything will be ok
Remind us your purpose is perfect in every way
But instead we lie here
Broken and empty
And although everything within me doesn’t want to
I’m trusting that you are greater than I
And that your plans are bigger than mine
Cause I don’t want a God
that my puny little brain can wrap around
If that were the case then I’d take the crown
I don’t want a God that I can understand
Because in that one sentence I loose the rock that I stand on
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2. |
Painting Jesus
04:12
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It started in darkness
As chaos in sued
Maybe something like your life
Cause that sounds a lot like mine too
With just the sound of his voice
Just a few simple words
The greatest metaphors we know
Light and darkness were formed
God my words couldn’t dream
Of the impact of yours
But right here right now speak through me
I’m yours
FATHER FORGIVE ME
I’ve said it a thousand times
And I’m never quite sure if it’s working
They say your love is as big as my mind can wrap around
Even bigger some say, on the days that I’m down
But that magnitude scares me, I’m afraid that I’ll drown
So I’ll just keep swimming in this puddle I’ve made
In my mind like a chasm, a tiny raft on a tidal wave
You are so much bigger than my mind lets me see
And you love so much better than any person I’ll meet
Our flesh tears holes in the peace of our existence
Our own bodies like zombies eat us away upon resistance
And I can’t stand to think of all the things that I’ve done
But then again you don’t, you’ve thrown them away, their gone
But this god that you speak of seems so far away
But there’s people out there that swear that he knows my name
The hairs on my head and the dreams of my heart
But there’s absolutely no way he made this and called it art
Paul said it perfectly, I am the worst of these
But every now and again I swear I’ve got that guy beat
And I stole that from a brother, I’m sure he won’t mind
Cause that’s the least of the darkness that I’m hiding inside
You don’t know what I’ve done
If hate in my heart equals murder on this earth
Then lock me up and throw away the key
Put me in a straight jacket cause I’m a killer
I’ve watched hate creep into my eyes
while I look at the people I call my friends
And I don’t even remember all my victims names
But you still love me
Forgiveness at it’s finest, hanging on a tree
A man living blameless died for you and me
And yet I have to remind myself of that almost by the minute
Because I can’t seem to hold myself together
Long enough for it to sink in.
But death, that’s not the end
Thats not the last chapter, thats not the towel thrown in
The son of God came and he died but he rose again
And that’s the reason I can stand here today
Forgiven and free and blameless in every way
I know what you’re thinking, not this again
But LISTEN
Trust me when I tell you it’s way easier for me
To say Jesus loves you, than to believe that he loves me too
And I promise, I swear that the Jesus you know
Doesn’t care about money or putting on a show
He’s nothing like me or your preacher or your mom
And I know that we’ve all represented him wrong
We’ve lied, and we’ve cheated, we’ve hated and cursed
And with those same mouths proclaimed the beauty of birth
I’m sorry for the people out there, including me
Who painted Jesus upside for you
As hard as is it to believe anything is real
There’s a God who loves you and he knows how you feel
He longs for, and waits for, and wants only you
And deep down inside you know you need him too
So don’t ignore that stirring that you’re feeling now
Don’t let it end when I take a bow
Listen to a God who loves you more than you know
More than your Dad who left you
Or that man that just throws
You away like your trash
Says he’ll find someone new
Jesus died so you could feel love
And he died for him too.
