Redeemed

The second single from Big Daddy Weave's seventh album, Love Come To Life, is a testimony to the power of redemption. It became the first song from the LP to top Billboard's Hot Christian Songs chart.

The song was inspired by lead singer Mike Weaver's struggles with his self-image. He explained to New Release Tuesday: "'I've been a fat guy my whole life and that's part of the story of Big Daddy Wave. That self-deprecating humor is mostly a defense mechanism. When you have kids you start thinking of life in a different way. My wife and I also watch the TV show The Biggest Loser. In 2009, we came up with the idea for me to lose 90 pounds in 2009. I was out sweating every day and losing weight. Halfway through the year, I lost 50 pounds. Then into the Fall, I lost 70 pounds. At the beginning of December, I had lost 80 pounds. The last day of December I got on the scale and I lost 84 pounds for the year. That doesn't sound bad, it was like losing a middle school kid off of your body. Truly, there has been this thing in my life, that even missing my goal by just six pounds resonated with me that I am a failure. That's a ridiculous thing, even as I hear it come out of my mouth, I feel like I failed. The worst days in my life are the photo shoots for new albums. The night before the photo shoot, I stood in front of the mirror hating what I saw, and I was harsh towards myself. The Holy Spirit told me, 'You are mine.' That led to writing this song."

Weaver explained that the message of the song is the understanding of how God's love for him can redeem his own self-image. He told New Release Tuesday: "'I don't doubt that God loves me, my parents showed that to me and I've never doubted how God feels about me. There's this problem of never letting that translate to how I feel about myself. I walked around carrying this self-deprecating, self-hating feeling. I sank into a depressed state. I remember being in my garage, my man-cave. One day after a workout, I was hating myself. I prayed 'God I know You love me completely, but why can't I love me?' I felt the Holy Spirit invade that space in my garage and He began to deal with my heart. God began to fill my heart and my mind with the stuff that He likes about me. It's unbelievable that the King of the Universe cares about me. He does that because of the blood of Jesus. He made me. He knows me more than anyone else. He told me He loves my smile and my heart for people. He put that inside of me. He broke down that self-hating feeling. I've been sharing my story for the past year and it has brought people out of the woodwork, and it dawned on me one night that I don't feel like I hate myself anymore. That healing is available to all of us. We just need to make ourselves vulnerable before the Lord."