The Band Perry - If I Die Young

I have been loving this song by The Band Perry. (Listen if you'd like, but it's not entirely necessary to reading the rest of the post. The song is pretty well summed up by its title.)

There are so many reasons I like it. I'll mention just a few and expand on one.

First of all, her voice is fantastic. That is what first grabbed me. The song also does not make me sad at all, but fills me with a bit of peace and almost happiness. That may make me strange or morbid, but I don't care. The lyrics of the song are also fantastically crafted, and one in particular really speaks to me and has made me realize something about myself.

The lead in to the chorus is this: "The sharp knife of a short life. Well, I've had just enough time." The first half is a great description of what it feels like to know a young person who has died. There seems to something especially bitter to human kind about a young person's death. But it is the second half of the above lyrics that send my mind spinning.

While I think of many things related to that lyric, one of the main ones is this: I would rather die young than live a long life and have nothing to show my Creator at its end. In turn, I then wonder what I have to show for my life now. Who have I helped? How have I loved? Bottom line, and what I interpret that little line of this song to mean, is this: no matter how short our days on earth may be, those days are just enough time to live the type of life God desires us to live.

While it is still very sad when a life is drawn to a close at a young age, I don't believe the saddness is entirely tied up in what that person was not able to do (go to college, get married, start a family...). Instead, the saddness in any of our lives is what we are not doing and should be. I hope I can get to the point where I am living out my faith in a way that I can confidently say, "I've had just enough time."