Mercies New

Self-blame starts the song. Nichole Nordeman asks whether she was "lured away by endless distractions and lovelier attractions," or whether "my own free will is the better one to blame for this familiar mess I've made again." She does not defend herself. "I would understand if You were out of patience," she says, "and I would understand if I was out of chances."

The refrain interrupts the confession with the answer: "Your mercies are new every morning, so let me wake with the dawn." When "the music is through, or so it seems to be," she asks to "sing a new song, old things gone." The second verse takes up distance and forgetting, noting "the distance left between East and West is how far You would go to forget the debt I'd owe," and "thrown into the sea, the wicked ways in me will never have a chance to wash back on the sand."

A bridge ties it to a shared morning: "up comes the sun on every one of us, gone, gone, gone the guilt and shame that knew Your name." Lamentations 3:22-23 holds the mercies new each morning, Psalm 103:12 the East and West image, Micah 7:19 the sins cast into the sea, and 2 Corinthians 5:17 the old things passing away.