The Cure for Pain

I have multiple favorite bands. Most of them are groups of men who sing to me about Jesus. Relient K, who has such a lovely way of combining hilariousness with stark truth and speaking really quickly and capturing my exact emotions, Needtobreathe, who I got to see last weekend and makes me want to go dancing and worship Jesus at the same time all the time, and Switchfoot, who sings about emotions and issues that I had only subconsciously recognized before. 

The lead singer of Switchfoot is also an incredible human. This might be weird, but I listen to him when I go to sleep at night sometimes. His solo albums, Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Limbs and Branches, are very calming but also very thought-provoking. I love listening to him. Love it. I love his solo stuff, I love Switchfoot, and I love his other band, Fiction Family.

I was recently listening to Jon Foreman's solo music, and singing along with it, as I do, and I noticed something. There is a line in the song, "The Cure for Pain" where he says, "We're either riders or fools behind the reign." I had always just assumed that he was saying, "We're either writers or fools behind the rain," and that didn't make very much sense to me, but I'm going to be honest and say that there are a lot of things I don't understand, so I just went with it. 

But then I was just listening and I realized what he was actually saying. How profound is that? That right there is why I love Jon Foreman. What he's saying is that life is going to happen whether you like it or not. You're either a rider or a fool behind the reign. A rider is on top of the horse, holding reigns but cognizant of the fact that it's a horse he's riding, and the horse is the one controlling where he's going. But a fool behind the reigns is exactly that. He thinks he's got it all together, but he's going to have a rude awakening one day. That day may be soon, or it may be really far away, but that guy is a fool because he thinks he's in charge of his life, when actually, he isn't. It's God. God is the horse. 

Jon sings in his song, 
"So blood is fire pulsing through our veins
We're either riders or fools behind the reigns
I've spent ten years trying to sing it all away
But the water keeps on falling from my tries
And heaven knows, heaven knows
I've tried to find a cure for the pain
Oh my Lord, to suffer like You do
It would be a lie to run away."

I haven't seen Jon (or Switchfoot) live yet, but it's on my list of stuff to do. When I do, I want to thank Jon personally for just being who he is and making the music that he makes and allowing it to be recorded and put onto the interwebs so that I can listen to it and fall in love with it, because I have. 

I wish that I could talk about and analyze every one of Jon's songs on here so you could learn how wonderful he is and start listening to him and never stop. But he has a lot of songs and that would take a long time and you might have to go do your homework or eat dinner or pee and I wouldn't want to keep you from those things. 

So just trust me. He's pretty cool. 

"This world is where I breathe, but let it never be called home."

Love, 
Lauralicious