Date: November 18, 2020 | Danielle Damrell

The song “Rise Up” written and sang by Andrea Day has to be one of the most powerful songs written in this decade. I have leaned on this song so many times in the last several years and decided I wanted to learn more about what inspired Andrea Day to write this song in the first place. I learned that she wrote this song at a time where hope seemed to be fading in her life and to top it all off, a close friend of hers had just been diagnosed with cancer. As I learned this, my heart broke for her and I began to relate to this song in a deeper way than ever before…

The events of 2020 have caused many of us to feel a sense of hopelessness and an overwhelming fear of the unknown. In the last year alone, 3 close family members have been diagnosed with cancer (F you cancer!) on top of countless other seemingly hopeless trials that have come.

It is easy to spiral into the emotions and thoughts of feeling defeated.

It is easy to point to any number of the current circumstances and lose heart.
It is easy to become hopeless.

I don’t know about you, but living an “easy” but hopeless life is NOT how I want to live.

We have been granted permission to RISE UP and HOPE not because it is easy, but because we are strong. Most of the time, we are so much stronger than we feel we are.

I dedicate this song and graphic to my sweet warrior cousin Anna Damrell who is fighting stage 4 lung cancer as I write this. She is the epitome of what it looks like to RISE UP despite the mountains that may come. No sickness, disease, or cancer can ever defeat her spirit despite what it has done to her body. Right now, we are believing and praying for a miracle. We serve a BIG God who can do BIG things. He is our healer and she is so much stronger than any cancer could ever be....

“When the silence isn’t quiet
And it feels like it’s getting hard to breathe
And I know you feel like dying
But I promise we’ll take the world to its feet...

And we'll rise up
High like the waves
We'll rise up
In spite of the ache
We'll rise up
And we'll do it a thousand times again”

May the powerful and inspiring lyrics of this song become our prayer, our anthem, and our vision.