Hard Mercy

I was walking through the dust for forty years
Mouth full of ashes, eyes full of tears
Every word I spoke came out as stone
Heavy as the burden I'd been carrying alone

He found me hollow as a dried-up well
Said: Boy, you've been living in your own kind of hell
I didn't bring you out here just to watch you fall
I brought you to the desert so you'd learn to crawl

It's a hard mercy, this love that breaks
Before it ever heals what it takes
I been wrestling with the hand that feeds
Sometimes you gotta bleed to believe
Sometimes you gotta bleed to believe

He showed me the mountain I could not climb
All the years I wasted, all the stolen time
Said: Every scar you carry, I can see
But you're worth more than what you've made yourself to be

It's a hard mercy, this love that breaks
Before it ever heals what it takes
I been wrestling with the hand that feeds
Sometimes you gotta bleed to believe
Sometimes you gotta bleed to believe

I fought him like a fool fights truth
Kicked against the only thing that could pull me through
But there ain't no arguing with grace
When it's staring back into your face

Now I'm standing at the edge of the promised land
Water rushing over my calloused hands
Forty years of wilderness washed away
He loved me hard enough to make me stay

It's a hard mercy, this love that breaks
Before it ever heals what it takes
I been wrestling with the hand that feeds
Sometimes you gotta bleed to believe
Sometimes you gotta bleed to believe

Yeah, sometimes you gotta bleed to believe