Songs in the Night. A Note from Jan. Jud's Journal Entry Forty-four.

“If I go to the depths YOU are there …” or if I get with it and do the dishes, finally, YOU are there.

Woke up this morning singing for no earthly reason. A not-so-fringe benefit of even a speck of faith.

Who strikes up the band while I sleep? Who whispers lyrics to do battle with the enemy of LIFE? Who tunes the choir and orchestra of the soul? My soul Yours.

Awoke to an old hymn rattling around A hymn Herman Smith reminded me of weeks ago on CaringBridge

HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION

“The soul that on Jesus still leans for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes: That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no, never, no never forsake!”

O, God, your mercies ARE new every morning. Last night, I didn’t lean … I collapsed But the NET held And YOU “You’ve got the WHOLE WORLD in your hands.” That’s some NET.

The NET wimps and warriors faithLESS and faithFULL those of us stuck in Saturday grasping one small seed of faith just a speck. but enough.

enough to wake me with a song. Not a praise song to YOU but a truth song to ME.

God you are good.

Grabbed the hymnal to check out ALL the verses of How Firm a Foundation, then glimpsed the spiritual on the opposite page, THERE IS A BALM IN GILEAD

Growing up as a Baptist (“babdiss” in the South) … I thought, as a little kid, we were singing about a BOMB in Gilead. We didn’t question much in those days. Should have done more. African-Americans first sang this song. Think they needed a balm to make whole their wounds?! Easy to confuse bombs and balms in those days. Still true. God have mercy all over this world this day.

“Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain, but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. There IS a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, there is a balm in Gilead to HEAL the sin-sick soul.”

 I never said anything to my Daddy, the preacher, about bombs or balms. Just went on singing. Sometimes that’s not all bad. Just go on singing ’til you catch the meaning from somebody close by

Some balm slipped through the Internet yesterday All the way from Holland where our Dominican daughter lives. Raquel lived with us for 3 years while she studied piano at Gordon. She pops up on CaringBridge often to encourage me.

Here she is with her daughter, Lilly. I see them as Comfort and Joy. Christmas gifts that last.

Yesterday, Martha tended my broken spirit with a poem. 

Don ‘t you love the different ways God shows up? John Leax, professor of English at Houghton College, was God’s voice to me this time. Jud and I loved this poem of his so much, we twice chose it as our Christmas card.

AT THE WINTER FEEDER

His feather flame doused dull by icy cold, the cardinal hunched into the rough, green feeder but ate no seed. Through binoculars I saw festered and useless his beak, broken at the root. Then two: one blazing, one gray, rode the swirling weather into my vision and lighted at his side. Unhurried, as if possessing the patience of God, they cracked sunflowers and fed him beak to wounded beak choice meats. Each morning and afternoon the winter long, that odd triumvirate, that trinity of need, returned and ate their sacrament of broken seed.   Thank you, Martha. Thank you, Herman, Raquel, and Lilly. Thank you, long line of blazing or gray creations of a loving God  for tender feeding of broken beaked ones like me.

Thank you, loving Father, for songs in the night joy in the morning most days

For Jesus, the balm in Gilead, who keeps tending the wounded Coming close singing into the dark night to me to you “That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no, NEVER, no never forsake.”

PRAISE to the GOD of last night and this day.