Bethel Music + Kristene DiMarco - It is Well Lyrics

Video

It Is Well - Kristene DiMarco | You Make Me Brave

Meaning & Inspiration

There is a specific, jagged edge to the line Kristene DiMarco sings in It Is Well: "broken for my regard."

I’ve been stuck on that word, "regard." In its common usage, it feels polite, almost distant—a tip of the hat or a formal acknowledgment. But here, the lyric suggests that the earth, the seas, and the very foundations of nature have been "broken" just to be looked at by me. It’s an unsettling thought. It creates a friction that is hard to sit with. If I’m honest, I don’t usually feel like the universe is moving for my sake. More often, I feel like I’m the one being broken by the circumstances, not the other way around.

The tension here is palpable. If these seas are shaken and stirred—a chaos that feels distinctly personal, like a storm centered specifically over your own house—then the idea that it’s happening for my "regard" feels like an impossible theology. Yet, that is exactly what the Psalmist echoes in Psalm 46:10: "Be still, and know that I am God." The stillness isn’t a lack of movement; it is the absolute authority over the movement.

DiMarco isn't giving us a sunshine-and-rainbows anthem. When she sings these words, you can hear the strain in her voice. It’s not the sound of someone who has mastered their grief; it’s the sound of someone who is holding onto the rigging of a ship while the deck is actively tilting.

"Far be it from me to not believe," she sings later. That phrasing—"far be it from me"—is an old, almost liturgical way of expressing horror at the thought of losing one's faith. It’s an admission that the doubt is actually there, hovering right at the edge of the melody. She’s staring at a mountain, acknowledging its weight, and then reciting the promise that it will be thrown into the sea (Mark 11:23). But note the present tense: the mountain is still there. The sea is still churning. The "regard" isn't the removal of the trouble; it’s the shift in where she decides to anchor her gaze.

Maybe that’s what it means to say "it is well." It isn't a declaration of peace because the situation has resolved. It’s a defiance of the chaos. It is choosing to believe that the God who commands the wind and the waves is paying attention to you—literally holding you in His regard—even when the waves are high enough to block out the sun. It feels like an unfinished task, something you have to wake up and perform again every single morning. It’s not easy, and the song doesn’t pretend it is. It’s just true.