Hold On

She does this to me every time. There's always one song on each album that makes me cry -- at least.

The jury's still out on the album as a collective work; with some pros and cons still to be weighed. Some songs need to be restructured altogether, with emphasis on downbeats instead of the quo upbeat, for example. But even if the rest of the album turns out to be sub par, this song alone makes it worth the purchase. (Just ask the mascara running down my face this morning on the way to work.)

Nichole wrote this for a girl she toured with a couple of years ago. According to the liner notes, Meredith was so needy, required so much patience and energy and was such a mess, Nichole wanted nothing more than to run from her every time she came into the room. Not long after, she learned that Meredith had taken her own life. Nichole was devastated with shame.

Other places in the liners, Nichole writes about her own separate battles with depression and a major crisis in her marriage. I think this song encapsulates all these struggles, as well as the unspoken and secret ones with which the body of Christ is loath to deal. The optimal experience of this work requires the music, but the lyrics are powerful on their own.

Hold On
It will find you at the bottom of a bottle
It will find you at the needle's end
It will find you when you beg and steal and borrow
It will follow you into a stranger's bed
It will find you when they serve you with the papers
It will find you when the locks have changed again
It will find you when you've called in all your favors
It will meet you at the bridge's highest ledge
So baby don't look down, it's a long way
The sun will come around to a new day
So hold on
Love will find you
Hold on
He's right behind you now
Just turn around
And love will find you
It will find you when the doctor's head is shaking
It will find you in a boardroom, mostly dead
It will crawl into the foxhole where you're praying
It will curl up in your halfway empty bed
So hold on
Love will find you
Hold on
He's right behind you now
Just turn around
And love will find you
So baby don't believe that it's over
Maybe you can't see 'round the corner?
To hang between two thieves in the darkness
Love must believe you are worth it