Don Williams - Maybe That's All It Takes Lyrics

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Don Williams "Maybe That's All It Takes"

Meaning & Inspiration

I’ve spent a lot of time thumbing through the edges of old hymnals, looking for words that can hold the weight of a Tuesday afternoon when the house is quiet and the creaking of the floorboards sounds louder than usual. Most of what passes for spiritual music these days is full of shouts and certainties. It’s loud, and it’s fast. But Don Williams—he understood the pace of a life that has been lived long enough to know the difference between a feeling and a commitment.

There is a line in "Maybe That’s All It Takes" that stops me every time I hear it: “For every tear I love you more.”

When you’re young, love is a bright promise, a song that plays on the radio with the windows down. You think it’s about how you feel on the sunny days. But after forty years, you learn that love is actually forged in the friction. It’s what stays when the "dream" of the beginning wears off. That line brings to mind the Apostle Peter’s words in his first letter, about how the testing of our faith—and by extension, the testing of our devotion to one another—produces something far more precious than gold.

I look at my hands, mapped with veins and spots, and I think about the doors we’ve slammed. We’ve had our own seasons of wondering why we were even together. The world isn’t a song, just like Don says. It’s messy, and it’s heavy, and sometimes it’s just plain blue.

The grace of God isn't found in the absence of those tears, but in the choice to keep standing when they finally dry. “Just letting go of the old mistakes”—that sounds simple, but it is the hardest work a person can do. It requires a kind of humility that only comes when you realize you aren't the hero of your own life, but a broken person holding onto another broken person, both of you held by something larger.

Sometimes, when the lights are low and I’m sitting here waiting for the kettle to whistle, I wonder if we actually know how to forgive, or if we just get tired of being angry. Is there a difference? Maybe that’s the mystery. Maybe it’s just the act of choosing the other person, over and over, even when you don't feel like a saint.

I don’t know if Don intended this as a hymn, but there is a gospel truth buried in that chorus. We keep holding on to the love we made because that love is a small, flickering reflection of the way He holds onto us—despite the slammed doors and the mistakes we bring to the table every single morning. It’s not a grand, shouting faith. It’s just the quiet, stubborn kind of staying. And honestly? That might be all it takes.