Happy Birthday, Belle-Baby, our little chin-dimpled Amelie-girl with the curly locks and impish smile! You are 3 today!
Teeny-tiny little girl ~ you are bringing more joy each day you live. You are sweet and funny and ornery and fast! You are cunning and charming, too smart for your tiny britches, and can get into uproar faster than any of us can shake a stick, but o-my-goodness, when you pause to show your love, the earth melts away for the hugeness of it.
Until Baby Malakai came along, you were the family baby for such a long time. And so-tiny you remained, it has been easy to forget how quickly you are growing up. But when Kai-Kai came along, you became, overnight, a big girl, the sweet cousin to *kiss-kiss baby’s head and bring diapers and whisper sweet nothings to him. Just think what a wonderful big sister you are about to be.
Amelie Belle ~ When I think of you, I think about how fast you are, how decided you are, how well you share your feelings and opinions in spite of being such a tiny thing, what a leader you are and how much you love singing {just like your Nonna did at your age!} and I also think about how long and sweet and intense your hugs are.
I will never forget when you came to kiss me goodbye the other night and you, without any coaxing from your momma or daddy said, “Thank-you for my cake, Nonna” in your ever-so-slightly sandy-voice, and you hugged me so tight and I never wanted to let go and if I hadn’t, I think you would have stayed. It is what I love most about you – you are full-in, dedicated, committed and wholehearted in every single thing you do, including your love and affection. I can’t always catch you, but when I can, it is wondrous. I LOVE that about you!
THREE wishes for my Amelie on her 3rd Birthday:
1// That the song of the Lord will grow in your heart and you’ll sing with angel-choirs when no one else knows and it will cause you to ever and always want to press in and worship the Lord and pursue His Presence.
2// I wish for your hugs to bring healing and peace to people whose hearts are broken. I am hoping for your lovely love to bless people and give them strength when they need it so. Just like it has for me.
3// MIddle-child wonderfulness: may you have it in abundance. You are the filling in the sugar-and-spice sandwich now, and I know you are spicy and delicious enough to be seen! You be a wonderful little sister and a splendid big sister and you will bless your mommy and daddy and please God, too. OK?
I love you, Belle-Baby, my big-girl, now. Nonna loves you and all your color and texture and wild beauty! I love you! xxxooo
There are people, very-very few of them, mind you, in this life, to whom you may reveal your worst, most awful, darkest, most terrifying faults and flaws; those to whom you can admit your defeats, defects, and deficiencies with total abandon.
They know how the enemy comes after your heart and your mind. They study his tactic and assignment against you and start clearing a path.
They can know you are not only not perfect, but perfectly imperfect and even downright horrible. They are aware that you have offended, embraced offense, struggled {absolutely warred} to be both whole and holy and have accidentally and even on purpose screwed. it. up. time and again. They know.
Yet they pray you up, bind your wounds, cheer you on and actually believe the best of you. By the time you get to heaven, they will deserve a greater reward for making sure you got there and did not miss the great grace of God towards you.
They are not just friends. They are sisters,: grace-filled covenant women who will go to the altar for mercy on your behalf.
If you’ve got them – you are blessed. I am. Undeserving. But blessed.
Thank-you, Father, for the ones you have sent me…{they know who they are}.
Come, thou long-awaited spring – decided proof that life goes on. Bare branches, having lost all great glory as winter overcame resolve and strength waned, have waited {working so much harder to dig in deeper than can be fathomed} and now bud to give birth to glorious leafy-green life. The brittle-dead fields are shedding that golden debris-blanket in strong March winds where green shoots have quietly emerged unseen, looking heavenward. The tulips pop up and then out, the birdsong gets sweeter.
Come, spring ~ release us from heavy garments of mourning, from the dry burlap and twine of packed-away hopes to sun-warmed dreams as big as the cloudless blue-sky. Let the seeds of desire and vision, though dropped barely {breath-held} hopeful into the black soil of despair, now ~ softened in the unseen tomb of dark ground and cold night ~ spring forth with gladness. Life does go on, life is renewed in the spring rains via sorrowful tears. So, come spring.
