unloved – Song Dive

Perfectly Loved

The next entry for my Blog is Perfectly Loved, which was written by Andrew Ripp, Ethan Hulse, and Rachel Lampa. It was first released April 8, 2022. A link to Rachel Lamp and TobyMac singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.

Who said that you weren’t beautiful
And that you didn’t belong in your own skin?
Who said that you were all alone
And that you’re never gonna find love again?

So many little words, so many little lies
That have followed you all of your life
Looking for the truth, look into your eyes
And you’ll see it’s been there the whole time

Ooh, even when you were running
Even when you were hiding
Never been a moment that you were not perfectly loved
When you barely believed it
When your eyes couldn’t see it
Every single moment, you’ve always been perfectly loved
Ooh, perfectly loved
You’ve always been perfectly

In the hands of the Infinite
As the wounds of the world became His
See the kindness Heaven has for you
And how He’s always been drawing you in

So many open doors (so many open doors), so many miracles (so many)
That have followed you all of your life
Looking for the truth (looking for the truth), look into your eyes (oh)
And you’ll see its been there the whole time

Ooh, even when you were running
Even when you were hiding
Never been a moment that you were not perfectly loved
When you barely believed it
When your eyes couldn’t see it
Every single moment you’ve always been perfectly loved
Ooh, perfectly loved
Ooh

You’re not a problem
You’re not a mistake
Don’t need fixing or solving
In the arms of His grace

You’re perfectly human
Made from the dust
You’ve got a heart, broken and scarred, yet perfectly loved

Oh, even when you were running
Even when you were hiding
Never been a moment that you were not perfectly loved
When you barely believed it (when you barely believed it)
When your eyes couldn’t see it
Every single moment you’ve always been perfectly loved
Perfectly loved
You’ve always been perfectly loved

Ooh
Perfectly loved
You have always been perfectly loved

Have you ever been told that were not pretty, or beautiful, or handsome? Perhaps you were told that you were too skinny or too big or perhaps that you had an unusually shaped body. Maybe you were told you didn’t have the right looks. As young people, we may have been made fun of by groups of other people. It seems as if their mission in life was to ridicule others and just make them feel unworthy. In some instances, people are denied jobs because they don’t have that right look, however right look is defined. The really sad part in all of this is that many people are actually scarred for life because of the ridicule they faced in their younger days. As these scarred people enter adulthood, they firmly believe that no one will ever love them and that they will live a life alone. It is so easy for some people to feel they are not good enough whenever they experience these types of situations. It also seems there are some people who have the right look, the right build, the right personality, and seemingly glide through life never understanding those who didn’t fit the perfect model that the world expects. We may be the one in the background saying please pick me. I know I have painted sort of a grim picture, but I firmly believe there are people who fit this mold and many of us have felt this way at some point in our lives. What is most important and perhaps more challenging in some ways is that we need to focus on what God wants us to look like. In 1 Peter 3:3-4, we are told what God expects, “Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.” Many people may say that this scripture is directed to women, but I believe it really speaks to men and women, especially the second sentence. I also believe that the first sentence can apply to both sexes, especially in today’s world. The bible also tells us that we were created in the image of God. We find this in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” This scripture is talking about our inner self and our spirit, not the external body. God loves us because of who we truly are on the inside. Our closest friends know us and love us based on who we are and do not take the worldly view of our physical appearance. It is our inner spirit that communicates with God, our external look means nothing in his eyes.

We can try to run and hide from the world and all it represents, but we can never hide or get away from God. He has always loved us even when we were trying to run and hide from him and the world. Since he is always with us and loves us unconditionally with a never-ending love, it is impossible to hide from him. So even in your deepest darkest moments, he is there to bring you peace and love. All we have to do is open our heart and let our inner spirit rejoice in his love. No matter what we do our how much we change, God’s love for us never waivers, it is an eternal love that no one can take away and is also something we can never escape. In the eyes of God, we are never a problem, we are his perfect creation and his love is unconditional.

