A moment of doom and gloom overwhelmed me this week. I felt the weight of the world, the apparent hopelessness of ongoing global conflicts, the despair of US politics, and my fear of a planet on fire. You’ve likely experienced those moments as well. It’s easy to get swallowed up by the times.
On Sunday, while sitting in worship, I was lifted from this doom and gloom by a song – Anyway by Martina McBride.
“God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good / And when I pray, it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should / But I do it anyway.”
While I wrestle with the idea that God is great, as my personal theology leans more toward mysticism, I understand the core message. Especially the contradiction between our general view of the sacred realm and our daily lives filled with grit and grime.
The song’s premise isn’t optimism. That distinction is important. Optimism suggests things will work out. “Anyway” makes no such promise. Instead, it faces head-on the possibility of failure: the dream that may never come true, the love that might not last, the prayer that could fade into silence. And it encourages action regardless.
“You can spend your whole life building something from nothing / One storm can come and blow it all away. The storm is real. The loss is real. And still: build.”
Some songs entertain, while others strengthen. Martina McBride’s “Anyway,” released in 2003, belongs to the second category. It arrived at a time when country music was filled with celebration and bravado. It offered something rarer and more nourishing: a quiet, steely theology of perseverance amid futility.
Times are, in fact, tough. They are always tough for someone, somewhere, and often for everyone simultaneously. Economic worries, broken relationships, creeping doubts about whether any of it matters. These are not new griefs, but they are renewed in every generation. What “Anyway” offers isn’t a solution but a guiding principle. When the outcome is uncertain, when effort might be wasted, when love may be unreciprocated, the song’s answer is consistent and clear: Do it anyway.
Perhaps the deepest gift of “Anyway” is its implicit argument about where meaning comes from. The song suggests that meaning isn’t in the outcomes. It lies in the act itself. The song, the dream, the love matters not because of the intended result or outcome; it matters because we act and press on. There is freedom here, namely that a life of wholehearted effort in an indifferent world isn’t a tragedy but a form of grace.
“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” – Carl Jung
I’m not a country music fan, and I’m not one for sentimental preaching, but this week I needed a reminder that there is value in pressing on. We are all stumbling forward, despite the failures and misfortunes, what Shakespeare called the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But we persevere. Somehow, this week, I found strength in that conviction. Maybe you will too.
Previously Published on the Notebooks of James Hazelwood
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