Heavy.And.Light
I had the opportunity to attend the third annual Heavy And Light this year. I have attended all three, and they keep getting better every year.
Born out of tragedy, the night is meant to express the heaviness and lightness that life brings, and the hope for tomorrow that keeps us going.
Some of my favorite artists, Aaron Gillespie, Aaron Marsh, Zach Williams, Stephen Christian, and Mat Kearney, were there playing acoustic versions of their songs and sharing their hearts.
We felt the solemnness as TWLOHA founder Jamie Tworkowski spoke of his friend Zeke’s suicide and interviewed Zeke’s girlfriend about the tragedy.
We laughed when spoken word poet Anis Mojgani began his poem with “You have been given a direct order to rock the f—k out.” He said the word, it was funny.
Perhaps the most pivotal moment came for me when a man named Aaron Moore, a local counselor, took the stage.
As Aaron spoke, I realized that I could relate in full.Aaron spoke about his support of To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) and the way he described it to anyone who inquired about its meaning.
He said he would tell them it’s an organization that brings awareness to depression and suicide. As he said that, my own descriptions of TWLOHA echoed back to me.
He then spoke of a moment when he realized that a more accurate description of TWLOHA is that it is an organization, a movement, that brings awareness of people, not conditions.
Real life hurting, broken people. That’s it! In that moment, my description of this movement was forever changed.
It’s about people. It’s about sharing with them that there is hope, that they are loved more than they know.
Then another Aaron, Aaron Gillespie of The Almost/Underoath, spoke the phrase that fills him with hope.
He said, “Jesus loves you.” Yes, he said more, but he could have stopped there. The love of Jesus fills me with more hope than I can contain. A hope that when things in life get heavy, He is there, and will walk with me. And that when things are light, he is there smiling with me, walking with me.
I don’t know what your beliefs are, just as Aaron didn’t know the beliefs of those he was talking to, but I can say with the conviction of someone who has felt it,
“Jesus loves you, and you are loved more than you could ever know.”
Peace
