Sara Groves shares her thoughts on the songs that appear on her latest album.

SONG FOR MY SONS

When my Grandmother was 19, her dad, who was a pastor, went to England to speak. While he was there, he had a massive heart attack and was in the hospital dying. He got a little index card and he wrote, “Nita, I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m so sorry. Always love Jesus.” She never got to see her dad again, he died there in England. But she has this index card with his last words to her. I’m not a fatalist, but I wanted to write a song that had the weight of that card. The song is based on Matthew 24 where Jesus is talking to the disciples, and they’re asking him about the end times. In verses 12-13, Jesus says, “Because of the increase of evil, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm until the end will be saved.” Evil evokes in us a desire to close down our hearts. If I could say one thing to my boys, it would be, as the world gets darker, you are going to want to close your hearts. Your love is going to grow cold, and you will want to defend and protect yourself. Jesus asks us to pry open our hearts, and in the face of great darkness, to stand firm in our love for God and love for our neighbors.

IN THE GIRL THERE’S A ROOM

“In the Girl” is about the resilience of hope. Hope is revolutionary. It stands in defiance of nature, the world and all that would tear us down. I told Charlie Peacock, my co-writer on this one, that I had a reoccurring image in my head when I thought about Elisabeth and other girls like her who are victims of sex trafficking

In the girl there’s a room, in the room there’s a table, on the table there’s a candle, and the candle won’t burn out. These men can abuse and hurt and so much can be taken from these young girls, but there’s a room in their hearts that cannot be touched. These girls are broken beyond belief, and yet in their restoration time, when they come to after care homes, there is a rebuilding, a little flicker inside that could not be destroyed.

SAY A PRAYER

The work of International Justice Mission really opened my eyes to a number of injustices, especially to children, around the world. The first verse was inspired by Elizabeth, a young woman forced to work in a brothel when she was 15 years old who prayed every night in spite of being mocked by the other girls. She was rescued by IJM. If she can pray in that situation, how much more can I pray for children like her caught in that kind of oppression. The second verse was inspired by a man whose sons were being groomed to be slaves in the brick kiln where he and his wife were enslaved. He could not bear to see his sons enslaved, and so, with great courage, worked with IJM to bring about their release, and the release of everyone illegally detained at the kiln. I could barely get through the song, as I was thinking about C.S. Lewis’ thoughts in The Weight of Glory. What was heavier, bearing the weight of those bricks, or bearing the weight of Glory as image bearers of God?

LOVE IS STILL A WORTHY CAUSE

My friend Greg went to Africa with a team of 12 businessmen who wanted to identify future African leaders that they could pour financial and educational resources into. They wanted to invest in people who would make a long-term difference in Uganda. On their last day a World Vision representative took them into the jungle as far as they could go. They got out of the car, and everyone was animated, excited about the trip and how they were going to change the world. When they arrived at this very remote village, they realized that AIDS had killed the entire adult population, an entire generation of parents. All that was left was a group of children being led by a 17-year-old girl. These men were just speechless. As fathers, their hearts went out to these kids. Soon it began to rain, and the children huddled inside these roofless huts against the wall, trying to stay dry. My friend didn’t remember who started it, but one of the guys took off his jacket and wrapped it around one of those kids. The other men immediately began to do the same, removing whatever clothing might give these children some shelter. As they hiked out, it was completely silent. All their plans to change the world… When they got back, they began a discussion. Over half these kids were likely infected and dying so do we still invest here? The resounding answer was yes. God calls us to love, and love is still a worthy cause. It is worthwhile to do something simply because you love somebody and because that’s what God did for us. In the end they were not motivated by “cost effectiveness” or “sustainable growth” but by love.

WHEN THE SAINTS

This is the first song I wrote for this album after I heard about the work of IJM. I used to read about amazing heroes like Harriet Tubman who secured her own freedom from slavery and then helped rescue many others through the Underground Railroad. I have always wondered how I would have responded in different times in history. Would I have opened my home to the Underground Railroad or given Anne Frank refuge? We think those stories are removed from us, but right now there are millions of slaves, millions of people hiding from their oppressors. I realized not too long ago, that I have not been the Good Samaritian. I have been the other guys, who walk on the far side of the road. It is my heart’s desire to change that.

