From The Desk of David

The beat started—familiar and new all at once. The anticipation would soon be replaced with a determined overthinking, attempting to solve the puzzle being downloaded audibly into my ears. But over the next two hours, I’d find that I didn’t receive a puzzle, but the familiar graveyard where the worship of trauma and pain will lead you, littered with the delusion of that humanity is capable of saving itself—something I’ve also far too familiar with too. 

Now, this author must confess. Music holds a special place in my heart—including Swift’s. In fact, I can’t tell you the number of times Swift’s synth-pop beats and melodic voice have kept me company in hospital beds or the number of times that some doctor has had the bedside manner of a snake and Swift’s bass-charged anthems have helped me not rip said doctor’s head off.

There’s this king in the Old Testament who has the most peculiar sayings of wisdom, which have all been compiled, organized and accounted for in the book of Proverbs. Now, I must mention that this king was named King Solomon and was one of the wisest men who ever lived. Now, King Solomon has this one proverb that I must confess, I used to think was just a warning wrapped in hyperbole, dramatic language carefully concocted and strung together to prove a point—something I’ve done myself a thousand times. 

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”

Proverbs 18:21

As a self-proclaimed author, creative, and lover of words, this has always been a passage of scripture that weighs heavily on me because I know the power of our words, and the album I heard this past weekend was a glaring reminder and example of what happens when a creative (more like a human) chooses to give into the temptation to use the gift of words to worship their trauma, grief, and heartache over utilizing their gift to be the vessel that stops the emotional bleeding that our own humanity has left us to face. 

But I must confess that I, too, have fallen victim to the same temptation—the temptation to let pride be the pen and your pain to the ink. I can’t tell you the number of pages, soaked in ink, that I have in journals that carefully create worlds in which my own hurt, pain, and heartache were crowned king for the day and allowed to rule. I’ve also fallen prey to the temptation to live in those worlds and walk around as if my pain and trauma were all I was, and I’ve even gone as far as living my life in such a way that my pain and what I made of it, were the best parts of me. But as I always found out (and I dare to say that Swift is feeling the same), it would always leave me empty and far angrier than before. 

But, thankfully, that’s only half the story. I’ve been given the elixir, and my pain has an expiration date. While following Jesus has been far from easy, it has given me the hope that one day, the pain and hardships that I’ve faced (and will in the future) no longer have authority to tell me who I am and I am not the chronic pain I feel, the disability I carry, and all the heartache this life has brought me, but I am a child of God. But I must also confess that I have to be reminded of that from time to time. A fact that I attribute to the dysfunctional and misguided idol factory known as my heart, and if my pain has taught me anything, it’s this—pain keeps us dependent. 

Utter that phrase to a doctor, and I’d suspect that they’d agree but with a caveat to specifically assert that the state of dependence that pain leaves us includes some form of narcotic pain medication. Ask a personal trainer about pain, and they’d attribute the human dependence that pain creates to a reminder to eat more protein. Ask a psychologist about pain and the dependency it makes, and they’ll more than likely hand you a definition that vilifies the pain we feel and those who create it. But I assert that they’re all wrong—or rather narrow-minded. Yes, pain, both physical and emotional, is a bad thing. In fact, it was never in God’s design for us to experience pain, yet we all still experience pain. 

While that might seem depressing, it’s actually good news. It means our pain becomes a reminder to ourselves and a message to others that we are incapable of fixing ourselves and that all of humanity possesses this undeniable need for redemption from our pain and the way we can so recklessly inflict pain on others. And unlike the men, Swift claims can save her in her songs, humanity’s True Savior will never cause pain but transform it into a ballad of grace and salvation that will be sung for eternity.