You Can Do This Hard Thing - Carrie Newcomer

You Can Do This Hard Thing - Words and Music by Carrie Newcomer
©2016 Carrie Newcomer Music (BMI), Administered by BMG Chrysalis

From the 2016 album "The Beautiful Not Yet"
https://open.spotify.com/album/6Z4sYA...

A Message from Carrie:
Barbara Kingsolver has written about a phrase she uses to encourage her children, “You can do hard things.” I loved this idea behind this phrase. It absolutely acknowledges the difficulty of the task at hand, and yet, at the same time it completely affirms that the child has everything they need to move forward, and that they have support. I began to think about all the times in my own life that someone has given me that kind of sound advice and encouragement.

This is another song written for a spoken word and song collaboration with Parker J. Palmer and Gary A. Walters "What We Need is Here: Hope, Hard Times and The Human Possibility." Feel free to share this with someone who has helped you in hard times - or perhaps you'd like to encourage today.

Connect with Carrie:
https://www.carrienewcomer.com/
  / carrienewcomer  
  / carrienewco.  .
  / carrienewcomer  

Purchase "The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays, and Lyrics" here: https://www.carrienewcomer.com/store/...

FULL LYRICS:
There at the table with my head in my hands
A column of numbers I just could not understand
You said "Add these together, carry the two, now you"
You can do this hard thing, you can do this hard thing
It's not easy I know, but I believe that it's so
You can do this hard thing

At a cold winter station breathing into our gloves
This would change me forever, leaving for God know's what
You carried my bags, you said "I'll wait for you"
You can do this hard thing, you can do this hard thing
It's not easy I know, but I believe that it's so
You can do this hard thing

Late at night I called, and you answered the phone
The worst it had happened, and I did not want to be alone
You quietly listened, you said, "we'll see this through"
You can do this hard thing, you can do this hard thing
It's not easy I know, but I believe that it's so
You can do this hard thing

Here we stand breathless and pressed in hard times
Hearts hung like laundry on backyard clothes lines
Impossible just takes a little more time

From the muddy ground comes a green volunteer
In a place we thought barren, new life appears
Morning will come whistling some comforting tune for you:
You can do this hard thing, you can do this hard thing
It's not easy I know, but I believe that it's so
You can do this hard thing.