Finding Love Within Part 2

{spoken softly, intimate and dry} I’ve been searching for love

all my life.

Looking for it in people,

before I ever learned how to find it in me.

This is where my story begins… {warm Rhodes electric piano enters,

soft vinyl crackle} Daddy ran away when I was five,

never turned around, never looked behind.

Left Mama with three babies to raise,

working two jobs just to keep us safe.

Mama stayed tired, always on the run,

trying to do the work of everyone.

There wasn’t much time for hugs or praise,

just working, surviving, getting through the days.

So by fourteen I was searching outside for somebody to fill that

empty space inside.

Then Benny saw me,

and I thought it was fate.

He was nineteen; I was too young to know the weight.

I was book smart,

but love naive, believing anything my heart wanted to believe.

Graduated high school at sixteen,

three months pregnant, carrying my dream.

I was in search of love,

looking everywhere but within.

Trying to find the love I lost before my life could even

begin. In search of love,

I gave my heart away too young.

I didn’t know that love shouldn’t hurt,

I didn’t know I could run.

I was searching for somebody to give me what I couldn’t give

myself. In search of love… I almost lost myself.

My baby girl came into this world,

and I loved her more than life itself.

But the man I thought would love us both put bruises on

me instead.

One day a pastor and his wife stood at my door and

saw my black eye.

Saw my baby there beside me,

saw the fear I tried to hide.

They said, “Let us pray for you.

You don’t have to live this

way. God wants peace for you and your baby.

Trust Him, and walk away.” When they prayed,

something moved in me.

For the first time,

I could finally see: If I stayed,

my baby might grow up believing that pain and love were the

same thing. {emotional build} I had no money.

No perfect plan. Just my baby in my arms and my life

in God’s hands. I said,

“Lord, I don’t know where I’m going,

but I know I cannot stay.

If You opened this door for me,

give me strength to walk away.” That night I wasn’t only running

from him. I was running toward the woman I could be.

I thought I was searching for somebody to love me… But God

was leading me back to me.

{snare rolls building to climax} {powerful brass and soaring vocals} I was

in search of love,

but I finally understand:

Love doesn’t leave you black and blue.

Love doesn’t raise a violent hand.

In search of love,

I crossed through fear and pain.

I walked away with nothing,

but I found myself again.

For my baby, I chose freedom.

For my baby, I chose life.

I spent my whole life searching for somebody else to make me

whole. But the first love

I had to find… was the woman

inside my soul.

{soft, reflective, instruments fade out leaving Rhodes piano} I was in search

of love. For my father.

For my mother. For a man.

For somebody to choose me.

But I had a baby watching…

And somewhere between running for our lives

and learning how to survive… I started choosing me.

In search of love… I found me.