Some of the people who read this may be thinking that God has never been there for them. They believe that God is merely a name or a spirit that cannot be touched or seen, so how do we know he is there and that he truly does love us. Take a few minutes to think about some of the challenges that you have faced in life. As some of those challenges ended, did you ever think about how these challenges were overcome? Was there someone new who came into your life? Did you get that job you thought you would never find? Did you suddenly find out that you could have that child when you thought it would never happen? These types of questions tend to be non-stop, but take some time to focus on answers that have come along the way. Do you believe that some of these issues in your life just magically went away? It is God who is in the middle of this and he is the one answering your requests and the only one who has never failed you. He brought that right person or people into your life, he helped you get that right job, he helped you when your heart was lonely, he helped you get food when you were hungry. God alone can meet your needs and he is the only one who will love you unconditionally for your entire life. He has known us since before we were born and he has great plans for each of us. We are told this is Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Just as God had a plan for Jeremiah the prophet, he has a plan for each of us.

God also tells us in Psalm 139:13-14 that he knew us before we were born, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” I believe that if you take the time and focus on the 2 scriptures above and reflect back on your life, you will find that you were never really alone; you were just unaware of God’s hand reaching out to you. You have never been truly alone and never will be, all you have to do is open your hearts and feel God’s love and presence. He alone will never leave us or forsake us. God is never-ending and perfect love.

You indeed are perfectly loved.

Click to hear Rachel Lampa and TobyMac sing Perfectly Loved

Woman at the Well

The next entry for my Blog is Woman at the Well, which was written Jesse Reeves, Olivia Lane, and Steve Fee. It was first released in April 9, 2021. A link to Olivia Lane singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog. The link also includes a film clip from the TV Series “The Chosen.”

Woman at the Well

I heard a story from the Bible
When I was just a little girl
About a broken-hearted woman
Who met the Savior of the world

Thought it was just another story
One that the preacher man would read
But as I’m sitting here at home
Drinking red wine all alone
I think that woman might be me

‘Cause tonight I feel just like
The woman at the well
Wondering how someone could love me
When I can’t love myself
But You want me as I am and that sounds crazy
I guess maybe that’s why grace is so amazing

Staring at that empty bottle
I swear I caught a glimpse of Him
He met me right there at the bottom
And turned that wine to living water
And taught me how to love again

Yeah, tonight I feel just like
The woman at the well
Wondering how someone could love me
When I can’t love myself
But You want me as I am and that sounds crazy
I guess maybe that’s why grace is so amazing

It’s no longer just a story when I read it (when I read it)
‘Cause I’ve seen Him for myself and I believe it

Just like the story from the Bible
I heard when I was just a girl
I’m the broken-hearted woman
Who met the Savior of the world

This is a song that brought tears of sadness and tears of joy in my heart as I recalled the story in the bible, then listened to the words of this song, and then saw it come to life on TV when I watched an episode of The Chosen. It is amazing when you read the scripture, feel the pain of the woman at the well, the empathy of Jesus, followed by the great joy he has brought to this woman who has been living a life of hopelessness.

The bible has many passages that describe Jesus, the son of God and savior of the world, interacting with people and explaining who he is and his mission upon coming to earth. One of these passages, which is in the book of Matthew chapter 9, tells us about Jesus meeting with a woman at the well. This woman had a life that was in turmoil, she had already been through multiple marriages, and never seemed to find happiness. When you sit in church and hear these stories, they don’t always seem real because they are not necessarily hitting close to home. Even though the message is true, maybe it doesn’t seem to apply to us at the time and is someone else’s story, not yours or mine. We hear the message, perhaps we retain it, and then we go on with our lives.

As we journey down the road in our lives, we perhaps start struggling with seemingly everything going on in our life, and gradually our world starts falling apart. Maybe we are feeling alone and the deeper in despair we fall, we start believing there is no hope. In this song, the individual is sitting home all alone, drinking some wine, and dwelling on all of the times she has failed in her life. The realization comes that perhaps she is just like the woman at the well from the story she heard in church long ago; a totally messed up life with no escape in sight. Maybe she hasn’t gone through the same type of travails as the woman, but she feels she has failed in her decisions and has lost all hope as her despair rages on. She has trouble loving herself, so how could anyone else ever love her. Perhaps she, just as the woman at the well, has gone through multiple relationships, marriages, or failures in life. She feels as if she will never be loved again and that she is unworthy of love.

At just the right time, this example of Jesus’ love in the bible has finally grabbed the singer’s attention, she finally understands that Jesus accepts us just as we are. All he asks is that we accept him and the eternal life he offers each of us. He knows we will change once we accept him, but he doesn’t hold any of our past against us. We are told about his grace and forgiveness in Romans 4:7. “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.”

