Track #9: “God Bless This Mess”
Another track from "The Jacked Up Life Soundtrack," inspired by Chapter 9, "Living in the Mess of Restoration"
Yesterday, while walking the harbor in Mykonos, Greece, I passed an ancient windmill in the middle of being restored. Perched above the Aegean, its wooden arms were weathered, scaffolding surrounded the turret, and yet—there was beauty in its unfinished state. I snapped a photo because it felt familiar. The tension of broken and beautiful. Useful and incomplete. Just like us. An image can teach you so much sometimes and it became the perfect cover for today’s song.
Speaking of teaching, they say you never forget the teachers who saw something in you. For me, that was Señor Kinkel—my Spanish teacher in high school in Oregon. He didn’t just tolerate my talkative nature; he directed it. Encouraged it. Challenged me to use my love for wordplay in a new language. And decades later, that seed of encouragement grew into a verse in Spanish in a song I wrote partially in his honor—“Dios ve tu corazón,” which means God sees your heart. Señor Kinkel tragically passed away years ago, but his legacy lives on in the way I view language, music, and even messes.
Even though I’m the grandson of Italian immigrants on one side and our founding fathers on the other, I still resonate with the messiness of both restoration and tangled family trees and thought the insertion of Spanish (rather than Italian) would be emblematic of such a blessed, beautiful mess.
“God Bless This Mess” is the most personal and quietly poetic track on The Jacked Up Life Soundtrack—a return to an acoustic, singer-songwriter sound that would feel just as at home at Nashville’s Bluebird Café as it would around a campfire in the Oregon woods. That’s no accident. After 20 years in Music City and roots that reach back to small-town high school memories, this song feels like the meeting place of both chapters—distant and recent past.
A Soundtrack for the Sacred Mess
We live in a world addicted to filters—digital and emotional. We airbrush our struggles, smooth out our jagged edges, and paste on confidence when we’re falling apart. But real life—the kind that transformation is made of—is anything but tidy.
That’s the heartbeat of “God Bless This Mess.” Whether you’re knee-deep in family or church drama, dealing with grief or burnout, or simply tired of pretending everything’s fine—this song offers something we all need: permission to not rush the work.
Because healing?
It’s slow.
Grace?
It’s messy.
Restoration?
It’s not found in the pristine, it’s formed in the process.
As the lyric says:
“Oh, this is the sacred messy work of grace
Bruises and blessings all tangled in this place
Don’t rush the work—there’s mercy in the mess
God bless this mess…”
There’s something profoundly spiritual about muddy footprints in a hallway, morning coffee in the middle of grief, and whispered prayers in half-clean kitchens. Those are the altars of our ordinary, jacked-up lives. And that’s where God meets us—not once we’ve cleaned it all up, but right in the middle of the mess.
The Bilingual Bridge
The Spanish verse wasn’t just a nod to Señor Kinkel. It was also a creative decision to give voice to the wide range of homes and hearts this song might land in. Whether English or Spanish is your first language, the truth remains:
“Mamá dice, ‘Dios ve tu corazón’
Lágrimas caen, pero hay paz en Su voz…”
Translation:
“Mama says, ‘God sees your heart’
Tears fall, but there is peace in His voice…”
It’s not a perfect home.
It’s not a clean story.
But it’s real.
And grace works best with real.
Living Chapter 9
In The Jacked Up Life book, Chapter 9 deals with living in the mess of restoration—how even when you’re jacking up your life in the best way, there are still uneven moments. Just because the old foundation has been cleared doesn’t mean the new one is dry. There’s instability, vulnerability, doubt, and a lot of emotional messiness. This song doesn’t rush you past that stage. It sits with you in it. And reminds you—you’re not alone.
Restoration is spiritual construction.
So let the mess be sacred.
Let the prayers be half-finished.
Let the tears and the to-do lists and the Taco Tuesdays all exist in the same grace-filled breath.
Because if God doesn’t bless our mess, then what’s the point?
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So Here’s the Prayer
To every tired soul…
To the single parent, the estranged sibling, the lonely spouse, the recovering addict, the anxious achiever, the failing perfectionist, the worn-out elder—
May you find grace enough to not rush the work.
May you give yourself time and space to be rebuilt.
And may the God of mercy meet you not in your polished moments—but in the honest ones.
God bless this mess.
—Michael