Dear Forrest Frank
A plea, not a polemic
Twenty years ago, I think I would have said what I want to say with a very different tone. I was on the warpath, cutting through dense forests with my righteous machete, trying to wipe out anything other than what I considered the very center of orthodox theology. And not just theology, but behavior. Once I discovered Reformed theology, I had a very narrow view of what was acceptable within Jesus’ church. I was 19 years old. I knew almost nothing.
I don’t know much more now, but I think I have a more expansive view of what belongs within Jesus’ church. The table Jesus invites us to is so much bigger than I realized 20 years ago. I haven’t deconstructed or abandoned orthodoxy by any means, but things that I would turned up my nose at decades ago I see in a completely different light. We used to be part of a church that absolutely would not have accepted Christian rap as acceptable music for anyone to listen to. But I have a 15 year old who really likes rap and hip hop, and I am so thankful that there are skilled musicians making music in those genres that don’t have obscene lyrics.
I am now going to start talking about Forrest Frank. Please don’t have a heart attack.
I hadn’t even heard of him until a few weeks ago. I don’t listen to Christian radio, so if I hear a “popular” Christian song, it’s usually by accident. I soon discovered that I was in the minority, and many Christians I know are very familiar with him and love his music. And not just them—but their kids! I decided to turn on some of his songs in the car with my kids, because even though I didn’t think I’d enjoy his music, I thought my younger two kids would, and anything is better than listening to Minions covers.
They both loved the first song played, Good Day, which I think is probably his most popular song. Then we moved on to Up, which is extremely catchy. The next song on the playlist was Nothing Else, and it is a bop. Zoe loved it immediately.
I was on board, until we got to the chorus.
Cause I woke up with a good thing laying by my side
I woke up to some birds singing, "Hey look, I'm alive"
I've got my family, Jesus and my health
And if I've got all that, I really don't need nothing else
I stopped listening and started rehearsing what I’d just heard. I couldn’t look at the lyrics so thought maybe I had gotten it wrong. I waited for the chorus to come around again.
I’ve got my family, Jesus, and my health, and if I’ve got all that, I really don’t need nothing else.
Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, I was walking on a sidewalk in Columbia, South Carolina, just days after I spent the night in the psych ward. I was listening to a sermon on the book of Job by Dr. Derek Thomas. He said something that stopped me in my tracks:
There are more important things than our health. My relationship with Jesus Christ is more important than my health. If I have my health, but not Jesus, I have nothing.
Just days earlier I had been staring at a blank ceiling at Palmetto Richland Hospital, wondering if I’d ever regain any semblance of mental health. And as I heard Dr. Thomas speak about Job and all the things he lost, I felt in my bones that I wanted to be able to trust Jesus even if my fragile brain never recovered.
Now we are back in the car on the way to church, listening to Forrest Frank.
I’ve got my family, Jesus, and my health, and if I’ve got all that, I really don’t need nothing else.
When I was the age of my daughter, I would lie in bed at night, anxious for no real reason, whether it was a bad dream or about someone breaking into our house, and the words of a song we used to listen to in the car would play in my head:
When I am afraid, I will trust in you,
I will trust in you, I will trust in you.
When I am afraid, I will trust in you,
In God whose word I praise
In God I trust when I am afraid.
In God I trust, in God whose word I praise
It wasn’t going to win any Grammys, but it was true, and it was straight out of the Bible, and even in my 8-year-old heart, it felt like something that I knew would always be true.
Zoe doesn’t have bad dreams often, but when she does, they almost always involve her younger brother, Noah, being harmed in some way. It will be someone breaking into our house, and Noah gets kidnapped. Or there’s a terrible weather event and we can’t find Noah before we get to safety. Or she’s in the Amazon rainforest and Noah got eaten by an alligator. When she comes and finds me, I always have her tell me about her nightmare, and I never try to tell her that she shouldn’t be afraid. All I can do is remind her of the truth. She is safe, right now, in our house with us. And Noah is asleep in the same room (sometimes, in the same bed). Everything is OK right now.
But the next day, and the day after, I also want her to know that even if everything is not OK, if she loses everything the world tells her is important, she will still be OK, if she has Jesus. I need her to know that, because if I hadn’t had that to hold on to over the last four decades, I don’t think I’d be here.
One day my daughter may find that she does not have her family, or at least not all of her family. None of us are promised tomorrow. While I pray it never happens, she may find herself with a chronic physical ailment, or, like her mother, a brain that often conspires to work against her joy and peace.
The day we were in the car listening to Nothing Else, after the song was over, I did turn the music down and talk to Zoe and Noah for a few minutes. I didn’t bash Forrest Frank or ban them from listening to his music. I just offered a mild correction to those words. That we will be OK if we don’t have our family, as long as we have Jesus. That we will be OK, if we are very sick or even if we die, as long as we have Jesus.
So please, Mr. Frank. Write more songs with catchy beats! But please, please, write them about truth. If Zoe is going to sing along to your songs, I want her to sing at the top of her lungs how grateful she is for all of the good gifts she has, but I also want her to sing about how Jesus is all she needs and all she will ever need. Amen and amen.