bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
Unequivocally, my favorite line of any song I have ever heard.
A bold statement, yes, I know, especially considering that I have heard thousands and thousands of songs in the decades of my life.
It doesn’t change this revelation in the least. I first heard this song less than 72 hours ago. It has been around for a while. As a matter of fact, it was released eight years ago on my birthday.
I had to know more about who wrote words that surpassed any I have ever heard. Maybe they struck a chord in me because I have a deep love and respect for trees and, on occasion, imagine myself to be one; swaying in the wind, basking in the sun, playing in the moonlight beneath a sky bursting with stars.
Being a seeker of knowledge, I went in search of answers.
The song was written by an independent singer/songwriter named John Mark McMillan. In an interview, he says that he wrote this the day after his best friend died after sustaining injuries in a terrible car accident. In the same interview, he tells of his friend, Stephen Coffey, a youth minister for Morning Star Ministries who said aloud the words “I would give my life today if it would shake the youth of the nation” the morning before the accident.
John Mark wrote the song the next day. He says that the love he is singing about is not a pretty “Hollywood hot-pink” love, but the kind of love that is willing to love even when things are difficult and messy. He goes on to say that “This song isn’t a celebration of weakness and anger. It’s a celebration of a God who would want to hang with us through those things, who would want to be a part of our lives through those things, and,despite who we are, He would want to be a part of us, our community and our family”.
I have listened to this song at least 200 times since I first heard it. I am listening to it now. I cannot pull myself away from what it says to me, how it makes me feel, where it takes me.
I imagine, before the anniversary of the song’s release, (on my birthday), I will listen to it several hundred more times. I know every note, every sound, every pitch, every word and I hold them deep inside of me.
They make me want to sing; the make me want to cry. But not tears of sadness, but ones of joy and celebration that even with all my imperfectness, I am loved and cherished by a Savior that I adore.
I have taken the blinders from my eyes, the plastic wrap from my mirrors and have embraced life with a fullness and freedom that I have never quite been able to achieve.
The freedom to love, to be loved, to seek and, in seeking, expect to find.
I will never be the same again and that may be one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever been given.
I’m putting a link to John Mark’s version. I have heard several artists sing it in the last couple of days, but this version, his version, is by far my favorite.
John Mark McMillan ~ How He Loves ….
John Mark’s song-story …
A Photographer's Heart 