ROCK GOSPEL: THE MIDDLE

 ROCK GOSPEL: The Middle 

By Jimmy Eat World

Songs Jesus Sings to Me


Hey, don't write yourself off yet

It's only in your head, you feel left out

Or looked down on

Just try your best

Try everything you can

And don't you worry what they tell themselves

When you're away

It just takes some time

Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride

Everything, everything'll be just fine

Everything, everything'll be alright, alright

Hey, you know they're all the same

You know you're doing better on your own

So don't buy in

Live right now

Just be yourself

It doesn't matter if it's good enough 

for someone else

It just takes some time

Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride

Everything, everything'll be just fine

Everything, everything'll be alright, alright

Hey, don't write yourself off yet

It's only in your head, you feel left out

Or looked down on

Just do your best

Do everything you can 

And don't you worry what their bitter hearts

Are gonna say

It just takes some time

Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride

Everything, everything'll be just fine

Everything, everything'll be alright, alright.

***

This song came out when I was serving in Young Women (our church's youth group for 12-18 yo young women). I loved it. I wished it had come out when *I* was 13, because it's a perfect message for a girl in that time of life when you're figuring out who you are and where you belong. So I told the girls it was our unofficial theme song and we listened to it often. 

What I didn't expect is for that song to rock my world 10 years later. I don't remember when exactly I had this experience, but I know it was the summer after I had Niles in 2011 and I was feeling my regular delayed postpartum pretty hard. I felt all the PPD feels: exhausted, not good enough, unworthy, lost, barely able to dress myself and do my life. I needed to go to the store one evening and Rich sent me by myself for a little break (I rarely went anywhere without my kids, ever). I was disheveled and a little dazed as I walked into Albertson's looking for whatever. I stood in an aisle and couldn't remember what I was looking for. I felt frustrated and started to get teary. Then I heard this song playing from the speaker overhead. It flowed down over me like a heavenly hug. As I was berating myself in the grocery aisle with horrible self-talk like, “Omg, you're such a mess! You can't even remember why you're here! Why ARE you here? You're so much dead weight…,” Jesus was telling me, “It just takes some time, little girl. You're in the middle of the ride. Just wait, it gets so good! YOU get so good. Just do your best, do everything you can…Everything will be just fine…I got you.”

I wept. I wept in the grocery store. I was encircled in divine love and lifted out of the dark for a moment. I will never forget that feeling. And I'm grateful this song brings it back every time I hear it. 

"Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time [in the middle], the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. 

For after much tribulation come the blessings."

-D&C 58:3-4

[I cried as I typed this. Another testament to the power of remembering and recording!]

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