A declaration.

John 14:27

I wasn’t going to share this, but I’ve decided that the story is just as important as the song, so here goes.

I’ve had an incredibly difficult year. The circumstances behind that aren’t important here, as they are very personal, but I’ve been walking with this constantly growing burden of anxiety, fear, and just this overwhelming sadness that coloured everything in my life with this horrible murky grey. Instead of getting better, like I felt like I was supposed to be, I found myself getting worse and worse as time went on and this burden got harder and harder to carry.

The last few weeks have been especially hard, with the burden feeling like it was growing exponentially with every passing day. I had been climbing mountains personally and doing all the things I was supposed to, trying to change my attitudes and perspectives, but the weight got heavier and heavier, to the point where there hadn’t been a single day that passed for the last few weeks where I’ve not broken down in tears at some point.

During this, I wrote and released Lead Me Down To The River. The song sounds defeated, because that’s how I felt. That song was a prayer, asking for help, because I honestly didn’t know how much longer I could carry it. It ended with Hallelujah and a happy ending, because that’s what I believe in, in declaring that I actually won’t stay there forever, but I absolutely wasn’t feeling that way at the time. And upon releasing the song, the burden got worse.

Last Sunday, the song that would become ‘This Valley Is Not My Home’ appeared in my heart along with very specific instructions - ‘praise’. So, I sat down and wrote this song as a declaration that I wasn’t going to be defeated by this and that I knew my breakthrough was coming, even if I’d not seen it yet. I finished the song on Monday night, and upon completing it, the burden got worse again.

I worked on a lyric video over the following days because I believed the words to this song to be important, not just as a declaration for me, but for others too. After all this, and through continuing to fight this seemingly unending battle with anxiety, I released the song on Friday morning.

And upon releasing it, my burden vanished.

All my anxiety was gone, to the point where I started searching for it. I felt really strange, because I’ve lived there for so long I actually forgot what ‘ok’ felt like. I even started testing myself - doing things and listening to songs that previously would have almost guaranteed a breakdown, and there was nothing.

I walked through the war zone, I carried my burden, I’ve learned and I’ve grown, and I’ve been set free. God is good.