I Made It Through

This song is a very unusual one for me, in that it did not come together in a way I typically write songs. I wrote the music in early spring of 2013. I have the audio file I recorded into my phone, music intact, exactly as the song sounds today. At the time, I had no specific theme in mind, so I did what I always did: filled in the lines with "dummy" words (whatever popped into my head). That helped set the meter and the syllables for me to work with later. I never had a chance to do anything more with the song before I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke where I was not given much chance of living. In 2016, I located the audio file Kim had saved from my phone. It was simply labeled, "Because of You." That was a line I had used as a filler line for the tune when I recorded in 2013. Other lines I had used actually remained in the finished song, because they no longer seemed like just "dummy words." Some were frighteningly prophetic in nature. The stroke would happen only four weeks later. We both HAD felt something coming and had long discussions about it prior to the incident, but we could not put our fingers on what we were feeling. The phrase I had considered "dummy text" in the beginning of writing the song stopped me in my tracks when I played it years later: "In the wake of my disaster, I found that what came after; wasn't always what I'd expect from You." It amazes me now when I realize that God was quietly telling me what was about to take place in my life. The words are so concise as to what we experienced, and we could not have worded it better if we had tried. We had already been through quite a bit prior to my stroke (which probably contributed to having one). We had been praying for God to do some things, and it just seemed to keep getting worse. What came after was NOT what we expected God to do AT ALL. As accurate as that part of the song was, so is the rest. He walked with us, and we made it through.