He always told you
He would be coming back for you
And when he told you why he left 
He always told you the truth
He never meant to lead you astray
It just turned out that way

And how they found you
Unsettled in your house alone
You never made it to the point
Where you made your house into a home
You never meant to leave things undone
It just turned out that way 

One thing we really ought to do
When we get to live again
We all should start out making nothing
And then make lots of friends
And if we still don’t get a damn thing out of life
It just turned out that way 

I’m already gone
I’m on my way
My path is set in stone
Got nothing left to say
I’m already gone
It just turned out that way

---

I know he’s coming back. He promised me. When he comes back, it’s going to be like joy you’ve never seen – for everyone.

This song is about how Jesus from the Bible came to me when my life was a mess, and how I also went to him when all his other friends abandoned him. I won’t turn away from him if no one cares, believes me, or has any interest hearing this. Me and Jesus Christ are real best friends. Everybody else is nice, but nobody can meet my needs the way that Jesus does.

We each experienced this as “I am a man in real trouble. The Holy Spirit just showed up to save me from this horrible demise.”

I hope somebody takes the time to realize this isn’t just a song. It is my real story. The only one I care about preserving.

Someone said, “Oh, he’s such an artist.” Sure. But this is real too. Not just a song. Both of us use these exact same lyrics to share what we each went through in our two separate lives. That’s wild, right?

Enjoy!

---

LYRICS

You can go to the garden alone. Meet him out there away from the rose. You can tell him your thoughts about women and men. Hear him laugh as he tells you the truth, and then you can go to the garden alone. You will never come back on your own

Well, they led me to the garden alone. They said this is the garden you own. All the love there inside is the love you deserve. All the people inside are the ones you will serve. It was the garden of sorrow and woe. There was no love inside there to know.

I fell asleep in the garden alone
I awoke to find love in my home 

So I weeded my garden alone. Now I’m staying; oh, why should I go? If they tell me this is love, who am I to say no? I will stay for this love. It’s the love that I know. I won’t turn from the love of my soul. I will not leave love here all alone.

Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

— 1 Corinthians 3:8

This song is a testimony about the free gift of salvation we have through Jesus Christ our Lord, and how that gift was delivered to me through the hand of his faithful servant, my worship leader.

I am forever changed because of her faithfulness to God. I just can’t stop testifying to this.

This faithful witness saved my soul and gave me hope when my life was a sure disaster. So of course I’m going to sing about it! Why wouldn’t I?

This is on the up and up. I testify to Jesus Christ, who is exalted over everything. I also honor who he chose to preach the gospel to me.

Far out on the road, just a man with no sense of my home 
Then she calls, “come over”
The thought of it is giving me life again 

I needed someone to forgive me
She needed someone she could forgive 
So Pasadena sure gives me a reason to live 

When I didn’t know I could go back and live my life over again 
She let me atone, so now I’m living this one for my love

Mama, when I needed you, you raised me up, made me like new
My father said, you know my love always tells you the truth  

This was the first post I ever made to 221211.org. God gave me this song back then as a stone marker, to remember how we first started meeting face to face on a regular basis.

I hope everyone will experience God’s presence for themselves, because he has shown me that truly everyone is already held secure in his eternal love, and anyone can do this.

I also hope my songs and stories free a lot of people from their own unnecessary sense of guilt, and from the burdens placed upon them by people who don’t know God really loves us very much and he exists.

Go check out that website, and believe it. It’s the truth.

Early in the morning
I go out to meet the Lord

I go to hear the voice of heaven
The song is like a bird

I could take you to the place
He always comes around for me

Light of life, now shine on me
I’m alive, my life flies free

Even in the darkest valley of the shadow
When I feel weak or lost
He don’t turn his back on us
He lives in our house with us
He’s like the man in my shadow

Light of life, now shine on me
I’m alive, my life flies free

I met a wicked man
In the bottom of a pit in a foreign land
Surrounded with the bottles of the wine 
And the waters of a thousand other wicked men

I can’t get next to him
I can’t get buried and come back without a weight of sin
If I could find a way to maybe get a letter to him
Then I could save a poor and wicked man

I have compassion
I know I won’t be late
I’m gonna find if theres another path for the wicked man to take

I became a wicked man
And I got into a pit in a foreign land
I threw a bottle in the water with a message inside 
That said I know you are a wicked man

I left my soul to him
I let the man become a bird and fly away and then
Rise from the ashes, up from the madness
Come up to be a better man

I have compassion
I found the way to live
Seek for love and find that love will always give

I met a wicked man when I was stranded in a pit in a foreign land
He stopped to help another
Discovered it’s a brother
Love is all it takes to be a righteous man, a righteous man

Look for the answers
Find second chances
Find somewhere within there is a righteous man

When I call her in the middle of the night
She picks up that phone to tell me it’s alright
My love done me right

I don’t be worried about the storms that come
I’m holding onto something where the roots are strong
My love done me right

I always know that I can count on the strength of my love

I fill my pockets with the letters she sends me
I meditate on the message and I let it sink in me
My love done me right

I got lost in time, I had a mountain to climb
She sent me all her loving and I sent her all mine
My love done me right

I always know that I can count on the strength of my love

Of course it don’t mean nothing of the words ain’t true
If the heart is with another while the body’s with you
My love done me right

We been walking through the valley in the darkest haze
We still belong together till the end of our days
My love done me right

I always know that I can count on the strength of my love

Lift up your banner of love
as you enter the City of Light
The King has returned
He has eyes that burn

Making our way in this world
can be hard as everyone knows
The path may be narrow
but we can go

Hosanna! (Wait!)
Hosanna! (Wait!)
Hosanna! (Wait!)
Give me faith

Go far when you’re told to run for
the gold, don’t just run the race
Feel the wind blowing
across your face

Run for the way you have run
far away when the way was hard
Run for the ones who
were left with scars

Creek’s a gonna rise and the nag’s gonna foal 
Dust in the field gonna give up gold
Empty kitchen gonna run with children 
Hungry baby gonna eat her filling

River and the levee gonna reach the top
I’m gonna stay up late, I’m gonna hear them pop
Make a little music till we reap them crops
We’ll be dancing in the house tonight

Prayed for rain and then we got much better
This old town will never see bad weather

The land turned gray, not a cloud was coming 
Been a long time since the bees been humming
Preacher man said we gotta get down doing
Work with God or we will come to ruin

All the people come and all the work shut down
All the people come running from miles around
All we had to do was hold a big hoedown
And we’re singing like it’s already done

Prayed for rain about noon on Sunday 
Swam to church to thank the Lord on Monday