For Me, Not for You

[Verse 1] I knew your face the second You walked across that room Years had changed the edges But I knew exactly who You didn’t know me from a stranger Didn’t know the boy I’d been So for weeks we traded weight plates And I spotted you again There were moments I could’ve hurt you There were chances no one knew And sixteen years old inside me Still remembered what you took But I thought about my grandparents And the man they’d want me to be And I knew if hate became my answer Then hate had taken more from me [Pre-Chorus] So I carried all those years Right up to that door And God asked me for the thing I’d never given Him before [Chorus] This is for me, not for you I’m not saying what you did was right I’m not calling evil anything But what it was that night I’m not taking back the tears Or pretending I don’t bleed I’m just done letting what you did Keep doing this to me You don’t get another year You don’t get another piece I forgive you Not because you’re free I forgive you So I can be [Verse 2] You covered up your face then Couldn’t look me in the eye I stood there by the doorway With seventeen years behind I never turned around to face you I just stared down at the floor And said, “I want you to know I forgive you” Then I reached out for the door And somewhere in that silence God pressed it through my soul “This isn’t for the man behind you This is how I make you whole” So I told you what He told me Nothing more was left to say Then I opened up that doorway And I walked into the day [Chorus] This is for me, not for you I’m not saying what you did was right I’m not calling evil anything But what it was that night I’m not taking back the tears Or pretending I don’t bleed I’m just done letting what you did Keep doing this to me You don’t get another year You don’t get another piece I forgive you Not because you’re free I forgive you So I can be [Bridge] I sat alone there in my car And watched the whole thing play A sixteen-year-old boy And every year between that day The funeral The anger The questions without end The nights I begged God, “Tell me How does something like this mend?” And there beside that building With my hands upon the wheel Nothing that I’d lost came back But something in me healed [Break — nearly whispered] Forgiveness didn’t make you innocent It didn’t make the wrong alright It just meant I wouldn’t let your darkness Have the rest of my life [Final Chorus] This was for me, not for you And for anybody left behind Still carrying a courtroom Still serving someone else’s crime You don’t have to call it easy You don’t have to rush your grief And forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting Or giving up on justice being seen But maybe there’s a day When holding on hurts more than letting go And if that day should ever find you There is something you should know You can lay the hatred down Without laying down their name You can love the ones you lost Without living in the pain I forgave you And walked through that door And for the first time You couldn’t hurt me anymore [Outro] I sat there in that car And finally understood God didn’t change what happened He changed what happened To me.