when he sings...

Saturday, April 14, 2012

i sit in the dark and listen to his song, the one sung out in the night.

it's the same song, the same longing, the same tune that fills the quiet and has been for the last month or so.


we tried to find him the other morning, the five of us knelt around that rose bush out in front of our house.

we lifted rocks and winter debris and as pajama clad legs got all tangled in and around each other, he became quiet...


i worried that he had hidden himself beneath a rock and an errant footstep had maybe ended his song in a rather permanent way, but when we all became still, barely breathing, he croaked out a few tentative notes one by one until his song began to echo out into the space around us again.

when i first heard him, i didn't quite understand - surely the frost and the chill should keep his song silent. but it didn't. he sang strong and loud, night after night after night, under a moon full and under the blackest sky.

he sings me to sleep.


we still can't find him.

oh, we sit still on that step with only the smallest of toes wiggling in anticipation. we wait to see if maybe he'll make an appearance so we can clap and cheer and call for an encore.

but that isn't why he sings.

he doesn't sing for praise or recognition,

i'm sure he doesn't even realize that he has been heard by these human ears that can't comprehend.


he sings because he was made to sing.

and his song gives glory to his Creator.



do you find yourself in a season where the moon has hidden her face?

where even the stars appear to have been extinguished and the sky is void of light and heavy with dread?

it's easy to quiet in those moments.

to become still and silent

and hide away.


but that beautiful soul that He placed inside,

the one that He redeemed and made new,

the place where His Spirit dwells and is now His very own...


it was made to sing.


the blackest of nights catches each note and holds fast to that melody and it lifts each trembling song, the one broken with tears and it catches the ear of God.

and even i may never understand the song He has placed deep inside, the one that He longs for me to sing out to Him.

but it is a song meant to give Him praise and to bring Him glory in the middle of a dark world that doesn't know Him.


there is a little amphibian huddled beneath my front step, lost somewhere in the rocks and winter debris.

he sings each night and early in the morning a song with no purpose that i can see.

but he sings.


and his song that croaks loud and steady and calls out in the night,

it winds around this heart and lifts my eyes to Jesus.