Empty

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

. . .

I slowly realized the music inside me had indeed died. I tried so hard for so long to keep my head held high and to keep moving. My strength weakened daily and eventually disappeared.  No passion or drive existed inside me. I lost all sense of purpose or mission. Without striving toward any new goals or dreams, the life inside me completely dried up, leaving me incredibly empty.

I had no words left to express, no song left in me to sing. I could write pages and pages, pouring out the contents of my heart, but the rhyme and the meaning didn’t accompany them. My poems expressed the songs of my heart, yet I no longer had a reason to sing. Even when I sat down to write a poem, no words came. I sat in utter silence, staring at nothing but a blank page.

I felt even emptier inside when I couldn’t write a single poem. But God used that barren feeling to let others’ music speak to me on a deeper level than ever before in my life. I clung to music in a new way. Songs like Nicol Sponberg’s “Resurrection”[1] truly expressed the cry of my heart for God to somehow create beauty out of the now shattered pieces of my heart. I desperately hoped God might breathe life back into me someday.

Christian contemporary music touched me deeply as I found myself relating so well to numerous songs. Many songs spoke directly to me, precisely describing my thoughts and feelings. If someone I never knew could write a song to articulate the depth of my heart so perfectly, I didn’t walk this road alone. They walked a similar road, too. Maybe they hadn’t faced the same circumstance, but they felt the same despair, connecting us. Their lyrics took a desperate heart and pointed it toward faith, giving me the hope I always found while writing my own poetry.

When I had no song left to write, God used others to write their music on my heart. What an impact these songwriters had on me to help me climb out of this lonely pit of grief.

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[1] “Resurrection,” Nicol Sponberg, 2007, Curb Records.