"Held" by Natalie Grant

What It Means To Be “Held”

Natalie Grant sings a moving song about grief, loss, suffering and hope called, “Held.” However, the writer of the song is Christa Wells. Her inspiration for the song came from 3 different women that greatly influenced her life. Each of the women experienced the loss of a family member.

1) Patti, a young widow with 3 kids, lost her husband

2) Vaneetha, experienced polo growing up, lost her infant son Paul from a heart defect. The first verse of "Held" refers to Vaneetha and her son, Paul. She shared with Christa about how knowing sorrow allowed her to also know joy and about the strange reality of feeling God's presence most keenly in the moments of deepest grief.

3) Sherry, Christa’s mother-in-law, lost her daughter Erica at birth. She spoke through tears about the pain of carrying a child to term and then having to let her go without even getting to take her home from the hospital. She told Christa about the still, small voice that spoke to her in the delivery room, “You have to choose how you will carry this loss after this moment. You can choose bitterness or you can choose to let me wrap you up in peace that can't be explained and that will lead to hope. You can choose to trust that you are not alone, and that everything you suffer here will someday be redeemed."

Because of the influence of these women, Christa realized that no person of faith since the beginning of time has ever lived without suffering. In fact, those who are students of Jesus have been promised that we certainly should expect pain and suffering in this life.

BUT …

In the middle of that heartache, at every lonely, dark, lost moment ...the Truth. That in those moments, especially then, we are held, held up, held together, by the the One who has walked here and knows the pain, and who also holds all of time, every story, my story, your story, the Greatest Story in his hands.

Christa said, “Every word (of the song) was chosen with loving care, because I didn't write this song for a market, or any audience, but for those three women. I wrote it and recorded it with my old 8-track and made a cassette copy for each of them.”

Link to the Natalie Grant video/song “Held.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOufqWodFNo

Below are the lyrics to Held:

Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling
Who told us we'd be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
We're asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair

[Chorus]
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow

[Chorus]
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held
[Bridge]
If hope is born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior
[Chorus]
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held
We'd be held

This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

This is what it means to be held.....