O spring, how grand the hope you bring, we look for you, we count the days, we hold onto promise barely, our anticipation growing. And then, the crystal-blue light of the freshest of sunrises, a cloudless daybreak, diamond-dew on new grass catches the morning sun and sends it glistening back to You. We are loaded in daily grace, divine benefits – veritably dripping in treasure.
All my springs*, O Lord, are in You. All my springs, my seasons, my days, my hours, my minutes, my wretched body-soul-and-spirit, all of my life and new life, all life abundant, my past, my future, but mostly my today – this minute – all of it is in You, by You, for You and because of Your faithfulness. I thank-You, Lord for the spring which vigorously compels me to concede that letting go or giving up what was cannot deplete nor diminish what will be…
Come now, spring. Fully, finally. Faithfully.
And for fun:
Winter has passed. This must be baseball… :)
*Psalm 87.7 NKJV
Both the singers and the players on instruments say,
I have a spreadsheet in the music file on my desktop called “Best Songs.” I have listed hundreds of songs and the artists’ who sang them, the songs that collectively make up the melody of my life, tracking every possible emotion and moment in time. Each song represents an era or strong memory. Some are great, really noteworthy songs and some weren’t that special to anyone else, but they make me happy and stir up a wonderful concoction of highly-desirable happy-neurotransmitters for my brain.
Everytime I randomly recall a portion of a song I have ever fancied, I throw it on the list. And when I put the title there, despite the fact that I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday, I can remember where I was, what I was doing and who else was there when I heard it playing on the radio so many years ago. Going over the list a few months back, I realized that there were an inordinate amount of songs from 1974, when I was 14 and attending Harding Junior High in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
1974, ahhh the 70s…
Who can know the mind of a fourteen year old girl? She is silly and coming alive. She is crushing and seriously in love with love. She is forward-looking for the amazingly gorgeous hunk who will arrive and sweep her off her feet and they will dance to the romantic hits of the early 70s ~ forever. *smile
Oh, my. Yes, 1974 was a very romantic and good year for all that. “You Make Me Feel Brand New” by the Stylistics (my FAV group at the time) was at the top of my own personal hits list. And John Denver singing “Sunshine on My Shoulders” or “Annie’s Song” (You fill up my senses like night in a forest, like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain…” swoooooon) just got me looking for some one to sing like that to me. And wasn’t Olivia Newton-John just communicating what my silly-little-heart wanted to pour out to some unknown lover “I honestly…{wait for it}…love you“? Oh yes, she was!
But 1974 also had some way light-hearted songs that are etched into my memory, like “My Girl Bill,” by Jim Stafford, considered pretty hilarious at the time, I think now would not get any play at, as politically incorrect as it may come across. Of course, “Seasons in the Sun,” so melodramatically captured our emotional fancies. And Ray Stevens was even able to turn the streaking fad into a hit single with “The Streak.” Songs like that preserve history with humor.
All in all, 1974 was a full-on chorus of melodies and lyrics that really have become “golden” if you’re talking oldies.
I made my list of my top, favorite LOVE-these-1974-songs, and there were about 50. So, I was forced to edit myself to try to get the list to 20…or 25…and really truly rank them and am listing only my REALLY-SUPER-TOP-FAVORITE-1974 SONGS. And oh, they just keep jumping past the count-barrier…Numbers 1-7 are probably in order of my TOP favorites, but the rest, just LOVE them all!!! I have created a YouTube Playlist (for my own fun) that you may feel free to enjoy. :) And how could you not? Enjoy it, I mean. Sooooooooo good!!!
1. You Make Me Feel Brand New, The Stylistics
They sing “God bless you” in this song, which, preacher’s daughter that I was, gave it extra cachet with me.
