Annie’s Song; Our Song
In 1974 John Denver included a love song to his wife on his Back Home Again album. Denver had been unfaithful to her; they had separated; and they had recently reconciled. In Annie’s Song Denver poured out his heart to her and pleaded:
Come let me love you; let me give my life to you;
Let me drown in your laughter; let me die in your arms;
Let me lay down beside you; let me always be with you.
Come let me love you; come love me again.
Annie and Denver worked on their marriage. Unfortunately, Denver’s drowning in Annie’s laughter and dying in her arms did not stop him from cheating on her again. They divorced in 1982.
Our "cover" of Annie's Song
How many times I’ve sung my repentant love song to my heavenly Father. Day after day I’ve pleaded that he would forgive me for my unfaithfulnesses, that he would “come love me again.”
Time after time, because of Jesus, my Father has taken me back and loved me as intensely as ever. “I forgive you all your sins,” he says on page after page of his Word, through the mouth of my pastor, in the watery adoption of baptism, in the Supper’s body and blood.
Our sin never thwarts our Father’s love or his desire to grant full forgiveness.
Our Father's love
When there was no reason for our Father to love us, he loved us. When we daily give him no reason to love us, he loves us. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 8:8). Is there a more powerful reason to want to worship him with our whole lives? To want to be faithful to him? To drown in his laughter and die in his love?
Denver didn’t write Annie’s Song as a hymn. But because of God’s unflinching love for us, we Christians have every reason to sing to him:
Come let me love you; let me give my life to you;
Come let me love you; come love me again.