Small towns are more than just a sign saying "Population of" whether it's 200, 3,000, or 845. And Carrie Underwood once put the meaning of small towns perfectly into a song.
"Yesterday I got a call"
Unfortunately, this happens more often than anyone would like. You get a call saying someone you knew or didn't know from your hometown had passed away. No matter if you were close to the person or not, it still affects you in one way or another, because small towns are connected. You're going to know someone who is directly hurt, which is going to make you connected in a way that only people from these places will understand.
"Thank God for hometowns and all the love that makes you go round"
Whether it's a breakup, seeing an old friend for the first time in a long time, or needing to borrow an egg from your neighbor, you're always going to be welcomed and loved. It's the Sunday dinners at grandmas, and the homemade food. It's walking into your high school without a visitor's pass because everyone knows who you are. Because it's always about the love you feel, and that love is huge. It's the reason you can love so easy, because you were easily loved in that small town.
"Thank God for the county lines that welcome you back in, when you were dying to get out"
I think this is the line we all can relate to. Most of us vow to leave, to get out, and do something big. Some of us do leave, and some of us don't. But we all come back, because those county lines are more than just boundaries. They're the nights you took a truck down the same backroads for hours, singing Dixie Chicks and Randy Travis at the top of your lungs. They're the hot summer days spent finding creeks to swim in, and nights sitting around a bonfire. These roads back the fields you learned how to rake hay on in June, and the same places you bagged your first buck on an early morning in November. They're Ranger rides, snow days, and Saturday nights spent in shops with boys who don't wear anything but boots. And you wouldn't have wanted to grow up any other way.
"Thank God for church pews, and all the faces that won't forget you"
'Cause when you needed help, this is a place you went. The church you grew up in. Whether it was a wedding, baptism, or a death of a friend, you came back to the place that saved you. It's that church where you spent Sundays, Easters, Christmas Eves feeling that love of God surrounded by some of the people that mean the most in the world.
"Cause when you're lost out in this crazy world, you got somewhere to go and get found"
When you're lost, you go here to be found. Because after all, it's the place that raised you. It made you. It's home.
