A new song

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The music blared from the store’s speakers, determined to get us shoppers in the Christmas spirit. Kids whined and wailed from the prisons of their parents’ carts, determined to get the toys they wanted. My cart itself was determined to veer left, no matter how hard I tried to push it to the right. My atrophied leg was determined to keep me in pain with each step. My face mask was determined to keep me sweating and winded. 

It was December 2020, and I had left my husband, who was working from home, and my daughter, who was doing virtual learning from our home as well, to do some Christmas shopping. I was determined to buy just the right gifts to help us all forget what we had been through the past year:  all that people across the world were suffering due to the Covid virus and all that entailed, plus my diagnosis of muscle atrophy and the arduous journey of recovery.

I knew we were blessed to be well, to have work and school – however frustrating and inefficient it might have been. And yet – that song! It was supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. And as one who loves Christmas, I actually felt guilty that it didn’t feel like the most wonderful time of the year. Nothing felt right. 

Fast forward to spring 2022, and although vaccines are available and many people now feel more comfortable unmasking in public, this trial has been of a much longer duration than we thought. If you would have told me that a virus would come in our day and time and wreak this much havoc and take so many lives, I wouldn’t have believed you.

If you’d have told me that at a healthy and active 42, I’d be suddenly struck down with muscle atrophy in my left leg, that I would spend years working to build the muscles back up just to be able to walk again, I wouldn’t have given you a second thought. That just doesn’t happen, right? 

But it does. And it did. And here we are. We may be able to relate with the writer of Psalm 40:1-3 in our despair. But let’s see where we can also relate in our hope.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.

There are three things we can learn from these verses. First, waiting patiently for the Lord doesn’t mean waiting silently. I have always thought it did. When we tell our children to be patient, we usually mean that they should be quiet and trust us to give them what is best for them. So this is how I’ve often related to God when I’m trying to wait patiently. 

But this Psalm’s author, David, says that he waited patiently for the Lord, and what happened? God heard his cry. So David must have been crying while waiting patiently. 

My thought? It’s okay to shed some tears in the waiting. God sees those tears, and He hears those cries. And – eventually – He does something about them. In His timing (not ours), He lifts us out of our pits of despair and places us on firm ground. 

Which is my second takeaway:  God will come for us. He often leaves us in these uncomfortable, even painful, places for much longer than we would prefer to stay. But He does hear our cries, and He does respond by lifting us out, one way or another.

And once we are out? The third little treasure I took from these verses is that God then puts a new song in our mouths. I’m thinking that after these hard years, quite a few of us are needing a new song to sing. What will your song be? What about mine? I don’t really know, but I love the idea that our lives will once again sing, and not only that, but sing a new song. 

We may not know exactly what God has been doing in us in the midst of our trials, but we can be sure that He will give us a new song to sing, and that song will be a hymn of praise to our God. It will cause others to see and fear God and to put their trust in Him. 

I’m not sure what my new song will be. My song now, though, is of the sustaining grace that brought me through, that continues to bring me through my current challenges and heartaches. 

We will sing again, Fellow Travelers. We may be weary, but our song is not over. In our despair, He is working on a new song for us to sing.