“Ruins” by LEDGER || Worship With Me #26

Welcome back to my latest music review series, “Worship with Me.” This series introduces you to new worship music that you might have heard before. I aim to connect with you through worship and build your relationship with God in ways you might not have tried.

Today’s song is Ruins by Ledger. I fell in love with Ledger’s music after I got into Skillet. I was listening to all their mainstream music when I discovered that Ledger had her own band. Then, I saw her perform live in concert and had a fan-girl moment. She was coming out of the back to get settled in on stage, and I held up the “love” ASL sign towards her, and she returned it, looking right at me. (100% facts, no one can say otherwise.) Y’all, I was like a kid in a candy shop when that happened. I never had an interaction like that, major or minor. Her band has a small amount of music out right now, but songs like “Not Dead Yet,” “Completely,” and “Iconic” are true bops that anyone can get into. I get a lot of an Evanescence vibe from her, her music, and her style.

In an article from New Release Today, she wrote Ruins to describe the intense heartbreak of love. She wanted to change the vibe and put a positive twist on breakup anthems. Here’s what she said: “I’ve been wrecked before in the sense that I’ve had my heart broken, but I’ve also been wrecked in the sense that I’ve been “ruined” or “spoiled” by a love so great that I can never go back to how life was before. I wanted to include the tension of wanting to be vulnerable but also being afraid because of previous damage.” She shares that having trust is the hard part of healing, but it’s the strong part of a relationship that works. It’s both beautiful and freeing. (Quoted and paraphrased from: https://www.newreleasetoday.com/article.php?article_id=2411)

I never knew that this was a breakup song. How many Christian artists do you hear putting out breakup anthems? I assumed that it was about the restoration process of being in a relationship with Christ. Let’s look at some of my favorite lines with this fresh understanding.

Check out the power found in the chorus:

Once again I’ve broken, I’ve crumbled

I’m in pieces on the floor

Don’t you know the damage you’ve done is

Just irreparable

You’ll find me in the wreckage of a love so severe and it’s clear

I just don’t know what I’m doing

Your love left me in ruins

Won’t you ruin me again?

There’s a lot I’m processing as I write this after reading this through the lens of heartbreak. People are cruel creatures. Leaving someone broken, crumbled, and shattered is an intense image. The abuse that comes from relationships, either physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, is stomach-churning at best and sickening at worst. We don’t honestly know what someone has walked through regarding a breakup, and we often invalidate it based on my experience. We don’t take it as seriously as they feel it or brush it off when they feel like they’re broken and the life they once knew is broken beyond repair. There’s pain and love mixed for the person experiencing the heartache they weren’t experiencing. They might have thought the relationship was going so well before this bombshell came in and ruined it all. We get put in that stasis, that paralysis of not knowing where to go. We go through its motions, but we don’t feel anything, or we’re dissociated from life’s experiences.

I love the closing lines of this chorus. The love and heartbreak left them in ruins, and they’re asking to be ruined again. The love is still there, and they care for the person who broke their heart so much that they want to be ruined again. They are willing to go through all the pain, grief, and agony that caused their world to fall apart because of their love for them. It’s both awe-inspiring, tear-jerking, and heartbreaking at the same time.

I’ll share with you the bridge of the song, which vividly illustrates the story that the chorus tells, and close this blog there. I’ll be back next Sunday with a new worship song, and I hope you’ll join me. Until then, stay blessed!

Violent like a tidal wave,

You hit me, blitzed me, shattered in a hurricane

Your love is the frame that holds me through it

I’m perfectly ruined.