As part of my New Year’s resolution, I’ve been picking up my guitar a little bit more. One of my favorite acoustic artists is Jon Foreman, lead singer from Switchfoot; but I absolutely love his individual material. It’s beautiful. I had started to learn some of his songs during the summer, but it wasn’t until recently that my feelings towards one of his songs on the Winter album shifted. After that incident with the girl who made my day, “Somebody’s Baby” has been seen in a new light. Listen to this song and read the lyrics.

I never really new what the song meant until recently. I knew how to play along, but I never actually sang the lyrics. Before, I just thought the song was talking about some girl being mistreated but in God’s eyes, she was seen as a precious daugther. After I actually was reading the lyrics as I played along, I froze and just thought about that girl. Now whenever I hear this song, my heart just goes out to her.

This song is about a struggling homeless woman, who was beaten or raped and chose to end her life. I love how Foreman uses the allusion of the moment in John 8 when the adultress is brought before Christ to have her stoned to death in order to signify that she had no one for her. She was rejected and an outcast with no one on her side. I’m sure that’s exactly how the girl that came up to me that day felt as she expressed it explicitly in her words and her scars. My feelings towards her were just as this song “She is a child of God, still worthy of the Kingdom.”

This song got me thinking more about God’s children, transforming my views towards those I’ve overlooked, the homeless, the “emos,” the youth, etc. They are all children of God, yet why don’t I take that much time encouraging them to join the Kingdom. My salvation is set. It’s their faith that I’m concerned about. As I’ve started to become more aware of the feelings of others, I’m trying to figure out the best way to present God’s invitation into the Kingdom so that they may figure out that they shouldn’t try to end their life because they’re the ones worth dying for. They’re somebody’s baby…