While typing yesterday’s post, a song that has touched my life in so many ways kept running through my mind. I remember the first time I heard it. Let me recount that memory for you as I share some thoughts penned in my 2013 Journal. My mother had just come to our house to stay after four weeks in the hospital due to cancer. Her temporal life ended in our back bedroom on January 23, 2014.
It was January 1, and the first passage I read a minute or two after midnight to begin the new year was Lamentations 3. The Lord spoke to my heart as fresh as the first time I had ever read this familiar passage, This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness (3:21-23). I sat on the edge of the bed with Denise having just left Mom in her weak condition and having just written about my conversation with Mom in my 2012 Journal which was my final entry for the year. I read this passage, and then Denise and I prayed together before catching a few hours of sleep.
January 1, 2013
Thank You, Lord, for rest through the night. The opportunity to sleep in a bit and serve Mom around 3 a.m. was also a blessing. One of the first songs I heard this morning as I listened to Pandora was Word of God Speak. As I listened to these lyrics, my heart yearned for this to be true this year. How often we want to talk, to say something. The first stanza of this song is so simple, yet so profound. How really okay it is to be at a loss for words in the presence of my God. What would it be like to just concentrate, meditate on Him; to hear Him pour His Word down on my heart like rain? How often I must have those moments this year. To be still and know that my Heavenly Father is in this place, wherever that place is. Even as I type this, I am listening to these words. I don’t need to be heard. I need to hear what God says. Lord, speak to me; I need to hear from You. Interesting that it has been raining through the night into this morning.
I ended my January 1 entry with the lyrics of this song and the following, “It is the Word of God and music that stirs my heart, that I need this year as I face each day, each joy, each trial, each decision, and each tomorrow as we move closer to being Home.”
Psalm 46:10-11 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
Word of God speak
Would You pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your majesty
To be still and know
That You’re in this place
Please let me stay and rest
In Your holiness
Word of God speak
From A Pastor's Heart 