Midweek Musing- August 13, 2025

I Am Not Okay   

https://youtu.be/dhykKG3lzj0?si=364aXwIF1Ubl1C5J (I encourage you to watch this video)

Song by Ashley Gorley, Casey Brown, and Jelly Roll

Lyrics

I am not okay

I'm barely getting by

I'm losing track of days

And losing sleep at night

I am not okay

I'm hanging on the rails

So if I say I'm fine

Just know I learned to hide it well

I know I can't be the only one

Who's holding on for dear life

But God knows, I know

When it's all said and done

I'm not okay

But it's all gonna be alright

It's not okay

But we're all gonna be alright

I woke up today

I almost stayed in bed

Had the devil on my back

And voices in my head

Some days, it ain't all bad

Some days, it all gets worse

Some days, I swear I'm better off

Layin' in that dirt

I know I can't be the only one

Who's holding on for dear life

But God knows, I know

When it's all said and done

I'm not okay

But it's all gonna be alright

It's not okay

But we're all gonna be alright

Gonna be alright

Gonna be alright

I know one day

We'll see the other side

The pain'll wash away

In a holy water tide

And we all gonna be alright

I know I can't be the only one

Who's holding on for dear life

But God knows, I know

When it's all said and done

I'm not okay

But it's all gonna be alright

It's not okay

But we're all gonna be alright

I'm not okay

But it's all gonna be alright

It was amazing to me that in that ruckus crowd as the last note disappeared,

there was a hush that sort of fell over the audience-the kind that comes

when someone has just said what everyone was thinking but no one dared to

speak aloud. Jelly Roll's "I Am Not OK" isn't just a song-it's an unmasking.

And it's exactly where we need to start.

Indeed, Jelly Roll's "I Am Not OK" is more than mere words to me. For me

it's a confession that could be ours. The melody may fade when the track

ends, but the truth it carries lingers because many, many of us are not

okay, even when the world thinks we are.

The psalmist knew this terrain well- "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so

disturbed within me?" (Psalm 42:5).

Friends that's not poetic metaphor; that's someone telling the truth about

the storms inside.

And this is not just the stuff of the Old Testament. Paul's vision of the

church as one body (1 Corinthians 12) was not for some perfect, untroubled

group. It was for a people, the church at Corinth that was struggling in

faith, whose wounds - person and corporate - seen and unseen-needed binding,

whose tears needed wiping away.

And the truth is these pains are with us still today.

Depression, anxiety, and despair are not rare shadows lurking on the edges

of life-they're woven into the fabric of our communities. Today, over 20

million adults in the U.S. will face a major depressive episode this year,

and 1 in 5 teenagers will walk that dark valley too. More than 1 in 8 adults

take antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication, and among young adults,

prescriptions for mood stabilizers are at all-time highs. In the 1950s,

treatment was rare, diagnosis often avoided-yet the need was there, hidden

behind stigma and silence. Now, the curtain has been pulled back, and what

we see is sobering: rates of depression, medication use, and suicide are

higher than at any point in recorded American history.

And the numbers tell a deeper pain-nearly 50,000 lives lost to suicide each

year in the U.S., one every eleven minutes. Behind each number is a name, a

face, a family.

And it could be far worse. Statistics tell us there are 25 attempts for

every suicide death. Behind each attempt is a story that almost ended too

soon but also of pain that remains with the one who survived their attempt

to end their life.

And if I understand anything about the church well this is where the

church's calling becomes unmistakable. Jelly Roll sings, "We're all gonna be

alright"-and if that line is to be true, the "we" must be lived out.

Indeed, the LaFayette Presbyterian Church's sanctuary's service as a

hospital in the Civil War as a is no quaint history detail; it is both

fitting and also prophetic.

Because in a real way, it still is a hospital-not for shrapnel wounds and

bullet scars, but for the soul-deep fractures of loneliness, grief, and

hopelessness.

Rev. Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, "The church is not a place to hide

from the world; it is a place to gather strength to go back out into it. It

is less a fortress than a field hospital."

To me that image feels right. We are not here to put people in spiritual

quarantine until they "get better." We are here to bind wounds, to sit with

the broken, to walk the long road home with the weary.

So, let's be honest enough to say when we are not okay. Let's be humble

enough to receive the healing we need. And let's be merciful enough to carry

someone else's burden when their knees are buckling under the weight.

Friends - Bring what you have. Accept what you need.

And may we, the body of Christ, be the living proof that no one fights their

battles alone.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia Amen.

Clay