Citizens – “Illusion”

Lyrics

In an empty room
Inside a haunted house I waste, away
Nothing getting in
There’s nothing coming out I fade to grey
All the memories I’ve been pushing out of my head
I need to face the pain, I never did
But if I open this door I won’t really know what’s ahead
I don’t know how to feel, afraid to live

I wanna shut my eyes
I wanna live inside the dream, awake
But when I close my eyes
It’s just a twisted mess I can’t escape
All the memories I keep pushing out of my head
I want to face the pain, I never did
But if I open this door I won’t really know what’s ahead
I don’t know how to feel, afraid to live

Running from the heartbreak of the night
It’s an illusion of a life
I tremble with desire
Strangling the grief out of the light
It’s an illusion of a life
I long to feel the fire
All the memories I keep pushing out of my head
I need to face the pain

Thoughts

I hadn’t really given much thought to this song until just the other day. I’d heard it before, but had never really listened to it. It had been a long day and my wife and I were sitting outside talking about where each others hearts were at and how we were doing in our relationships with the Lord. It was a good talk, but it brought up a lot of past hurts that I was not expecting. I thought I had moved past them, but as the conversation continued it became evident that I had repressed those feelings rather than actually dealing with them. Looking back, I don’t think it was a conscious decision; I just didn’t want to have to deal with that junk and I didn’t want the stress of a confrontation. I wanted to move on as if it was no big deal.

I went inside and took a shower; putting on some worship music as I did so and spent a little extra time in the shower praying and asking Jesus to truly deliver me from the anger I’d been suppressing and the pain I had buried. It was at this moment that God spoke to my heart through this song (as He does so often). It was one of those moments when the veil lifts and God uses something you love to speak directly to you. He’s done this for me many times in the past, but to me it’s always a special experience. This song, to me reflects perfectly the feeling I’ve struggled with for the better part of 2 years in an ongoing battle for heart.