So today begins the start of eternity
And the good news is we only last about 80 years or maybe 100
cause I’m sick of this body
And the pains of this place
But I know he’s coming
Some days it seems like a race
Jesus is coming to make all things new
To throw away the pains of this world and this body
No crying, no hurting, no knives in the back
He’s coming to renew us, and I hope he gets here soon
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3. |
It Was A Friday
03:13
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It was a Friday
With the sun still asleep
a man stayed awake
A sleepless night of blood filled sweat
And sweat filled tears
A night where a kiss became a curse
A curse that would save the world
It was a Friday
a cry was heard
Father take this cup from me
not my will be done but yours
Though in case you are wondering
I don't wanna do this
It was a Friday
But there was no excitement for a weekend
Just a trial without justice
And a cry that had no end
A crowd gathered to convict a perfect man
To place every piece into Gods perfect plan
The plan of a God who loves us no matter far we go
And despite that great love we just keep saying no
It was a Friday
His very people we're given a choice
And rang in the air a single voice
As Jesus' name was lifted high
No words could be found but crucify
The son of God remained silent and stood
Endured a mockery that only perfect could
As whips pierced his back
And words pierced his soul
Spit split his brow
And thorns filled the holes
The hands that healed sickness
And gave site to the blind
Were nailed to a cross
Underneath a wicked sign
And there hung a savior
On a hill between thieves
Broken and bruised
Stripped and still bleeding
He clung to a life
Lived perfect and good
To pay for the sins
That you and I should
We deserved death
He wreaked of perfection
A love made so clear
That no one could question
It was a Friday
A father had forsaken his son
A fact driven home by the cry of his little one
My god my god cried a voice in the darkness
But God turned his back on the one who was faultless
He looked into the eyes of his betrayers
Gasping for air, and watching the takers
He put aside himself and asked forgiveness for the ones who helped
In putting him on this tree so that he could die for you and for me
In that moment the veil was torn
And the clouds became dark
The void between God
Filled with a perfect heart
A day full of evil
Of nails and of pain
And we have the audacity
To put good in its name
With his last breath he spoke
It is finished was heard
Death found its rest
In the flesh of the word
And as they pulled his body from the cross he bore
They claimed the king of the jews would live no more
It was a Friday
His mother wept
His friends stood silent
Denying faith
As the crowd got violent
Every hope their fingers clung to
Dashed and shattered in an effort to save you
The day turned night
All hope was lost
The disciples gathered to mourn for the cross
But this Friday wasn't all in vain
They forgot their best friends last name
The day that Christ fell
Mercy stood
And this is why we can call this Friday so good
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4. |
Scared Of Rocks
03:05
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When people ask me what I’m scared of
I never know what to say
Because if I admit its the dark
The scares me the most
If I admit that when I go outside and it’s night time
That I run to my car and breath heavily there
And my eyes dart around to see if anyone cares
If I admit that my heart beats three or four times as fast
After the sun goes down and I’m caught in this vast
Expanse of darkness that’s scary
I think it’s scary because the darkness is nothing
You never know what it hides
Cause I’ve seen darkness in peoples eyes
And they hide all their secrets that they’ve locked up inside
Like the pills that they took just to keep themselves living
Or the night that they stood at the top of that building
Just hoping they’d have the guts to jump off
But the darkness of the street is still scary
Even from all the way up here
But there is nothing to be scared of
I fear that I’ve seen the worst
I used to be scared of you seeing me cry
But now it seems that I cry all the time
Sometimes this heart I’ve been given is so full of this crap
That I can’t help but spill water from my eyes
And yell take this and god take that
Because I have been at the end of my rope
And I’ve watched the people around me cope
With the exact same stuff that I’m going through
Yet somehow they seem put together
But I’m falling apart
If you know what I mean
I have hit the rock bottom and sometimes thats ok
You see the bottom is nice, it gives me somewhere to lay
Somewhere to rest knowing I can’t get much lower
But the rocks are the hard part
They poke and they stab and get all the right spots
Pouring blood from my wounds and refusing to clot
But when you hit the bottom and can’t go anymore
That’s always when your plate stacks again
“You can carry one more?” right?
WRONG, I’m done and I’m through
And it’s here that I’ve most experienced you
You see God I know now that I need you
And sometimes I hate you for it
Cause God when I’m at my lowest I can’t help it
I don’t have a choice or a plan
And I have to give up and trust that your hands
Are big enough to hold up me and my stuff
But I hope you know there’s a lot and most of it’s pretty tough
You just reach out your arms
Like those old poems say
And speak softly and kindly
And from the darkness bring day
But it always seems just a little too late
Cause God my nights don’t always bring happy mornings
And my days often end in the darkness of your things
I can’t tell you that I trust all the time
And I can’t claim this last time to be anything but mine
But I do know that you love even through questions
And my fear and my tears and oncoming depression
Are no match for the spirit that wells up inside me
Like a phoenix from ashes your love it compels me
To praise in the darkness and thank you for night
And when morning comes to smile because tomorrow just might
Bring a new set of problems to bring me down harder
Only for you to pick me up and show that you are much stronger
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5. |
Guard My Heart
02:13
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My pastors tell me to guard my heart
But you've got yours locked up like the yard
Like its doing time for some heinous crime it committed in a past life
Don't you think you've taken it a little too far
Cause I'm slowly learning my pastors aren't always right
Your heart in a box with three locks and a chain
To me that's no way to live
We were created to be one with someone
A man stood in a garden
Alone in the image of the highest creator
No one greater
And he who reigns on high did not say it is good
Instead he created another who looked a lot like you
They say I wear my heart on my sleeve like its a bad thing
But maybe God was just tired after 5 days of working
So instead of putting it out in the open
He locked it up behind these bars so easily broken
And now tell our children false teachings
of the way we should care for it.
