We Are His Handiwork
Lyrics:VERSE 1:
There are days when I feel overweight, unlovable, bent out of shape, like nobody will ever look my way. And I feel like my heart's caving in on those days I feel I'll never win, and I won't cheer up, no matter what you say. And I falter and I fail so many times Try to write a song, but can't think of any rhymes When life throws me all its lemons and its limes, I try to remember: REFRAIN: We are His handiwork, wonderfully made, perfect in the eyes of Christ. Beside this, my thoughtless insecurities fade, and the love of my Lord will suffice. And I will live as an example of God's love for the world For I know I am my Master's prized and beloved and beautiful pearl VERSE 2: But then life, it comes and hits again, I run out of ink in my favorite pen. Oh, woe is me, my life is just so hard! And I trip and fall down the last two stairs, get a paper cut, but no one cares and I feel like I just can't let down my guard. And I falter and I fail so many times Try to write a song, but can't think of any rhymes When life throws me all its lemons and its limes, I try to remember: REFRAIN: We are His handiwork, wonderfully made, perfect in the eyes of Christ. Beside this, my thoughtless insecurities fade, and the love of my Lord will suffice. And I will live as an example of God's love for the world For I know I am my Master's prized and beloved and beautiful pearl We are His handiwork, wonderfully made! We are His handiwork, we are perfectly, wonderfully made! |
Behind the Song:This song was written in the summer of 2012.
For those of you who don't know, I was a very active member of Catholic Life at Hofstra University where I went to college. When I wrote this particular song, I was the Secretary of the Executive Board of the Newman Club, which is the student-run Catholic club on campus at Hofstra. During the summer of 2012, we were planning our upcoming Fall retreat, which was taking place in the beginning of October. Over the summer, we picked the theme of the retreat, planned out the schedule, wrote witness talks that each of us, as part of the executive board, would give on the retreat, and just tried to have everything in place so that when the school year came around in September, we would be prepared and wouldn't have to juggle planning our biggest retreat of the year and schoolwork at the same time. This particular year, we decided that our Retreat theme would be "For We Are His Handiwork" which was based on Ephesians 2:10 from the Bible, which reads, "For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them." We agreed that this was a great verse that all of us could address in different ways with our witness talks and we thought it would provide a good retreat experience for the members of the club. So, by the time it was nearing the end of the summer, I had been thinking about this verse and relating it to my witness talk and my life so much that this song, "We Are His Handiwork", came very naturally to me. I remember writing this song so clearly! It was probably around 2:00 am on an August night, and I had just finished designing the retreat t-shirts (which, subsequently, I ended up using as a basic template for the design of my CD when I put it together the following summer). I was up in my bedroom, just about ready to go to bed, when I took out my guitar (who I lovingly refer to as Paul the guitar) and decided I'd just play around with some chord progressions before I went to bed to hopefully wind down and fall asleep. Well, the song came out like a flood! I wasn't originally planning on writing a song that night, but it came so naturally that I probably couldn't have stopped it if I wanted to! As the verses came out, I remember literally laughing my way through the ridiculous lyrics. In about 30 minutes, I had come up with the entire song! I made a sound recording on my phone of what I had come up with so that I wouldn't forget it by the time I woke up, and the next day, I made a rough recording on my computer. This song was by far the easiest song for me to write. It came so quickly and naturally, and as I played through it on guitar and sang it, I could hear in my head the way it was going to come out in the end after I was done recording! This song is also one of the most "me" songs of the album. The verses are totally normal things that I worry about and needlessly get upset over in my everyday life. It's nice to have a song to remind me that I don't need to worry about those silly things! |