We Are All Victims


We are...victims, of the sins of our own, but often more frustratingly the sins of others.  We can all name it, and we can all find something or someone that we feel has wronged us, that has caused us to be "worn".

Sin was not God's creation.  God gave man the ability to choose in order to create a more perfect love. True love is not forceful, but rather it draws one in.  So, on the one hand, we experience the effect of this perfect love, but at the same time feeling the brokenness from the wrong decisions made with the liberty of choice.

3 reminders:
1) God is not responsible for sin...however...
2) God is sovereign and accomplishes His work despite sin
3) God redeems all sin, providing strength in our weakness

The lyrics in the chorus of the above song, "Worn", reminds us that redemption does WIN.  God can heal and reminds us that one day, the struggle does end in eternity for we only labor a little while before we are reunited in full once more.

On August 21, 2012, Tenth Avenue North released its third album named "The Struggle".  Lead singer, Mike Donehey encouraged his fans with this message upon its release:

We may not have answers to our questions, but we do have promises for our souls.

And the promises of God are twofold.

We are free to struggle, and we’re also not struggling to be free.

Our desire for our upcoming album, The Struggle, is that listeners will walk away with both of these truths still ringing in their ears and burning in their hearts.

We are free to fail because there’s an ocean of grace that we fall into.

But also, we have the promise of a power so strong that it raised Christ Himself, and so we know that, mystery of mysteries, we’re also not struggling to be free.

Imagine if we believed these things so strongly that we too gave grace to those tangled in their struggles while still calling them to the promise that they can be set free from them?

This artwork hopefully communicates this theme as well.

We’re in this thing together. Some fighting the waves, some breaking backs against the oars, some just trying to hold on. But one thing we know, we have each other, and most importantly, we have Christ.

And though it seems like He may have forsaken us, that He’s forgotten us, we need only look to the scars in His hands to remember He too entered the storm. He calmed the seas we could not calm. He broke the chains we could not break.

So wherever you are, whatever struggle you’re walking through, know that you’re not alone, and there’s grace, every step along the way.