When the Darkness Closes…

 

“Sissy’s cryin’,” our two-year old son told me the other morning as I walked into his room to wake him up. “Sissy’s cryin’!”

I believed him, but was a little surprised since Mommy and I had heard nothing about it. It’s not uncommon for Sissy to have trouble sleeping if the branches outside happen to scratch the windows or if she wakes up after having a bad dream. But her usual course of action is to head straight to our door, where she knocks (very persistently, I might add), until one of us stumbles groggily into the hallway to tuck her back in, listen to her dream, and pray with her.   But this time, we hadn’t heard a single knock!

I asked her about it casually at breakfast, and she beamed at me. “I woke up and it was really dark and I did feel a little scared,” she explained, “but then I sang the song we learned at church. You know, ‘When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say…’”

This brought a smile to my face and warmed my heart. At church, the choir has been working on Blessed Be Your Name, by Matt Redman. Here are a few of the lyrics:

 

Blessed Be Your Name

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s ‘all as it should be’
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

 

 

The last paragraph above is a direct quote from Job 1:21, which says, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”

When we face difficult moments in life and feel the darkness closing in around us, is our faith strong enough to remember that God is still just as good and as powerful as always, since He never changes, and to trust that He knows what is best?   A song such as this is easy to sing, but not always easy to put into practice. But these are words which we can hold onto through trying times.

I was so proud of my daughter that morning, and excited to see that the spiritual lessons we’re trying to teach her are “sinking in.” In our Family Bible Time we’ve been talking about how we can run to Jesus when we feel afraid and trust that He is powerful enough to help us through anything, and memorized Psalm 56:3, “When I am afraid, I will trust in You.”

How sweet it was to hear that in one of her difficult moments, she did just that. She remembered the words to that praise song, and ran to Jesus.

May each of us learn to do just this when the darkness closes in!