Midnights (Jesus’ Version): YOYOK

12 year-old me: sitting at the beach in tears after a childhood friend admitted to talking crap about me behind my back for some time. I lost pretty much all of my friends over the next couple of years.

15 year-old me: struggling to cope with being homeschooled and having a home church, practicing driving one day when it hit me: if Jesus is my only friend, that’s okay.

21 year-old me: traveled the world but did it partly alone and realized that cool things are only cool with cool people to share them with.

24 year-old me: struggled to believe that the friends I had were going to stick around, and a few didn’t.

Loneliness has been one of the biggest struggles of my life, a thread woven throughout many stories and twisted around many circumstances of my life. Loneliness is heavy. It is a dull pain, but pain nonetheless. It’s not a sudden event but a slow spread. It’s not like a 30 lb. dumbbell fell on your face, but more like a 30 lb. weighted blanket makes it hard to move. Loneliness is a deep soul longing, but the truth of the matter is, people don’t cure loneliness, God does.

What I love most about “Midnights” is that it is not about the circumstances of Taylor’s life but about her own struggles in responding to them. They are songs about anxiety, pressure, depression, hope, anger, and sorrow. They aren’t just about boys anymore. “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” isn’t about how a boy rejected her or even how her career path got isolating. This song addresses the deep need for connection that we have in our souls. This song is about how we want someone to share the hard with us, share the joy with us, and share the struggle with us, but sometimes we find ourselves on our own in a crowd of people who look like they’re doing better than us.

From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes
I waited ages to see you there
I search the party of better bodies
Just to learn that you never cared

You're on your own, kid
You always have been

I echo what I said in my previous post: Taylor strikes a cord, but she doesn’t tell the whole truth. After all, David is familiar with the struggle of loneliness, as well. There were many moments in David’s life where he wasn’t just at a party with know-it-alls. He was in a cave with people hunting for his life. And in said cave, he wrote:

When my spirit faints within me,
you know my way!
In the path where I walk
they have hidden a trap for me.
Look to the right and see:
there is none who takes notice of me;
no refuge remains to me;
no one cares for my soul. (Psalm 142:3-4)

David echoes Taylor, here. He’s tired of the struggle. He’s tired of people not being who they said they were. He’s tired of being alone in this. He feels as if there is no safe space and no safe people. What does he do with these feelings? Where does he turn? Does he simply conclude, like Taylor Swift, that he is on his own?

I cry to you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living.
Attend to my cry,
for I am brought very low!
Deliver me from my persecutors,
for they are too strong for me!
Bring me out of prison,
that I may give thanks to your name!
The righteous will surround me,
for you will deal bountifully with me. (v. 5-8)

David first cries to the Lord. He brings his loneliness, in all of its complexity, over to the God who knows all of our thoughts. He doesn’t pretend before the Lord that everything is fine. I think we are often tempted to do that. David doesn’t hold back or sugar-coat the truth, rather, he reminds himself what is even truer than his feelings of loneliness.

He reminds himself that the Lord is his refuge, not a fortified wall. The Lord is His deliverer, not a mighty army. The Lord is stronger than his enemies. The Lord is worthy of thanks. The Lord, He is the answer for David’s midnight fears. Note that unlike our concerns about loneliness (which are highly emotional but present no immediate threat to our safety), David’s struggle here is much more life-or-death. People are out to kill him, and he is without the company of men to help protect him. David’s loneliness has a real and immediate cost.

Then he asks the Lord for help. David brings his needs before the Lord and asks for help. He asks for deliverance; he asks for green pastures; he asks for the Lord’s attention. How often, in our loneliness, do we also assume that we’re on our own instead of finding comfort in the Lord’s attention and asking for His help? How often do we come humbly before him in need and receive His goodness?

David comes before the Lord needy and lonely and leaves this time with praise of thanksgiving on his tongue, confident that the Lord will provide. He comes feeling like the only one and leaves knowing that the Lord is with him.

He is NOT on his own.

Stay tuned for one more Midnights' (Jesus’ Version) next week!

Hannah