Well I fired my guard and I tore down these walls
And enemies have attacked but I have a god who doesn't lack
Love or mercy or grace
And though its always come back to slap me in the face
I will not guard my heart or question intruders
To the least of these I do to you so
If their hungry I will feed them from the walls of my ventricles
If their thirsty I will quench them
with the red that pumps through me
Some say this makes me less of a man
That I come not whole to the core of his plan
But I'm pretty sure whoever she is will understand
That's what's left of me is here
And the rest is out there
Tucked away in the memories of the people I've shared with
And I won't regret a thing
Because I know to the best of my ability
I've loved at 100 percent
And I've given from the core of my being
And slowly but surely I will find the combinations
To the locks on the box that holds your precious creations
And lock after lock, chain after chain
You will be freed from the binds you're contained in
And if not for me for someone else
But at least I will know that I've given you help
In escaping from the hell you've been placed in
Cause a heart in a box can't love like the ocean
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6. |
Sex & Pearls
03:19
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I wanted to write you something
Because that's what I do when I give my heart away
But this time feels different,
I say that every time
But this time feels different
When I think of you
I think of the night that we drank
And rubbed our hands together
As steam filled our face
And you said I hated life
Because I preferred the sweetness of my cup to the bitter of yours
Are we foolish to think that our cups combined
Could really make something sweeter than mine
And could two lives together be better than one
And could we ever find the center of whatever this has become
Because everyone around me tells me I'm loved
But unless its from you it never seems like enough
And I know there's a love bigger than life
But I've always been happier with someone else's skin close to mine
That night you told me what all of this meant
That everything we did was to find that one person
We would choose to love with a love that had no end
I know why the use the word fall when they talk about love
Because I definitely tripped into whatever this is
I never meant for this to happen
As the words left my lips
But now when I think about you
It's hard not to think that your it.
And I talk about you like she talks about the moon
The way her eyes light up as she's sees it poke through
The darkness of night as we stand on the street
Never noticing the source of the light that we see
My friends say I've changed
Not for better or worse
But they say that it seems I've just replaced my curse
Cause the space in my head has filled with thoughts of a who
Not a love or a grace or a mercy for you
But that's what I want, that's the true goal
To love her like you do
But God I can't do that cause I'm not you
So I pick up the broken pieces that I've come to know as my life
And I try to piece them back together all in order just right
So that as I present myself to whoever she is
She might see something whole not the truth that this is
Not a whole man, not a perfect creation
I’ve been with too many and all my pieces are taken
And God if she knows that, if she’s sees the real me
I’ve got to be honest, I’m afraid that she’ll leave
Cause I’ve never shown anyone the truth of my past
But then again I’ve never had anyone last
And I’ve never wanted anyone to
The way that my heart longs for that someone to be you
But I’m not the victim, I’ve taken pieces too
There were nights that I laid with her and I thought about you
I knew the whole time that she wasn’t the one
But my body took hold and chose the cheap thrill over none
And now I have to tell my future wife
that I’ve saved next to nothing for our now combined life
And I know that you know this probably more than I do
But I’m sorry I will never ever ever be as whole as you
God I'm broken can you make me whole
Cause this whole worlds got me singing at the top of my lungs
Songs of freedom and heartbreak, of sex and of pearls
This whole worlds got me singings songs about a girl
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7. |
Chicago
02:31
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You went to Chicago
Got on a plane
And flew a thousand miles away
And I never thought I'd miss you as much as I did
You were only gone for a moment
But I drove past the few places we spent
Most our time just to see if I could feel like you might be mine
Cause It's a gift to be in your presence
And I know that I could never give you enough presents
To make up for the things that you've taught me in this
And i swear my heart is in this
