Category: Heartening Companions

For an introduction and Chapter 1 go here; for Chapter 2 go here.

Jon Foreman, Switchfoot & Me

Ch. 3 – Breathing Lessons

Here we come to the album that I missed completely when it released. Maybe the reason was that I had drifted a little from the tastes of my high school days. After all, I was 19, newly married, pregnant before our first anniversary, and knocked out of all normal function for months by twenty-four hour “morning” sickness. Music had drifted to the background of my attention. And Switchfoot’s release of Learning to Breathe was completely off my radar.

But somewhere in the two-plus decades since then, two songs from this album entered my collection of words to hold onto.

The first, Dare You to Move, was one of Switchfoot’s huge mainstream hits, and made a repeat appearance on a subsequent album.

Every time life has felt like an endless cycle of the same weary repeat, I would return to the lines from the chorus:

I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
Like today never happened before

I never imagined those words could become so literally applicable to my life.

And the other lines that I held onto, when I was drawn to imaginations of relief via running away, brought me back to the truth again and again.

Where can you run to escape from yourself
Where you gonna go
Salvation is here

Salvation is always here because Christ is always here. Something I will probably need reminding of all my life.

The second song I absorbed ended up becoming my guide for living the past year and a half, first because it gave words to what I was experiencing.

Hello, good morning, how you been?
Yesterday left my head kicked in
I never, never thought that
I would fall like that
Never knew that I could hurt this bad

And as Jon Foreman is so skilled at doing, after the lyrics met me where I was, they carried me forward to hope.

This is a way that I say I need You
This is a way that I say I love You
This is a way that I say I’m Yours
This is a way
This is a way

That I’m learning to breathe
I’m learning to crawl
I’m finding that you and you alone can break my fall

When I found myself in the place where I could do nothing, breathing became my daily offering. Of worship. Of perseverance. Of acceptance. Of learning in the deepest of ways that if I know nothing else, I know this:

Hallelujah, all I have is Christ

For an introduction and Chapter 1 go here.

Jon Foreman, Switchfoot & Me

Ch. 2 – Beautiful, Broken Humanity

Life moved forward, and more music came along with it. Switchfoot’s second album, New Way to Be Human contained more of the contemplative words I was growing to love. The title track offered a different perspective on life to consider.

Something More, a reflection of the writings of Augustine, hit again on the longing for deeper meaning in life. And since I had my first mesmerizing encounter with Augustine’s writings that year, it’s no wonder this song’s lyrics appealed to me.

To be honest though, I don’t really remember a whole lot about experiencing this album at the time of its release.  When I look back at what my life held that year, this lack of remembering is not really a surprise.

It was the year I watched my baby sister die of cancer. The year I started dating the boy who would become my husband. The year I graduated high school and moved out from home and into a new freedom living with a friend. The year I made myself ill carrying so many college credits I couldn’t think straight. The year of my first massive wrestle with faith and doubt. The year of reveling in the fun of independence. The year of my first encounter with the way stifled grief could assail a sensitive soul.

It is no wonder that the only song that really stands out from that time is Only Hope. A wildly popular movie (that was so sad I never should have watched it) made it impossible to miss this song. And though the movie featured a very beautiful version of this song by Mandy Moore, I will always go back with favor to that calm and soothing voice I was learning to love. I didn’t know the last line of this song’s chorus would come to me again and again over the years, a declaration (and sometimes a plea) of what becomes so clear in the midst of both joy and pain.

I know now You’re my only hope

And in spite of the blurry memory, I must have listened to the album more than my brain recalls, because 24 years later when life felt stripped of all hope, the chorus of Let that be Enough was the prayer that echoed in my mind. A prayer that whispered in my suffering like a gentle lullaby.

Let me know that you hear me
Let me know your touch
Let me know that you love me
Let that be enough

Amazing how God plants gifts within us, knowing what we need because He knows our story from beginning to end. And in the darkest of moments we can discover a gift that’s been sitting there waiting for us all along. Words to pray when we have no words of our own.