18 by Steve Moakler

(Link to youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHXivM4TXio)

You’re beautiful

With the shiniest diamonds in your ears

You can’t hear your mother – she’s crying in the other room

She knows it won’t be okay

Farther from her daughter with the coming of each day

So you pick up your books, that you never read

Run off to school like a good drama queen

Do you care where you’re going, or know where you’ve been?

Barely a woman, you’re 18 years in

Our faith is placed in second chances

As the angel and her demon dance it’s

Like you’re 18 years in with no way out

And you’re the star of the story you don’t care about

Just a little girl in a bigger world turned upside-down

Well, don’t’ you throw it all away when no one’s here to pull you out

Who’s gonna pull you out?

You’re beautiful

with your brand new clothes

Like armor from your head, from your head to your toes

You keep it all inside so that nobody knows

Your heart’s on fire, people blind to the glow.

And all these boys are thirsty for your outsides

You never care to ever let the right ones in

They’re taking from you something that is sacred

I‘ve watched a car crash but I just can’t take this

Our faith is placed in second chances

As the angel and her demons dance

And when you’re safe and sound inside your bed

I know you dream of things bigger than the things that you let live

When you’re safe and sound inside your bed

I know you dream of things I, I know you dream 18 years in

Only 18 years in with no way out

And you’re the star of the story you don’t care about

Just a little girl in a bigger world turned upside-down

Well, don’t’ you throw it all away when no one’s here to pull you out

This is such a powerful message.  It has not been that song since I was 18 and as I reflect on how I have grown in these past couple years, I want to reach out to those I see believing the lies I did at that age.  My heart in writing this is to help encourage the people that I love to be free from the meaningless lies Satan is telling them- believing that they are not beautiful… not good enough… that they need to do what everybody around them is doing… that they aren’t special. 

While all the blame cannot be placed on “culture”, there are soooo many things that are backwards and messed up that our society tells us are “important” and that you “need to have/do”.  These lies are planted in our minds from a very young age- in TV shows, commercials, billboards, online… and as we enter into our teen years we start to live them out whether through relationships, with our money, with our time without even realizing why we are doing it.  I know it because this is what I did and am still struggling to distinguish between- what is right in God’s eyes versus what I have been told/influenced to do.

I love how this song shows that so many of us are living to keep up an image- one that is typically very different from the way we are feeling on the inside.  The way we dress (diamonds in your ears), the new clothes that are used like “armor” to protect us from standing out so that people won’t see us, and on the inside our hearts are on fire- wanting something more but people are blind to that glow because we cover it up to look the same as everyone else.  It is as if our biggest fear is standing out- especially for what we believe, and what we really want.

“Do you care where you’re going, or know where you’ve been?”

I love this question because it shows how we blindly go through the motions- through the routines just to keep up.  “Do you know where you’ve been?”  When we go places intentionally we know where we have been- and why… but when we are just going through motions and staying with the crowd it is so easy to get lost and not even know where we have been anymore.  We lose our self- and don’t even care where it is we are headed so long as we are with everyone else and not standing out- even if we think of feel differently.  We get so caught up in staying with the appearance that we start to feel like “there is no way out”, and yet inside we long for something more.  You have become “the star of a story you don’t care about”- it isn’t even about the things you want anymore- how sad is it to not even care about your own story, because you have given it to the crowd to write?

These things were not meant to fill us or sustain us- only God can fill that void and that longing.  He is the only one who can pull us out of it all.  Clothing, relationships, social status- none of those things can sustainably fulfill us.  The joy they bring us is momentary and fleeting- hence the need to keep going back for more and seek after style that is forever changing.

“And when you’re safe and sound inside your bed

I know you dream of things bigger than the things that you let live.”

And the sad part is that we all long for more- we all dream of these bigger things that we stifle to fit in… so know that you aren’t weird or different.  Take back your story and start to let your dreams shine.  Encourage one another instead of tearing one another down- God wants so much more for you, fill yourself with Him.