2. Hello, It’s Me, Todd Rundgren
Hello, Todd! Riding the bus home after school…hoping that guy would call me…This song makes so many of my playlists, it’s ridiculous. Love.
3. Best Thing that Ever Happened to me, Gladys Knight and the Pips
This song is just high-quality classic. I sang it to Dave just after our first anniversary. He didn’t even know it before then. Can you imagine? Not knowing every Gladys-song??? He appreciates it now.
4. Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me, Elton John
I wasn’t supposed to be listening to “secular music” but I convinced my mom this was based on the scripture “Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath” and so she supported me listening to it as she drove me here and there. And she used it as a teaching moment, the opportunity to present a devotional about never going to bed angry. Oh, mamala, :)
Didn’t this song get even better when he sang it with George Michael in the 90s? Just a good song.
5. I Will Always Love You, Dolly Parton
Until Whitney Houston took this song to super-hit status for the film, Bodyguard, in 1992, it was not known quite as widely. However, I like to think I know a good song when I hear it and I loved this song in 1974 even though I was certainly too young to even understand the full-on passion of it. The song itself has always-always-always been one of my all-time favorites, and as for Dolly – I like it best of all her work.
5. Sunshine on My Shoulders, John Denver — Annie’s Song, John Denver
Yes, I am cheating. There are 2. “Sunshine” was the theme for a movie which was a 1000-level *sniffer based on the true story of a dying mom leaving cassette recorded messages for her baby girl since she wouldn’t be there to raise her. “If I had a day I could to give you…” Ah, gentle and sweet! As for “Annie’s Song,” she was John Denver’s wife, and I have never understood how she could FILL all his senses and then he could divorce her? But really-check out the words and imagine being in the mountains of Colorado which is what he depicted, and beau-ti-ful!
6. You’re Having My Baby, Paul Anka — One Man Woman/One Woman Man
And I am cheating again. Two songs for the continually prolific singer/songwriter, Paul Anka, who’d actually started charting hits as far back as when my mom was a teenager. He hit a whole new audience in the early 70s and his songs were just so singable. Duets. I love duets. I want to sing with all the great people. Maybe Paul Anka will come to town and call me from the audience to sing with him? I am ready Paul, for both of these songs! The show, Glee, covered “You’re Having My Baby” a couple years back. Slightly less “innocent” version.
7. I Honestly Love You, Olivia Newton-John — If You Love Me, Let me Know, Olivia Newton-John
Omygosh, I cannot be trusted. Here I am trying to shorten the list and now I have given Olivia Newton-John two songs on my list. Well, some of these people were just hitting their stride that year, obviously. My hands are tied.
8. Seasons in the Sun, Terry Jacks
A dying friend is traumatic for a young, teen girl. Add that the song was French. Bon! Tres bon!
9. Rock and Roll Heaven, The Righteous Brothers
“Helluva” band in said rock-n-roll heaven. My parents would not have been happy. But these guys sang with such great passion.
10. Takin’ Care of Business, Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Driving to youth camp, windows down. Fun to sing and easy to dance to. Which I was not allowed to do. Haha.
11. Billy, Don’t be a Hero, Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
Two words: Bill Roby. I was fourteen and crushing on the class president like crazy (he wore size 13 shoes, mine were size 6 and only went to his instep…I know this for we compared them) and a song with his name? Come on! Doesn’t matter how lightweight it may have been, it HAS to make my list.
12. Rock and Roll Baby, The Stylistics
Such a Stylistics fan! I wanted to have one (a rock-n-roll baby) and I got him: Rocky!
13. Then Came You, Dionne Warwick and the Spinners
I really loved early 70s soul music, or rhythm and blues. Yet Dionne was a classy pop singer. The mix makes this song easy and fun to sing along. Happy day.
14. Good-bye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John
Debating the meaning of lyrics ws a fun thing in the 70s. I am not at all sure what they meant, but you can’t plant me in your penthouse, doggone it! Don’t even try.
15. Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Harding Keys even performed this. They were the dancing-singing early 70s version of Glee Club. They wore white and chartreuse and were probably just opposite of Lynyrd Skynyrd. But this song is just so much fun to sing. I taught it to my kids blasting it on the very good and loud limo stereo in the early 90s. I am now singing it with my grandkids. Because it is a song that gets better with age.
16. Honey Honey, Abba
The lyrics make me blush now, sure. But then, it was just fun. “I feel like I wanna sing when you do your thing…”
17. Angie Baby, Helen Reddy
Oh, how mysterious.
18. Bennie and the Jets, Elton John
Elton was just prolific! I remember the girls locker room after PE, all of us sining away getting ready for the next class.
19. A Love Song, Anne Murray
My dad actually introduced me to Anne Murray, and she, like Karen Carpenter before her, sang in my range. One of the greatest voices ever.
20. Please Come to Boston, Dave Loggins
Passionate pleading. Please-please-please come here! This minute!!!
21. I Love, Tom T. Hall
I wasn’t really able to admit to liking anything country at that time (how uncool it might seem), but this song crossed over, so it was sort of OK. I love it way more today than then, because now I have experienced some life and he is really right about all the things there are to love. And I love country. So, there.
22. Come Monday, Jimmy Buffet
Spring. Slight breeze…I recall an outdoor art class painting project and this song.
23. Cat’s in the Cradle, Harry Chapin
The singer-songwriter, thought-provoker-type was waning to a degree (following the folk songs that had shaped social thought in the late 60s), but this one was too powerful to ignore.
24. The Streak, Ray Stevens
People just got naked and ran through public places and events. Scandulous! Ray Stevens gave us an historical and humorous song to remember it by.
25. Until You Come back to Me (that’s what I’m gonna do), Aretha Franklin
Aretha! Come on – “Though you don’t call me anymore, I sit and wait in vain…” because every 14-year-old girl was waiting the THE call! :)
26. Midnight at the Oasis, Maria Muldaur
I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded a little naughty. But you know, Cactus is our friend. {???}
There. I have tempered all I can possibly temper. And if you count accurately, there may or may not be 29 (30?) songs in actuality…
OH, WAIT!!! I just realized I failed to includeSundown by Gordon Lightfoot // Rock Me Gently, Andy Kim // The Air that I Breathe by The Hollies // or The Night Chicago Died, Paper Lace (which my own kids love). Oh, forget it. 1974 was just an incredible year for music that moved me.
Dang it! How can I not add “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song,” Jim Croce? And I was not allowed to like Mac Davis’ “One #### of a Woman,” but I actually sort of did/do. :)
Notably: at least 4 songs from my Telephone-Songs Playlist were from 1974, which may or may not have been a telephone high-usage year for me.
Twenty-nine reasons I am glad Ryan was born (29 years ago yesterday).
The list could go on, but suffice it to say, we love you, Ryan Faaland. We can scarcely recall a life before you, so well-fitted you have become to us. You were a dream, a longing in Dessa’s heart and I am pretty sure you fulfilled her wish list except that you were even more wildly handsome and athletic than she was expecting and I love that that fact sort of upset her {very ordered} fruit basket. God sees even the deep-secret lists we make, Dessa. :)
So, while God created you for her, He knew you’d be getting us all and He fashioned you to be a man we’d all fall for. So – here is the short list, twenty-nine reasons I am glad you were born, or 29 things I love about you and there is one for each of your years so far…
29. Because *poof! Two years ago this very week you appeared in Tredessa’s world and all sorts of lights in her turned on high, energy-sucking, power-zapping, beaming-brightly radiance and it was good to see something besides work and ministry get her blood rushing. :)
28. And then *boom! Eight months later you bravely married her and became one of us officially. That takes courage, my boy. And you are brave.