From that very first ride
Up that hill to the fountain
Just you and me on a drive
I remember I looked into your eyes
And something happened deep down inside
I wont use a word like love or a fall
But my God that night I could have showed you it all
All of my cards out here in the open
And everything within can't keep from hoping
That my hand matches yours and our bets aren't too high
So the pot is split, but you get just a little bit more of mine
I'll give what's left of me
For just a piece of you
And I promise that ill keep it safe
And keep it buried deep inside this mess we call faith
And you might think I'm foolish
I don't know what I'm in for
But our hearts are like rivers
So lets take the rapids together
Cause every night you were gone
I screamed at the top of my lungs
If this is not for me
If its some sort of game
Please take it God
Take it all away
Cause I am tired of sewing up my heart
And these last few months have ripped those stitches apart
But maybe, just maybe,
you are the thread that puts that last piece in place
Or maybe you're just another piece to take away
But either way
I fell in love with the thought of Holding your hand
And I've never tried so hard to discover his plan
Cause God I want to know
Whether this is for me
Cause if its not
Im sorry but I've gotta leave
Cause my heart is in this
From that very first ride
Although I may have fooled you
I sure tried to hide
Cause I don't know if your the one
This may be in vain
And I've never been a sucker
for this kind of pain
But I'll risk it all to try to make this work
And over every other girl on this earth
Right now I want you, every piece you thinks broken
Cause I believe in a God who created pieces from spoken
Words from his mouth, he created us in his image
And every piece of you, broken or not,
is everything I've ever dreamed I wanted
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8. |
Two Weeks
03:14
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If you would have asked me 2 weeks ago
I would have swore the next poem I wrote
would have been a happy one
A love story maybe
I probably would have wrote about how your hand
fits so perfectly into mine
Like Our fingers were meant to be so intertwined
Or maybe about the potential of our lips meeting for the very first time
And how that moment would have been everything
you ever dreamed about
You see those things are all still true
The only thing that's missing is you
And if I can be honest for a moment
Sometimes this doesn't seem worth it
Despite what I'm learning
Or the way that your growing
And despite what's broken
And the way you seem to fix it all
I'm not sure it's worth it
I know Ive written about sewing up my heart
And how all of the pieces keep falling apart
But really
If I can be honest for just a moment
Sometimes this doesn't seem worth it
If I had any choice in the matter
I wouldn't be here
But let me be clear
I want to be right here
Messy, broken, shattered, spoken,
loving, patient, full of vengeance here
It just doesn't always seem like I have a choice
Sometimes it's like something is pulling me in your direction
And even when we aren't speaking there's some sort of connection
But whatever mixed up piece of my anatomy
that controls the way that I feel
Whether its the brain in my head
Or the heart under your heels I don't know
But it keeps coming back to right here
Like somehow this is where I'm supposed to rest
But rest hasn't come easily lately
And when it has I don't wanna get out of bed
Some call it depression
I just call it voices in my head
Cause life looks a lot different on the other side of your dreams
And this is the other side of whatever we called you and me
And that's why I find it so hard to believe
The night you rest your head on my shoulder
And you talked about the moment
And the peace amongst the broken
Mess in your room I swore I saw the real you
The woman of valor begging to be let free
From the chains and lies
That have convinced you you're a slave to humanity
That you're someone a victim to the way you've been treated and your heart needs to be just right in order to show it to anyone else.
And I know these sentence fragments won't be of any help
I just need you to know that you are worth it
Way more than your potential as a future spouse.
Way more than the words of anyone else
And honestly way more than I deserve to call my friend
But that's the beauty of grace isn't it
That we get what we don't deserve
We see a love we haven't earned
And because of that
The kingdom of heaven is advanced
And if I'm honest I don't always understand
Sometimes this whole heaven thing seems well out of my hands
But what I do know
What I'm absolutely sure of is this
The kingdom of heaven is two people crying on a park bench
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