I had “Mortal Man” by Jeremy Loops playing in my ear one evening while walking back to the hostel. It was one of those long days where everything felt heavier than it should. The kind of day where you start hearing your own thoughts like an argument happening inside you.

Then the lyric came:

“Hold my hand, nothing now will change the mortal man.”

I paused. Replayed it. It hit different.

Because lately, I’ve been trying to outgrow my own humanness. To outthink it. To outpray it. To become more — more disciplined, more patient, more unbothered, more divine.

But no matter how much I grow, learn, or unlearn, the truth still finds its way back. I am mortal. Frail. Flawed. Emotional. Human.

There are days I still lash out, say things I shouldn’t, or withdraw into myself because I can’t find the words to explain the noise in my head. There are mornings I wake up already tired, nights I scroll endlessly just to drown out the silence. There are seasons I think I’m getting better, then one small thing happens and I’m right back in the same old loop.

And it’s not that I’m not trying. I am.

Could that be what being human really means — trying, failing, and trying again?

We spend so much of life trying to upgrade the human condition. Chasing peace like it’s a project, discipline like it’s a prize, holiness like it’s a badge. But in all our striving, we forget that God didn’t make angels out of us; He made men.

That’s the point.

That no matter how spiritual, successful, or self-aware we become, we’ll still bleed, still feel, still long.

That longing itself is proof that we’re alive.

Sometimes, I think of Adam — the first man. The one who named things, made mistakes, got exiled, learned to farm, and kept moving. Maybe even he looked up some nights and whispered, “What have I become?” And maybe God smiled, because that question was part of the design.

We are not meant to transcend our mortality. We are meant to carry it gently.

To live, to stumble, to love, to hurt, to rebuild, and through it all, to hold each other’s hands when it gets too heavy.

So when Jeremy Loops sings, “Count on me when you’re falling down, don’t give up on what we've got now,” I think of how fragile yet beautiful this all is, that we can’t save ourselves from being human, but we can show up for each other in the fall.

Maybe that’s what faith and redemption really is; holding on, even when everything in you wants to let go, and learning to forgive yourself for not being more than mortal.

Because nothing, truly nothing, will change the mortal man.