Head Above Water

I listened to Avril Lavigne a lot after my divorce in 2002, especially the song, “Complicated.” According to biography.com, her music is described as a “rock, punk and rebellious style.”

That sounded great.

My worship music had been traded for songs that aligned more like my rebellious, why-is-this-happening-to-me-life at the time. I completed my “defiance” with a belly button ring.

Over the next year, my hardened heart was hit with several divine appointments. I knew what they were doing though, because that used to be me on the other side of the table talking about God

I smiled as they talked, all the while thinking, “Well, your life doesn’t suck like mine, so you do not know or understand how I feel.”

It was all about me and my dreams and how those did not come true. Like I wanted.

That was one of the many mistakes I made before knowing Christ.

Then, I discovered Jesus for real.

I began to read the Bible through for the first time and it was FULL of people who were in pain and crying out to the Lord.

And praising Him in their suffering.

Slowly, my eyes were opened and my mind became clear to how someone could worship God in the depths of despair.

He knew all about pain.

At first, it was baffling how the same heartbreaking lament were also words of praise.

The book of Psalms was like an unexplored galaxy of human emotions telling me someone else had felt the same way I did.

I wasn’t raised on the Bible as a whole book of one seamless story that creates a holy tapestry. I continued to struggle with my own dreams vs. what God might have planned.

Discovering how I could feel peace in the midst of category five hurricane was exactly as the book says. Beyond human comprehension.

Was it actually okay to drown my pillow with tears or feel like I was sinking in mud and couldn’t move? Could “Christians” feel like they had waves crashing over them that took away my every breath?

It was a long time before I saw the Bible not as a book of rules, but rather a divinely inspired collection of life stories and letters from a Heavenly Father, who wants to guide me from the watery depths of darkness to the fresh air of freedom and light.

It’s been twenty years since Avril Lavigne and I cried, “Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?”

Wow. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in my green, Honda Civic that had a sunroof and two little blonde girls in the backseat. It was a rebellious time for me and the Lord.

Imagine my surprise when one of Avril’s songs began playing on a Christian music station a few years ago.

Oddly enough, life was complicated again and I felt like I was underwater.

Avril Lavigne never thought she’d be on Christian radio. But the former pop-punk princess found herself there last October (2018), when her uplifting anthem “Head Above Water” became an unexpected crossover hit on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs chart, peaking at No. 2.
usatoday.com

She once again had a song that aligned with my life, but this time it wasn’t from the rejected relationship club scene.

It sounded like she was talking to God.

She had contracted a disease and thought she was going to die. It was during those dark months when she wrote, “Head Above Water.”

I immediately feared that I’d see backlash from the “Christian” community comparing her other songs and videos to this one, somehow implying that it was not genuine.

Why was I worried? Because that is what we have become.

To most people, the church (any denomination) no longer represents a Savior who would walk through Samaria, just to tell a sexually-active woman with a lifetime of multiple partners that she could have so much more. A love like clean water.

Living Water, not drowning water.

Those who have been caught in the undertow of sin, shame and guilt are typically the greatest messengers for what Christ can do. When you’ve been miraculously rescued from drowning or from being trapped in quicksand, you tend to talk about it.

This might be Avril Lavigne’s only song that ever mentions God, but I truly hope she finds the One who can part the seas and help her reach the shore.

I hope we all do.

And I can’t see in the stormy weather

I can’t seem to keep it all together

And I can’t swim the ocean like this forever

And I can’t breathe…

God, keep my head above water

I lose my breath at the bottom

Come rescue me, I’ll be waiting

I’m too young to fall asleep
Avril Ramona Lavigne