Jason Gray – Brokenhearted

By Stacey Stone

“No one can prepare you for the chaos of a family breakdown.” – Jason Gray

Jason Gray has sung so many people through their pain that very few people thought to look underneath the songs to the hurt that was their influencers. For more than eight years, Jason watched as his efforts to keep his marriage together failed and the relationship fell apart. “I’ve often wondered how over half of people in marriages go through this and survive it. I didn’t know if I would,” he says. “I hear experts say the death of a spouse is very difficult, but if someone dies, you still get to keep the memories from your story. The story remains intact. One of the most significant things you lose in a divorce is your story. You don’t have access to it the way you used to. For all the people out there who have gone through or are going through a season in which you feel your memories, your life is co-opted by a sense of pain and loss and confusion. I have an understanding of what that feels like.” From his songs Remind Me Who I Am to I Am New leading up to his current album Where The Light Gets In, they are expressions of that pain and how Jason fought to keep on singing. “I was just exhausted, depressed and heartbroken. I would be picked up at the airport by some church and have to be whatever they needed me to be. We drove to the church, hauled in the equipment, went to meet everyone and then I would go to the green room, crumple on the floor, weep, pray…and then sound check, play a concert, sign some autographs, go to a hotel, crumple on the floor, weep and cry out to God. I devoted so much energy to my marriage being healed. I never prayed for something so hard,” admitted Jason. “It left me asking, ‘Does prayer work? Is God real?’ My belief was broken. My prayer was broken. My worship was broken.” When there was nothing left to struggle for and his marriage ended, Jason began to hope for conversations that did not contain the pain of his lost marriage and music that reflected that healing he longed for. Our pain, loss and failure become our most significant teachers, I think. How do we learn to forgive unless we are hurt by someone? How do we learn courage unless we are faced with fear? How do we surrender to grace without desperately needing it first? Richard Rohr says that if we are not transformed by our pain we will transmit it. I want to be transformed, and even now I’ve begun to be grateful for the painful teachers in my life who are making me new.”