27. And you are brave-hearted. You are really living a life of your own courageous choices. People might have seen the oldest of 4 blond-headed brothers bounding down the Florida beaches, boyishly tormenting his brothers, or jumping to hit an overhead sign and thought, “Oh boy, there goes trouble.” But they’d have been so wrong, so-so-so wrong. They might have missed the lion-hearted young man who’d answer the call of his Father, etched into his being before he was born. And they might not have understood all it would mean to answer that call, to pursue that depth of righteousness. You are brave-hearted.
26. You are humble. I like that when you feel you aren’t an obvious choice to be entrusted with a “position” or God-type-appointment, you humbly receive it, thankful for the opportunity to serve in the Kingdom, and do it with your whole heart.
So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. 1 Peter 5.6 NLT
25. You are whole-hearted and I think everyone knows how much I value this trait in life. Being wholehearted is so well portrayed through the life of Hezekiah who so threw himself into obedience and pleasing the Lord, God was pleased to grant him great success
Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before or after his time. He remained faithful to the Lord in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the Lord had given Moses. So the Lord was with him, and Hezekiah was successful in everything he did. 2 Kings 18.5-7a NLT
24. I love that you love Tredessa. You have no idea what proof this is of your emotional and intellectual intelligence. She is a world-changing tiger and we knew the man who had the confidence to marry her was going to be strong in spirit, ferocious in heart and the smartest man alive. So, there you go!
23. I love that you unsettle Tredessa a little, too. Because that girl can handle anything to the moon and back and really should become our first woman president, for goodness’s sake, but you have a way of de-fusing her in just small, sweet ways that keeps her on her toes and she loves the mystery of that. No matter what she tells you! Keep it up, Ryan!
Last year’s birthday “card” for Ryan…holds true!
22. So glad you were born because of my first-ever memory of you. I was in the front of a hotel meeting room speaking at a press conference. It was nerve-wracking, but this whole line-up of you twenty-something guys had come in to pray us through it. And even though now I know many of the other guys, you were the one who stood out to me, because the sun was shining through the window and hitting your blond head in halo-like radiance and you stood there are muscly- and strong with your arms folded decidedly across your chest and I could have sworn the leader of the angel-armies had swooped in with his troops and it brought such peace and I knew I was safe.
21. And I love that your first memory of me wasn’t even at that press conference (I suppose because you were praying), but a few months later at Heaven Fest where you claim I almost ran over over you with a golf cart, but that I smiled and was so apologetic. And you thought I was nice. Or crazed. One of those, which was it?
20. And I am glad that you finally let me know that I wasn’t even the one driving, but that I was still apologetic and concerned. Thanks for knowing I wasn’t trying to kill you or take my rights on the road. I really appreciate that.
19. The fact that you are pretty ornery actually does make me thankful for you and glad you were born. As long as you are being ornery with some one else. Not me!
18. After almost every family dinner, you just head into the kitchen and make us all coffee. You are a prince among men.
17. Right away, you loved my grandbebes. You became their uncle. You look for ways to know them and relate to them and speak into their lives. You treat them respectfully and with care. PLUS they just think you are so much fun!
16. I am glad you were born because you make us healthier. Your fresh-fruit love has changed every family dinner since you came along. I never want you to miss Florida so much you’ll leave here, so I promise to keep the pineapple coming. And the strawberries. And the kiwi and mangoes and oranges. And whatever else it takes.
15. You not only speak well of everyone, you actually think well of them, too. And that is a rare gift and I am thankful to be on the receiving end of that, mother-in-law or not.
14. You are such a good big brother in the fam, now, too. Especially with Stormie and the shepherd. Your watchful care and protectiveness about Stormie’s life (even to taking care of her giant dog so she can have one) is so sweet. You (like Tristan and DP before you) have set such a high bar on the quality of man who dares enter her life, that this momma’s heart is satisfied it will go well with her. You have added to this family in love and in care.
13. My love affair with salt notwithstanding, you like my cooking. I like that you like my cooking and always let me know.
