Psalm 40:3 He put a
new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
All of us have been slammed by
some life tragedy: death of a loved one, a life-threatening diagnosis, divorce,
betrayal, so forth and so on. For talented individuals, heartbreak can birth
wonderful melancholy songs. However, for
non-music writing folks, heartache can be a melody stealer. It is hard to sing a happy tune when our
lives are out of sync.
Within a very short period of
time I experienced all of those things above. Many days I didn’t want to get
out of bed. I dreaded facing the world, my children, my life, or the
possibility that one more devastating thing might happen. At one point, every
area of my life (family, work, friendships, and marriage) was in a state of
limbo. Candidly, some days I just did not
make it out of bed.
There were days that God
ministered to me in a deep soul-cleansing way. Other times, He sent friends to
my door to pick me up, literally. A
couple friends came to my house, convinced me to change out of my jammies, took
me to lunch, and kept me from spiraling.
(I don’t know how they stomached their food with all my incoherent,
snot-filled blubbering.) He forged connections with people who became my “Ms. Celie.”
They loved on me, encouraged me, and listened to my tear-soaked, anger-laden
mumblings and rumblings. God used all of the above to “scratch a song out of Shug
Avery’s head.” (To understand these references see The Color Purple. For real,
see it. This movie is a classic.)
Thankfully, He did not leave me
where I was during those dark times. In my deepest pit He still saw me and
reached down for me. Now, I am standing on firm and stable places. God gave me
a New Song! A song I never sang
before. I heard about God in certain ways,
but after all that, I can now sing
about Him as Healer, Comforter, and Lover of my soul. The great thing is that while this is my journey,
it is a common story. All of us have or
will have an “after all that”
experience. We are not at our final destination
because we are still alive. We have not
sung our last song. It is time to put
that old tired melody to bed. It is time
for a New Song.
