“I do a music therapy group for incarcerated youth. In that group we do an exercise called The History of Me, where we chart out our lives and look for purpose all along the way. We have to confront some very ugly things on this timeline, as well the beautiful. This song is my own personal History of Me. One of the youth from a recent group recorded the hook for me in facility, then paroled. We lost touch after a few weeks. I learned later that he ran from police and was killed in a shootout. I went into the studio that night and did my verses through tears. Unfortunately, the quality of his chorus was bad and I had to re-record it myself, but his heart is still all throughout the song. It was always a vision of mine to score a song with a full or chamber orchestra. S1 was gracious enough to let me do this on his beat. We wrote the lyrics and music from my heart, and tried our best to make the strings, piano, timpani, harp sing. This is my soul to metronome; mine and every youth I’ve ever served. R.I.P. Christian, this is for you.”
Sovereignty… what a complex thing. How can a loving God let such ugly things happen to people? Happen to me? Throughout the experiences of life, we find purpose… hope. Romans 5 says hope does not disappoint us, because the God of the universe loves us, personally. Hindsight is often 20/20 and in this case, that’s ok. Looking back and looking forward, we find purpose.
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