When I first heard it, I was immediately captivated by its beautiful melody. Marvellously performed by Lauren Daigle and produced by Paul Mabury and Jason Ingram, You Say is a great gift to all of us!
The single’s melody invited me to delve deeper into its profound lyrics. It says in Verse 1: “I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough. Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up. Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low? Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know.”
How right you are dear Lauren. Who of us is not, somehow, fighting the inner accusing voices that are saying that she or he is not up to it? How many times are we tempted to view the results and not the effort we put into our struggles? Let us be clear: most of the time results never show how much we struggle with life. So, is life only about the results we are getting or is it something deeper than that? Can we keep claiming that results are the right calculus that determines our true self or is there something higher than that? Are we who are mind tells us to be?
Confronted by such great anguish the singer opts for faith. A faith that moves far from being what our mind says and goes directly to what Jesus thinks of us. In fact, the chorus sings: “You say I am loved when I can’t feel a thing. You say I am strong when I think I am weak. You say I am held when I am falling short. When I don’t belong, You say I am Yours, and I believe, I believe. What You say of me.” In simple words, what counts is not what I think or not think and feel or not feel. At the end of the day, what really gives me identity, security and hope is what Jesus says about me!
What a saving reality that is! I, as a human being, feel that I fall short and feel insecure but Jesus is holding me, embracing me by his love. I, as a human begin, feel I don’t belong anywhere, but Jesus says that I am His. Therefore, the ultimate criterion would not be what I say of myself but the way Jesus speaks of me. The way He thinks of me. Therefore, my only solution, in order to get rid of my ongoing self-tormented anguish is that of believing in Him who accepts, embraces and interiorising me in Himself.
This fruitful medicine called what You say of me, is my only salvation. Its password is called I believe! This completely changes the singer who starts viewing reality from a different perspective. Notice how she starts facing her everyday reality now that she has decided to believe in Jesus. Verse 2 of the song says: “The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me. In You I find my worth, in You I find my identity.”
Solely with, in and through Jesus are my worth and identity to be found. Undoubtedly, because His Word is our life! Jesus, the Word, who was “in the beginning,” it is through Him that “all things were made … and without him was not anything made that was made… God created everything by the eternal World, his beloved Son. In him ‘all things were created, in heaven and on earth... all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 291). Thus, His Word gives us life, creates us anew and is the source of every good, including our real good.
In the presence of this great healing let me sing with Lauren: “Taking all I have and now I'm laying it at Your feet. You have every failure, God. You'll have every victory.” With his passion, death and resurrection Jesus freed me from myself. He freed me from despair and helplessness that assail me from within.
When you feel down, go to YouTube and type You Say by Lauren Daigle and make your own lifestyle the words: What You say of me Oh, I believe!
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap