A faith-struggle song of sorts, it's not fit for church. But what it represents is an honest internal struggle, looking long and hard at one's sin and not sugarcoating it.

In this day and age, the doctrine of sin has rapidly become unpopular, with a new moral code (of sorts) being thrown together, based on feelings, sensibilities, and longstanding personal pain rather than the universal plumb line, the Bible. In an era where, in popular culture, God has been replaced by both science and "personal truth," nothing is considered sin -- except what any given person might feel offended by.

In the Book of Job from the Christian Bible, it records that a righteous man named Job lost everything: his assets, his children, and his health. Although his wife's life was spared, even her role in encouraging him in his faith withered. But Job still had his faith in spite of it all. Then three men whom he had considered his best friends came to try to, in their minds, talk sense into him. During this back-and-forth discussion, Job's heart hardened to the point where even he lost his faith in God.

God finally answered Job's plethora of complaints by holding Job accountable for his many words. "Where were you when I made the heavens and the earth?" It was largely a monologue of God putting Job back in his place, even a man considered righteous who had lost everything. But this isn't a case of God shaming Job for daring to speak his pain after going through unimaginable circumstances; no, this is a case of God reminding Job that he still needed to trust Him, whether in times of plenty or of lack, reminding Job that no matter what happened, it wasn't something that God Himself couldn't also reverse. And, as the history records, after Job completely repented of his words and thoughts, and prayed for his friends who had swayed him away from trusting God, God restored everything back to Job, twice as much as he had had before. Much later, Apostle Paul shared about learning contentment in times of plenty and in times of lack, and how important that is.

This song was written long ago, early in both of my processes of healing and coming to faith in Christ Jesus. I had already grasped the concepts of sin and a God who was Almighty, but I had not yet grasped the true nature of God's goodness and how, in His goodness, He could restore, just like He could take away. This is not a praise song or a worship song, and certainly not a piece of music fit for church. But I sense that there are many people who are currently in a spot similar to where I was when I wrote this song. My hope is that this song encourages them that they're not alone, and that this blurb encourages them that there is much more to God's goodness than they know.

As a succinct backstory: there was indeed a situation in my life at the time that I wrote the lyrics -- a conflict between two people I cared about -- that struck much fear and many emotions in me. With help, I worked through it and was able to recover.

Musical analysis: the chord structure of most of this song is written in Passacaglia form. Even as the sections change, the bass line continues its pattern, with the chords building on top.