Music Can Become A Trusted Companion

​Elliott and I went to see the movie Power Ballad yesterday. I won't give much of the movie away. I'll simply say it centered on one song, and how one song can mean so much to so many different people for so many different reasons.

The movie reminded me that music can be a constant source of healing. It can see things inside me that sometimes even those closest to me can't see.

I think music heals because it helps us feel together rather than feel alone. And that matters.

Many emotional wounds are not simply painful experiences. They are experiences of pain, fear, grief, shame, or longing that we carry by ourselves. The suffering is often amplified by isolation.

When someone writes a song about heartbreak, addiction, grief, regret, hope, or redemption, and you hear it and think, "That's exactly how I feel," something important happens. The pain hasn't disappeared. But you are no longer alone with it.

Shortly after my divorce, my dear friend Michelle sent me a song: Say I Won't by MercyMe.

I played that song daily - on repeat - for over a year. I can hear it now:

I'm gonna run, no, I'm gonna fly
I'm gonna know what it means to live and not just be alive
The world's gonna hear 'cause I'm gonna shout
And I will be dancing when circumstances drown the music out
Say I won't

That song didn't teach me anything I didn't already know intellectually. But it gave language, sound, and emotion to something I struggled to express myself. In my mind I knew I was going to embrace the challenging new journey I was suddenly on; the song gave me a way to feel my own faith and belief and confidence.

That song became a companion, one I still turn to today.

The reality is, some of us are much better at singing our feelings than speaking them. Which makes sense. Humans communicated through song thousands of years before they communicated with sentences.

Power Ballad.

We all have one (or more).

What song has been a companion to you in life?