HONESTY

I’m convinced the number one deterrent to community is our inability to be honest with each other. The church often feels like the last place where we can really talk about what’s going on in our lives. There’s a cry in my heart for believers to be able to come together and truly confess to each other. We need to know that those confessions won’t be used against us, that prayer requests won’t be turned into gossip, that we can find real refuge. These days are difficult, and if we need to be in community with each other. The bridge of this song is a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Letters and Papers from Prison, “Only the truth and truthfulness can save us now.”

ABSTRACTION

Mark Helprin wrote a beautiful book, A Solider of the Great War, about a man named Alessandro who fought in Italy during World War I. Talking about the loss of just one life Alessandro says, “We’re too weak to feel the full import of such a loss… It would take more than anyone could give to understand the life of one other person… you cannot know anything but the smallest part of the love, regret, excitement, and melancholy of one (life) ... And Two? And Three? At two you have entered the realm of abstraction…” Our daily news is just a ticker tape of death, famine, and war. We can’t enter into something at that level. But it is compelling when you hear the courage of an individual in the face of unbelievable odds, you realize it is all worth it. This song highlights three people who are, for a moment, connecting with individuals and their stories around the world.

I SAW WHAT I SAW

“I Saw What I Saw” is about our experience in Rwanda. I saw so many things there that changed me. Some boys were playing with a ball made from banana leaves. It was January, and memories of Christmas were fresh in my mind. My kids are good kids, and we work on being grateful, but that scene gave me clarity about ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. Another day at lunch we saw prisoners walking through town. Only a small group of perpetrators of the genocide are still imprisoned. 60,000 prisoners have been released back into the community due to the inability to bring justice at that mass level, but there have been no acts of retribution to those prisoners. Rwanda is following the model of South Africa for reparations that says, “Without forgiveness, there is no future.” To see that kind of forgiveness lived out is life changing.

IT MIGHT BE HOPE

This was written about a close friend of mine who had a hard season in her marriage. It just felt pretty relentless, very bleak, and at one point they were going to get a divorce. I can’t think of anything more painful than a divorce, it’s just so incredibly emotional. It’s so deep at every level. You’ve tried to make yourself one with this person. But God did a miracle in this family, and in both of their hearts. Thing were so hard for so long, but I keep thinking of the day when she will look out her window on a spring day, and will feel that flutter of hope.

THE LONG DEFEAT

In a culture that is enamored with success, the idea of a long defeat is difficult to communicate. I first read the phrase in Mountains Beyond Mountains, a biography of Dr. Paul Farmer who works to stem the tide of AIDS and Tuberculosis in Haiti. At one point, Dr. Farmer walks for a day to visit one patient. His traveling companion asks him if this is the best use of time in light of all of the people he has to treat. Dr. Farmer replies, ”...I have fought the long defeat… and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing… We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it.” This attitude is at the heart of our favorite stories. We cheer for Luke Skywalker, not because it looks like he is going to win, but because in spite of the obvious impending doom, he cannot do anything but fight. He fights because to not fight is to give into darkness. Frodo, an unlikely hobbit, enters into the fight of a lifetime, not to win, but because once he is commissioned, he can do nothing else but see this journey through to the end. In the face of overwhelming numbers, IJM staff work tirelessly to free one person at a time. Mother Teresa took on the dying in Calcutta by picking up one person at a time. Christ, in the face of great expectations to be King, took the path of defeat to save truly lost individuals like myself, who had nothing to offer. “I can’t just fight when I think I’ll win, that’s the end of all belief.”

YOU ARE WONDERFUL

Compared to these massive and worldwide social justice issues, it’s pretty easy to feel that my problems are insignificant. But that’s just not true. That’s not what God says about us. He says that what troubles us matters to him. These things are important, we are important to God. He does take on our troubles and walks with us. I wanted to write a song that said thank you Lord for a life of companionship, of taking seriously these things that are on my heart.

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