Most of us tell our lives in a straight line, as if every season were heading somewhere obvious. Brett Young’s “Chapters,” his duet with Gavin DeGraw, is an honest and realistic look at life, one filled in pieces, with plot twists nobody asked for.
The song opens on a boy who wants nothing more than to become his father. Dad coaches his Little League team and, on Sundays, teaches him about faith. Then comes chapter two. The birth of disappointment and the death of dreams.
What keeps the song from becoming hopeless is the bridge. Young says he can almost hear God laughing at the plans he once made. It isn’t cruel laughter. It’s the laughter of a father whose child insists on a smaller gift than the one being prepared. The loss became the doorway to music, and to more than he would have thought to ask for.
C.S. Lewis said something similar, that we often settle for playing with mud pies in a slum because we cannot envision a holiday by the sea. Young’s song echoes that claim. No life is perfect, and time won’t stand still. But every chapter, the glad ones and the broken ones, is being written by an Author who knows how the book ends. I’ve heard he has better things in store than what we can think or imagine.
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Every chapter, the glad ones and the broken ones, is being written by an Author who knows how the book ends.
So, do yourself a favor. Pour a cup, press play below, and think back over the chapters of your life. Don’t forget to mix in a little hope.
