Nothing

Yo man, yo gal
So you think you are nothing?
Wait, do you really think you are nothing?
Nothing can't breathe, and nothing can't read what I'm writing
Nothing can't tread the earth, and nothing can't bleed with life
Nothing ain't nuthin'

Listen bruh, and listen bae...

There is a tale I used to hear of old, of near-old
Buddies used to shout and sing it all over
It went somethin' this;
"Yo, there ain't no way somebody's gonna roll
And roll really deep
Yeah, deep like pizzas down the raw yo
Without being sumthin
To roll like you really rolling, you gotta be sumthin
And you ain't gotta be sumthin by being nothing
Nothing ain't nuthin..."

Later, I realized this;

There's a time when one thinks they are nothing
And they depend on men and women to validate their worth
And they worship them
For they long for the filling of that emptiness and the scraping away of nothingness
And loneliness and ill relationships creep into their lives while trynna be something
They travail in the agony of nothingness
And plead with mankind to fill their emptiness
Men trample on their worth and feed on it
Women drink their blood and spit on their cloth
Exhaustion, regret, pain and blackmail take their toll
Hatred, dishonesty, imbalance and low self esteem create their fall
Leaving them without meaning and with a destiny forged by the arms of men...
But ain't they something?
Wain't we all created in God's awesomeness? In His image?
Ain't we, therefore, all awesome?

Listen...

We may all want to justify our being "nothing" by our levels of education:
That we have not stepped in a school to receive even the most basic education
Or we may want to define our lives by our failures (and they are many)
Or see ourselves through the eyes of others: the words they've told us, the curses they've hurled at us and the betrayals they have made us experience
Or because of where we have come from: our "fallen" families, the divorces around us and all our failed relationships
Or that all our days we've been being told that we are useless and nothing
And we let drugs define us
And people, and our weaknesses, and pride, and arrogance, and selfishness
And sorrow, and anger, and fury, and unforgiveness and grudges
All in the name of trying to escape being the nothing we've been told we are
But does all this matter?
Does it change our feeling of being nothing?
Does it make us feel worthy, wanted or even better?
Does it draw new portraits of reality: the reality of who we TRULY are?
Does living to satisfy other people's demands of us make us better?
It ain't nuthin
We can't define ourselves through nuthin-ness
We can't thrive if we remain wanting to define our lives through the words and actions of the people around us
It ain't nuthin

Pain will still hold us captive
We will still live in unbelief
Stress will still make us less positive
Life will still give us reasons to find no relief
People will still find us uninteresting
And we will die with blame games and be buried nothing

Listen...

We need to turn around and stop hurting ourselves and paining those we love
I need to do so, you need to do so
Until we realize we are something in God's eyes,
Until we define ourselves through His eyes: how awesome, beautiful, worthy, loved, cared for... we are
Man will never satisfy our crave for identity...
And we'll die nothing, for nothing
It is in God, in Christ, that all our experiences with men unfold our worth
It is only in Him where our pains and our regrets are turned to worth
He clothes us into something, into His children
And He calls us by name;
"Morris, er, (fill in your name), you are something to me
I gave up myself, my life, for you
I love you... I have always loved you with an unfailing love...
I won't give up on you...
Come to me child, I will never give up on you...
You are something to me - you are my child... you can't be nothing to me..."

To sum up, here's Lecrae's outro from Nuthin'
Hey man, the way I see it
I think we were made for mor
Than just, ya know, the simple things that we aspire toward
We were made for more than just telling stories about
How much money we can get by selling poison to people
It's time to talk about who we are and who we can be
And we need to build each other up and not put each other down
I feel like we not talking about nothing right now

And here is Francesca Battistelli's own words in He Knows My Name;
I don't need my name in lights
I'm famous in my Father's eyes
Make no mistake, He knows my name...

That's how the Creator of the universe wants us to define ourselves: we are not nothing , He knows our names. They're written on the palm of His hand...


Bonface Morris.