12. I like that you want me to teach you certain dishes or things I do in the kitchen. How flattering! :)
11. I praise God for your life because it is full of life and hope and promise and you dream dreams that you want to fulfill because you want to bring Him glory and I am excited I will get to see these things happen.
10. You are so in tune to spiritual things and discernment and righteousness. I love that you never try to generate that but you don’t dismiss it, either. You can read things that are right on or “off” in the spiritual realm. So wise.
9. And you call it like you see it. I have never seen harshness nor judgementalness in you about it, but you are bold to say what you see, no pretense. You’re direct.
8. I love seeing you laugh with everything you have and your eyes squinting up when you throw your head back in complete joy. You’re such a joyful person.
7. You are such a worshiper. I love how you love musical worship and just flat-out worship your life out before the Lord.
6. I love that when I find some amazing worship, soaking-in-the-Presence music and want to share it with you, it turns out you already know it and had told me about it. You are amassing quite a collection.
5. I peeked into your workout room and saw prayer books beside the weights (even though you also have a prayer room!). You’re a Nehemiah – a man of prayer and a man of action.
4. You honor us. I know when I walk into a room and see you, I have an ally. And please always remember, you do, too.
3. In your young-heart-in-the-Lord, you are such an example of the believer, for the believers. You just love Jesus completely and all the way.
2. I am thankful for your life because you have seen the worst of mine and you have pressed in anyway.
And finally
1. I know you pray for me. And I know you have prayed for me when no one saw or knew the depth of the need for it. And I know you jumped in headlong and called out my name to the Father when if you had not…?…and He heard you and He is answering.
Thank-you, Ryan for being not only a son-in-law, but family-in Christ and one in heart. Thank-you for being family-in-Rhoades, too, however messy that is sometimes and for protecting and championing the unity of this big, crazy group of us. You were born to be one of us and there a million reasons I am glad for that. But these are the 29 I share on the occasion of your 29th birthday.
I don’t know if they still do this in school or not, but they should. And in case they don’t, I have decided I am going to do it the next time all the grandbebes are here together. This is an experience I consider to be essential to life.
Mrs. Devin, the tiny, blond woman who taught our 1st grade class in her sleek sheaths and slingback shoes (I found her fashion very Jackie-O, even though Jackie had not added the “O” yet, at that time) gathered our class in a big circle.
We were Iowa kids, yes, but we didn’t live on farms. We were “city kids” in Iowa, and despite the infamous Iowa State Fair butter sculptures – we lived in Des Moines and used Imperial Margarine, of course! :) I hadn’t really had real butter, that I recall, except at my cousin’s house in Missouri a time or two. Other than that, our typical mid-American diet, even there in Iowa, was about using margarine, or oleo, as it was commonly called then.
But Mrs. Devin was about to change my world forever as she gathered us around her chair that day. She was going to teach us about rich, sweet butter. And how it came from cream, which came from cow’s milk. Now being the daughter of a milkman (Anderson-Erikson Dairy), you’d think perhaps I’d have thought of this. But I hadn’t.
We watched, wide-eyed, as Mrs. Devin poured the thick cream into a mason jar, added a dash of salt and tightened the lid. Then we passed that jar around and we each got to shake it a certain number of times. I am not sure what that number was, 20? 25? Then we’d pass it to the next person, all of us chanting the count, watching the jar to see if butter would magically appear.
And suddenly, at some point, after we’d each had 2 or 3 turns at shaking it up, it was ready. It happened. It actually became butter and this is when the splendor and love of butter descended into my very soul like an Apollo spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. Yes – with that much 1960s force!
Mrs Devin opened a sleeve of saltines, the really good saltines. And she spread some of our very fresh, barely yellow butter on the little squares. She placed three on a napkin for each of us and we began tasting the fruit of our labors and oh.my.great.goodness! It was so delicious. It was amazing. It was beyond wonderful. I was hooked.
