Day 2 - Week 53 - Ephesians 5:19 "Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music to the Lord in your heart."

'Singing I go along life's road, praising the Lord, praising the Lord.  Singing I go along life's road, for Jesus has lifted my load."   Eliza E. Hewitt

The picture of Eliza doesn't quite look like a person that you would think wrote such joyous words, does it?  But you might need to know that Eliza spent most of her 69 (1851-1920) years as an invalid, suffering from serious spinal problems.  During those years she penned many hymns, among the best known are "Give Me Thy Heart, Says the Father Above," "When We All Get to Heaven," "Sunshine in My Soul," "Will there be any Stars in My Crown?" and "More About Jesus Would I Know."  So even though the picture we have of Eliza doesn't depict a stereotypical person of overflowing joy, the testimony she shares through the hymns she wrote tells us that she certainly did know and experience the joy that comes from a soul surrendered to the Holy Spirit of God.  The kind of joy that expresses itself no matter what the circumstances...stating "there is sunshine in my soul today, more glorious and bright", from a bed of misery; the kind of joy that looks beyond life's limitations to when "we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be!"  Yes - Eliza's hymns continue to testify that a soul filled with the Spirit sings no matter what!

Some years ago, I went to bed to the sound of a bird still singing.  I went to bed and thought about that bird, and about my life, and about the way I live.  Throughout the night, I would wake and think and by morning the words below had been put together in my mind...I still like to think about this poem.  I hope you can enjoy its words as well...

Night Song

Crawling in bed, I hear a bird singing.
Unusual, I think, a bird singing so lovely,
so clearly, in the dark night sky.
Doesn't it realize that the time for birds
to sing is in the bright light of day?
But this bird continues to sing - not
allowing the darkness to stifle it's song.
Because this bird's song cannot be contained.

And I think of the song inside of me -
the song that I only sing when conditions are right
- when light is shining and those around me are receptive.
The song, that when darkness surrounds me, I keep inside of me
- afraid to allow my song to cut through the blackness of the night.
And I resolve to sing like this bird, to be unusual in the darkness.
I wake in the morning, the bird is still singing.

Thinking about Eliza, and rethinking the night-singing bird, I realize that the words I put together really are saying, "Let His Spirit sing!"  No matter where, no matter when, no matter who is my audience, never restrict His joy from shouting out from my life.  It doesn't have to be in the form of an actual musical song...probably more times it will be in the form of joy when joy doesn't make sense.  Courage in the face of the enemy.  Peace in the middle of the storm. 

I think all of those behaviors come together in such a perfect harmony that God hears it as the most beautiful song coming from our hearts.  For we are blending our voices with His.