As the singer sits there alone and looks down into the bottom of the empty wine bottle, she suddenly catches a fleeting glimpse of the face of Jesus. It sounds sort of odd to catch a glimpse of our savior in the bottom of a wine bottle, but it is his way of saying I am with you wherever you go and ready to pull you up when you are ready to leave your misery. It is so much easier when we finally understand that we don’t look up to find Jesus, we look beside us and to the outreached hand. He is ready to give us eternal life, that living water, whenever we are ready to accept his hand. We find this passage in John 4:13-14, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

I believe that all of us, at some point in our lives, have the hopeless feeling felt by the woman at the well. Some of the mistakes we made were our own fault, and some were probably caused by others. The woman at the well struggled with marriages and relationships, some of the issues were perhaps hers and some not. Whatever the situation, Jesus is not concerned about who is at fault. He doesn’t judge us by our past; his eyes are only focused on eternity. I hope you have partaken of the holy water.

Click to Hear Olivia Lane Sing Woman at the Well, Includes Film Clip from the TV Series – The Chosen

Rescue

The next entry for my Blog is Rescue, which was written by Jason Ingram, Paul Mabury, and Lauren Daigle. The song was initially released in 2018. A link to Lauren Daigle performing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.

Rescue

You are not hidden
There’s never been a moment
You were forgotten
You are not hopeless
Though you have been broken
Your innocence stolen

I hear you whisper underneath your breath
I hear your SOS, your SOS
I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It’s true, I will rescue you

There is no distance
That cannot be covered
Over and over
You’re not defenseless
I’ll be your shelter
I’ll be your armor

I hear you whisper underneath your breath
I hear your SOS, your SOS
I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It’s true, I will rescue you

I will never stop marching to reach you
In the middle of the hardest fight
It’s true, I will rescue you
I hear the whisper underneath your breath
I hear you whisper, you have nothing left

I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It’s true, I will rescue you
I will never stop marching to reach you
In the middle of the hardest fight
It’s true, I will rescue you

Oh, I will rescue you

Sometimes in life, we feel sort of like the person that got lost in the deep dark forest in a Disney movie. We look up and we can’t see the sky due to the towering trees, we can only see so far ahead since the sun seems to barely make it to the forest floor, and the path we used to get there now looks so overgrown that we are not sure that is the right path. Have you ever reached this point in your life? A time when you feel lost, forgotten, cast out, alone, and/or unloved? The events in our life cause us to want to just disappear. As we start to come back to our senses, we realize we don’t know the way back home and a feeling of hopelessness overwhelms us, we don’t want to stay where we are, but we don’t know how to get back to where we were. We may also reach a point where we are convinced that no one can find us and perhaps there is a feeling that no one even cares. This is sort of a dire situation that maybe all of us have reached at some point in our lives or have at least been on the verge due to the events of our lives just beating us down.

At some point, maybe as a last resort, we reach out to God and put our faith, hope, and trust in him to get us back home. Of course, we should have reached out to him earlier, but we often want to try to work everything out ourselves and then reach out to him when we discover we cannot handle our situation on our own. Fortunately, he always knows where we are physically and emotionally, so we are never hidden from him. He is the light in the darkness and there is no darkness that his light of love cannot penetrate. He sees us through the darkness and shines his light so that we can see him as the darkness dissipates around us. His word tells us that we will never be forgotten, especially since we are children of God once we have accepted Christ as our savior. He always hears our plea, our SOS, and we soon feel his love surround us in the midst of our dark world. We are now filled with hope and begin to realize that we were never really alone and that he is the great physician who can heal any brokenness we may feel. As the lyric says, he whispers to us that we are ok; he doesn’t have to shout since he knew where we were all the time.

To complete our healing, God sends his army to rescue us. We are told in Psalm 23 that we are the sheep of his pasture and John 10:14-15 where Jesus says “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” It doesn’t matter how far away we are physically or emotionally, his army will come; every single sheep is important. I view his army as our family, our church family, our friends, and maybe even people he brings into our lives for a short time to help provide the healing we need. They all come to seek us out and each will play a part in helping to make us whole again. His army may visit us in person and hold us, give us a call, maybe they send their love in a card, an email, or other electronic message. The key is that they are sent by God and doing what they need to do. All the while, God is protecting is us from more damage while serving as our hope and our shield. God and his army will fight for us until the battle is won.

It is true we will probably need help from this mighty force again, but all we have to do is reach out at any time and from any place and God will rescue as again. We must always remember his promises to find us and protect us no matter where we wander.

“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.” Ezekial 34:11-12.

Click to Hear Lauren Daigle Perform Rescue