“All the Days of My Life” Song Story (“The Barn” Album)

Blog by Kristen Hicks

Ok, can I be honest? This is not the song story I really wanted to share this week. Actually, it’s not really a song story I want to share any week. It’s been blowing my mind how every single week I write a song story, the week leading up to it, the Lord reminds me of things. He brings me back to certain places, the important seasons of why I wrote these songs, to begin with. This song is no exception. The only thing that makes this song story different than the others is because it touches a super intimate, slightly embarrassing (although, I’m not sure why), just a tender, vulnerable area in my heart. A place that I usually only trust a handful of people with.

One night, back in 2008, I was journaling out a prayer to the Lord. I was struggling. I was finding myself in a moment that was all too familiar. Loneliness? I’m not sure if that is an accurate word; even though in that moment that is exactly the word I would have chosen. Side note: I am learning that loneliness is different from a lack of something that I desire. True loneliness is deeper, it’s literally not having anyone. And I am learning to recognize and be grateful for the fact that it’s a part of the Lord’s plan for a community of believers to surround each other and also, that He gifted us His Holy Spirit so that we would never have to actually be alone ever again. In other words, it’s not loneliness that I struggle with, it’s impatience, and a matter of trust. Also, things the Holy Spirit came to help with.

So, yea, I was struggling with my desire to be married, like most 20-year-olds I know. I felt the Lord gently leading me to write out my heart in it. Not just to Him but to him, my husband. It felt really awkward at first. But this was where the first verse of the song started. It came out of what I wrote.

Verse 1

Today is one of those days, where it’s almost like I miss you.

Which is really strange considering I don’t even know you.

I know the Lord has His ways and they don’t always match mine

But still, it doesn’t keep me from wishing you were right by my side.

That was the only way I knew to describe it. I missed someone I had never met. It wasn’t someone I had made up in my mind. There was no one that I was even interested in at the time. All I knew was that which I knew Abba wanted for me. (Dang, that thought. Even at this moment, in just the things He has been teaching me in the last couple weeks, I can feel it beginning to wreck me.) All that He desired for me. All that He had shown me that I was worth. That is who I missed. The man that would one day, remind me often of who I am in Jesus. Not just verbally, but actually show me. He would remind me of who our Father is and that nothing is impossible with Him. The man that would sing over me, even if he couldn’t sing well, just like I know the Lord does. Someone to just do life with, the glorious every day, someone to fight battles, overcome struggles, and celebrate victories with. Someone who would see me and actually want to manifest Jesus in my life and simply love me. Someone who would choose me and pursue me in all the same ways that Jesus has. And most importantly, someone who would let me love him back in all the ways that Jesus has taught and shown me.

I am all too familiar with process. I completely understand how much the Lord loves it. Especially, when it concerns an area of destiny in a person’s life. Jonathan David Helser says, “The enemy always points his sword right where your destiny lies.” Meaning, the moment he begins to realize the areas that we were clearly created for, he begins his own agenda to steal, kill and ultimately destroy us in them. And he did exactly that. He almost won, too. But God…

Pre-Chorus

Could it be that there’s something that I just can’t get right

Or is it God only trying to wake me up inside.

There is always something massively powerful about those two words. They are the moment when we choose to claim the fact that we are weak and so instead we look beyond what we can do, beyond our own worlds, our own culture, our own opinions, and we look at Him. Looking LOVE Himself dead in the eyes and seeing the impossible take place within our hearts.

Proverbs 31:12 “She bring him (her husband) good not harm all the days of her life.” This verse isn’t saying that she brings him good not harm all the days of their marriage, nor does it say all the day of his life or all the days that she knows him. It says “all the days of her life.” Before and after and all the in between. In other words, every decision I make affects the person that I was created to be one with. This was a truth I believed back when I wrote this song. And then I fell away from it. I lost hope in it. I lost sight that the God of creation created me to be my husband’s and for him to be mine. I gave up on the promise that the Lord of my life ever wanted to speak me into my husband’s arms. I stopped trusting, I stopped believing and I ran the opposite direction. To the point that I literally thought that marriage wasn’t a part of my destiny at all. I literally told a friend of mine last year, that I felt like this song wasn’t for me. That maybe it was meant for me to sing over other people.

I think far too often we believe in a very small God. We think He is only able to heal our physical bodies and not our hearts. We believe in the mentality of once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, insert whatever struggle you may have. But the truth is, that we serve a God of redemption, a God of restoration— A God that once called Israel an “adulterous” nation and in then came back and spoke restoration over her calling her His “virgin” Israel. I learned a very important lesson in this season. I learned that if I started looking at the promise instead of the promise-Giver that I can easily serve that promise allowing it to become an idol in my heart, rather than a sweet gift from Abba. It became about me, rather than about serving Him. So He allowed me to wander off, just like Israel, but never too far out of His reach. Only far enough so that I would see the truth of what I had done. And He has been bringing me back ever since.

Chorus

One foot in front of the other, I’ll keep walking and waiting for you

There’s no telling when I’ll get it right but I’ll do what it takes until I do

Cause to think that the God of creation, created me to be yours

And to know that the Lord of my life wants to speak me into your arms

Oh, I want to love you all the days of my life 

Verse 2

It’s funny how things work out when we least expect them to

And God only knows how long I waited and prayed for you

I can’t wait for the day when we look back and see all He brought us through

All the little things that worked together to lead my heart to yours

In the last couple weeks, the Lord has been showing me things within myself that He is still in the process of healing. Things like realizing that although I received Him telling me that it’s still a part of my destiny to be married, I subconsciously still reject the fact that I am worth being pursued. He is doing a work in my heart to realize that when He wants to heal, He actually heals in the fullness of Himself, not what I think I’m worth based on my mistakes. And I should never settle for less than Him. He is showing me that if I allow Him to be who He wants to be in my heart and do what He wants to do in my life then I will be able to love my husband in the way He intended to begin with and that I can still sing this song with confidence that nothing will be able to take away or compare to all that I went through to learn how to really love him. He doesn’t waste time. EVER!

Bridge 

Every secret, every heartache, and tear that I cried before you

Can’t compare to every moment I spend learning how to love you.

ALL the Days of my Life.