Language of My Soul: A Guest Post by Mary Katherine Backstrom

Music has always been a language of my soul. Whether I was listening to a CD I stole from my sister on a boombox in 5th grade, dancing in a crowded college club, or sitting on a stool at an open mic night performing something I’d written myself, songs have always helped me make sense of life. There are phases of life with distinctive soundtracks, moments you can still picture if you close your eyes, right down to what was playing on the radio.

My college soundtrack tells the story of a girl who loved to shake her bones and not take anything seriously. T‑Pain, Twista, and Lupe Fiasco were there with me, in the club, on the interstate to spring break, and next to every cluttered makeup counter I stood in front of while getting ready for a night out with my friends.

The soundtrack of my twenties was entirely different, because I’d found Jesus for a second (or maybe a third) time. K‑Love played on repeat, songs drenched in the language of hymns and promises of spiritual certainty, wrapping me in a hope I was desperate to believe.

But then came the soundtrack of my last few years, when my faith didn’t just fall apart, it went completely off-road. And since nobody loves a road trip playlist quite like a millennial who grew up on burned CDs, here is the music that played in the background of one of the wildest journeys of my life.

I remember standing in a Nashville venue, tears streaming down my face, watching a girl nearly two decades younger than me sing the truth of my life to a packed room. Maddie Zahm pretty much wrote this leg of my deconstruction journey for me. The whole album helped put me back together.

Pocket Bible – The grief of realizing your own spiritual arrogance and the love you lost along the way, the human connection certainty cost you.

If It’s Not God – Spiritual disorientation, learning to trust the goodness inside myself when everything I’d been taught told me not to.

You Might Not Like Her – My walking-away song, middle finger in the air as I finally chose my own care over condemnation.

There’s a stretch of this road trip where I’m not sharing the playlist, because it comes with an explicit warning on the label. These are songs I wouldn’t hand to my daughter, Holland. But neither do I hand her margaritas. The saltiness of something doesn’t make it less moral. It just makes it more adult.

Years of anger and sexual suppression, shaking loose as the bass rattled my speakers. Every feeling I’d been told to keep quiet and down deep finally shouted out loud.

GloRilla. Megan Thee Stallion. Sexyy Redd. Thank you for the therapy sessions, and for handing me lyrics so unhinged and deeply sexual they were only shouted when the windows were rolled up.

Eventually the road shifted, and the music did too. Songs became less about survival and more about letting the sun shine in. This was a soundtrack with windows rolled down, reminding me that healing wasn’t just possible…it is inevitable.

Richard Petty – Billy Strings – A song and a promise that joy is up ahead, carried on a bluegrass sound that feels both like home and possibility all at once.

Wildflowers – Tom Petty – Bright guitar and sweet lyrics telling me I belonged somewhere I felt free, and I believed it.

Deeper Well – Kacey Musgraves – A reminder that my desire for depth was not a flaw, and it was okay to walk away from a dry well.

Ain’t No Man – The Avett Brothers – An anthem telling me no person, no pastor, no man could block my joy from finding its way back in.

Life is Beautiful – Keb’ Mo’ – A song that made me smile. It really is that simple.

Who knows what my next season will bring. Maybe that playlist will sound entirely different. Who’s to say there won’t be another season where music has to hold my grief or carry the fire that burns inside of me. But for now, the soundtrack of my heart feels like sunshine. It sounds like freedom, and it moves the needle towards hope, like I can finally roll the windows down, turn up the volume, and dance towards whatever’s ahead.