Over the last 5 years I've been writing songs that turned into something unexpected: a journal of my life.
That journal is now becoming an album called The Seeds of Something Whole.
Each song on the album carries a specific moment, memory, or feeling. As I've been working on finishing the album, I've noticed that each song takes me right back to where I was when I wrote it.
It's kind of amazing how music can do that. It has this ability to transport you back in time. In a way it can be incredibly therapeutic.
Over the next little while, I'd like to share a short story behind each song on the album.
But first, the album title.
The Seeds of Something Whole is taken from a line in the last song on the album, called Life Lately. I'll talk more about that song on another post, but the lyrics are this:
Maybe the light will flow
Through the cracks I've tried not to show
Maybe the hurt can hold
The seeds of something whole
These lines really captured the emotions I felt when I wrote Life Lately, but they also ended up reflecting the entire five-year stretch that led to this album. And if I make the lens even wider, they might sum up my whole life in general.
Here's the thing: pain happens. It's part of mortality. We will hurt here, a lot.
We can take that hurt and let it bury us, or we can allow it to shape us.
Maybe the lessons we learn through grief, pain, betrayal, and suffering can open up parts of us that would otherwise never be unearthed.
There's a quote I love from the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens:
“I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.”
Adversity shapes us more than comfort ever could.
Each step through the darkness or into a trial is shaping us into something more than we were before.
We can come to know ourselves better. We can come to a better understanding of God or something bigger than ourselves. We can develop deeper empathy. We can see the light in the middle of the darkness. Then we can BECOME the light.
Maybe, in the middle of the moments that feel unbearably painful, there are seeds being planted inside us.
Seeds that will eventually grow into something whole.
If you're in the middle of something now, maybe you're in planting season. I hope you can find hope in that.
How has adversity shaped you?