Ashes in My Lungs

VERSE 1

I move through days that echo like hollowed-out bones,

PTSD striking matches in the dark corners I own.

Depression wraps chains ’round my lungs till they bruise,

Anxiety whispers war-songs I never choose.

Trauma hangs on my shoulders like a mantle of rust,

Fear kicks the floor out from under my trust.

I claw through the shadows tryin’ to salvage my name,

Battling wounds others carved, and the ones I flame.

I beg God for breath when the night gets loud,

When the past falls heavy like a collapsing cloud.

I’m stumbling through ruins of choices I made,

And wreckage from sinners whose sins never fade.

CHORUS 1

But I rise—

Even with ashes choking my lungs like smoke,

I rise—

Even when hope feels thin as a thread half-broke.

‘Cause Christ walks into the wreck where I fell,

Turns my grief into a hymn in the jaws of hell.

VERSE 2

Some nights I sink like a stone through memories deep,

Flashbacks roaring like lions that never sleep.

My mind’s a battlefield, loud with unspoken cries,

A cathedral cracked open beneath collapsing skies.

People say “stay strong,” but strength ain’t steel—

It’s bleeding on the floor and refusing to kneel.

I’ve prayed with a voice too tired to speak,

Feeling God’s silence stretch out week after week.

But grace enters quiet—like a monk in the snow,

Soft as candlelight where lost souls go.

Christ bends low, gathers my fractured remains,

Cleans the dirt from my wounds with His holy veins.

CHORUS 2

And I breathe—

When His mercy cuts through the storm like dawn,

I breathe—

When every part of me says I’m done, He says “Hold on.”

He lifts the grief I thought would crush my soul,

And stitches me back with a love unrolled.

VERSE 3

He didn’t just save me—He stepped in my grave,

Took the nails meant for me, the death I gave.

Fully God, fully Man, He carried my scars,

Turned my broken heartbeat into rising stars.

He meets me in panic, in chaos, in fear,

Stands in the fire till the smoke clears.

CHORUS 3

So I stand—

Not by strength but the wounds in His hands.

I stand—

‘Cause to live is Christ, to die is gain in this land.

Every breath I take is His mercy again,

Every step a vow that I live for Him.

FINAL VERSE

And when the night returns tryin’ to swallow me whole,

I look to the Cross where He ransomed my soul.

The trauma, the panic, the grief, the stain—

He turns them to wheat in His holy rain.

O Christ, my Light, in Your wounds I remain,

‘Cause You pull me from dust with resurrecting flame.

So I rise—

Even with battlefields carved in my mind,

I rise—

With Your Spirit roaring like thunder behind.

From ashes to breath, from sorrow to praise,

You are the fire that lifts me from the grave.