I Gave You Everything I Had ~ Vince Gill

Last night it was nearing bedtime and I was flipping through the TV channels. Do we still say flipping? I got caught up in a tribute to Vince Gill on Country Music Television. I know he was once the front man for Pure Prairie League who had the song Amie. In the four years Vince Gill was with them they had a hit with the song, Let Me Love You Tonight. The premise of the CMT show was Gill would sit off to the side of the beautiful auditorium at Belmont University in Nashville while he watched people sing the songs he wrote and recorded. Vince Gill was sitting there watching Chris Stapleton, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, and others sing his songs. At the end of the show, Gill sang I Gave You Everything I Had, a new song that sounded like a goodbye.

When I began to write today I thought I was going to make the transition to “we are to sing Jesus’ songs to others and we sing them in front of Him.” However, after finding the song on YouTube and listening to it a couple of times, I got a little emotional. It was not because I finally figured out that the song was for his daughters. It was the many reflective lines written by a guy whose life, like mine, was at least 3/4 behind him.

I spend the hours remembering
The sands of time are a precious thing
Life looks different through an aging lens
I’m just more grateful than I’ve ever been

The first half of my life was for me. The second half has been for Jesus. Since I began living for Jesus, the Gill line, “This Gypsy life ain’t been so bad” meant more to me (and Diane) than it would to most. God moved us from our home in Tyler County to Mason County to Mineral County. Like my life, I know our time in Mineral County is at least 3/4 over… closer to the end than the beginning.

Christians always say at the end of our lives we want to hear Jesus say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I say that about people at funerals. How will we hear that? It is if we can say, “I gave you everything I had.” I am getting emotional again as I draw this blog to a close and it sounds like a goodbye as well. It is not. Yet I know, another of Gill’s lyrics say, “I don’t question, it will end.” I pray when it does, I can say to my wife, to my churches, and most importantly to my Savior, “I gave you everything I had.” That is my prayer for you as well.