I went home raving about it to my mom, who told me, having bought into mad-men marketing, that margarine was way healthier and had less calories and wasn’t as “rich” (the term being used in a rich-is-bad-for-you way) and all that other ridiculous nonsense the mad-trans-fatty-hydrogenated-evil-people were pushing back then to get people to buy plasticized-toast-spread. I wanted butter, real butter. I had touched the divine! To no avail.
Though my mom wasn’t about to buy me cream for butter-making, I wasn’t dissuaded. I even tried making it with milk. I shook and shook and shook a jar of milk to no avail. *sniff
But the taste of that savory treat on a beautiful 1st grade afternoon in Des Moines, Iowa has lingered on my tastebuds, lo, these many (many) years…never forgotten.
I don’t really believe in margarine at all now. I certainly don’t believe in oleo. But I believe in butter. I love butter. I love that Julia loved it and Paula Deen, too, though she seems to be tempering herself now. But I love it. I simply do. And it is my mission to share it with my little band of bebes, so they will love it, too.
And now, a word about butter from Julie-Julia. You watch this while I go make some toast and spread you-know-what on it:
There is this driven, heavy snow naturally Christmas-flocking the trees and bushes and tapping on our window panes. Which would be ever-so-perfect if Christmas weren’t, oh, you know – 291 days away. *ahem
This was out my window and out my door about an hour ago:
Our Amelie-Belle-is-turning-three celebration has been postponed and almost any organization or business that can has cancelled everything. Back to the 50s on Monday. Until then, snowed in. :)
Kirk Franklin’s trademark cool is stamped into the production of this very vulnerable and open admission of sorrow and pain for, yes, even a believer and Christ-follower. It is the kind of openness we don’t really allow each other, but have to admit we have indulged in privately before God. Sometimes we are just “all churched out.” Or “good-works-ed out,” or “all ministry-ed out,” or whatever else we have given ourselves to that, in spite of maybe being a really good cause, or even something that was originally being done “for the Lord,” for His glory – became an idol or something that by its very girth and volume in our lives just separated us from our First lLove.
Then comes the song in the night, the song of sorrow. It is a melody stripped of impressive words or simple, singable congregational hooks. But it is the wrenching, the language of pain, real, authentic and not easily revealed.
This is one of those songs, in, actually, a beautiful melody, deep and soulful. When there is nothing left in you to even bring to the King, yet you know His Presence is the only place left safe to dwell – well, you want to go there. Stumbling, wounded, crippled from battle, tired from the fight, you summon all courage to get where you need to be…
Tamela communicates it well. You feel the fatigue, the “why?,” the “what now?” in the beginning of the song. Resolve begins to build {is that hope, I feel?} Finally, that last surge of strength for all that really ever mattered anyway ~ we know where to go, where to be – we just have to get to the King. Alone at the throne, gazing on His glory!
Wow!
Whitney Houston – I Look to You
As I lay me down,
Heaven hear me now.
I’m lost without a cause
After giving it my all.
Winter storms have come
And darkened my sun.
After all that I’ve been through
Who on earth can I turn to?
I look to you. I look to you.
After all my strength is gone,
In you I can be strong
I look to you. I look to you.
And when melodies are gone,
In you I hear a song.
I look to you.
This song is the title track from Whitney’s final studio album released in 2009, and it has become my favorite Whitney Houston song ever.
It is a heart’s cry, a prayer, an understanding of all that has been lost, a revelation of all that remains and a resignation that when all our hope or melodies are gone, we can run back to the waiting One who will meet us on the road with arms open wide.
Reminds me of a quote I first heard 30 some years ago: When we come to the place where Christ is all we have, then we know, He is all we need.
About to lose my breathe,
There’s no more fighting left,
Sinking to rise no more,
Searching for that open door.
And every road that I’ve taken
Lead to my regret.
And I don’t know if I’m going to make it.
Nothing to do but lift my head
“After all my strength is gone…I look to You.”
God is probably saying, “Finally!” :)
NOTE TO SELF: Don’t be afraid to sing in the night. Psalm 77
