Sleeping At Last – Atlas: Son (plus free printable stickers!!)

Hello, friends, and welcome to another fangirl journaling session! This week I’m unpacking the wonderfully delicate and exquisitely meaningful song “Atlas: Son” by Sleeping At Last. I seriously love this song, and so many others by this group! It’s like a warm drink of herbal tea for your soul 🍵 Enjoy!

Fandom: “Atlas: Son” – Sleeping At Last

Verses: 2 Cor. 3:4-6, Jeremiah 17:14, 1 Corinthians 15:9-10, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Psalm 62:8, 2 Timothy 2:13

Truth: Because of and through Christ, it’s both safe and essential for us to be vulnerable before God, pour out our hearts, and be intimately acquainted with our own brokenness, because He was first.

The Fandom – Atlas: Son by Sleeping At Last

I cannot say enough good things about this song. Its music is soothing and delicate, and the lyrics are so exquisitely beautiful, they’ve made me cry a little on more than one occasion. Here are a couple of my favorite lines:

Show me who I am and who I could be
Initiate the heart within me
Till it opens properly 

I'm only steady on my knees, one day I'll stand on my own two feet

Through this magnifying glass I see a thousand fingerprints
On the surfaces
Of who I am...

See what I mean! Seriously, so beautiful. I wrote a post on another Sleeping At Last song last September, and cannot recommend them enough if you’re looking for soothing, uplifting music to calm anxiety or just relax. They’re like warm tea for your eardrums 🍵

Actually, hold that thought– going to go make some warm tea. Be right back 😆

The Verses

*sips warm tea* Ahhhh 😊

As with a lot of beautiful things in life, the underlying themes of “Atlas: Son” line up with a wealth of different Bible verses and themes. Here are a few that I found.

Show me who I am and who I could be/ initiate the heart within me ’till it opens properly… I can’t keep my head from spinning out of control, is this what being vulnerable feels like?

These verses address the topics of vulnerability and brokenness:

Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; Save me and I will be saved, For You are my praise. – Jer 17:14 NASB20

Jeremiah 17:14 NASB20

In the context of the rest of the chapter, narrative style, etc. etc., this verse is the EPITOME of being intimate with brokenness and vulnerable before the Lord. Jeremiah, a prophet of Israel (often known as the “Weeping Prophet”), has just declared that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (v. 9). And then he boldly declares that the LORD can heal his heart and the hearts of his people/all humanity. So there’s a super vulnerable example of someone who’s willing to be vulnerable before Almighty God, and it also speaks to the universal truth that our hearts are so messed up sometimes that we can’t even understand ourselves. Whaaaaaaa????

Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your hearts before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah

Psalm 62:8 NASB20

Another powerful example of vulnerability and brokenness, David invites the people of God to pour out our hearts before Him. That means all the sickness and confusing mess that’s going on in my head should be laid at the Father’s feet on a regular basis. David knew, and I’m learning this too: God knows what to do with all the big and messy and terrible things that happen inside me.

Want some help processing all those big emotions? Check out this free guided journal, or purchase a bound copy on Amazon!

And I will try, try, try to breathe, till it turns to muscle memory/ I’m only steady on my knees, one day I’ll stand on my own two feet/ And I’ll run the risk, of being intimate with brokenness/ through this magnifying glass I see a thousand fingerprints/ On the surfaces of who I am

These verses go with the theme of being intimate with our own brokenness:

Such [is the] confidence we have toward God through Christ. Not that we are adequate in ourselves [so as] to consider anything as [having come] from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,  who also made us adequate [as] servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

2 Corinthians 3:4-6 NASB20

We can never be enough in ourselves, and the awareness of this, combined with the knowledge that Christ has taken on the burden of “being enough” so that we don’t have to, is absolutely essential for a healthy, growing life as a believer.

For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

1 Corinthians 15:9-10 NASB20

This is Paul, whom all of us in the 21st century extol as one of the Pillars of the Christian Faith, claiming that he’s the very least of all and not even worthy of his title! And his argument isn’t entirely invalid: it is true that he persecuted the church, and by our own standards, that’s certainly grounds for punishment or even exclusion from salvation. BUT it’s not up to us, Praise God, and it wasn’t up to Paul either. And he knew it, as he concludes that “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His work in my life was enough to save and sanctify me.” Amen!

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in distresses, in persecutions, in difficulties, in behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NASB20

In context, this verse is part of an experience that the Apostle Paul describes in which some unknown “thorn in the flesh” was given to him, and he asks the Lord to remove it. This is His response, and Paul’s conclusion. Knowing that Paul wasn’t some kind of superhuman who never asked for anything makes these verses that much more powerful: he surely had to make himself vulnerable in order to ask for help with this difficulty that he was dealing with, and we can imagine that accepting the Lord’s response took some courage and faith to do. That makes Paul an example of vulnerability and being intimate with one’s own brokenness that is more than worth imitating.

Application

In response to the truths highlighted by the lyrics of “Atlas: Son,” here are some “I will” statements that I will aim to live out:

• I will allow myself to be vulnerable before the Lord and acknowledge my brokenness
• I will study and follow the examples of David, Jeremiah, and the apostle Paul
• I will ask the Father to open my heart to change, healing, renewal, and repentance

Journal pages

Below you’ll find some photos of my journal pages in the Fangirl: Fulfilled devotional journal as I worked through and unpacked this song. You can purchase your own on Amazon for as little as $5 (with Prime shipping!!) and begin your own journey of unpacking the truth in your fandoms!

The last two pages in this set were made with a printable from Illustrated Faith called “Breath Prayers”. The blues in the stickers and the devotional content in this set worked really well to further my reflection and study!

Free printable journaling stickers!!

Thank you so much for sticking with me through this post! I made some stickers to share with you; they’re available for free in my ko-fi shop! Just click the photo or link below to download them. They look so amazing on clear sticker paper, and if you don’t have access to a printer, a local print shop will be happy to print them for you 😊

I hope you’ve enjoyed this fangirling session on “Atlas: Son” by Sleeping at Last.

Happy fangirling!