I’ve never been one of those people with a direct line to God’s voice. I spend most of the time begging him to speak in a without-a-doubt-God-is-speaking voice and waiting for it to happen.
It rarely does.
But this weekend, God spoke loud and clear through, of all things, a song in a hotel lobby. Mom, my brother, and I were checking in the evening before Aunt Lois‘s funeral, and one of my favorite songs was playing.
Matt Redmann’s Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.
I didn’t think much of it at the time. My mind was focused on conversations shared with Lois’s son and daughter. Their descriptions of last visits with their mother and how unexpected they felt her death to be since the doctor had pronounced her heart strong enough to make it to 100. Their stories of how their mother chose to use lessons learned through her losses to minister to hurting friends and family.
Their stories of her faith and faithfulness.
I didn’t think of the song from the hotel lobby again until the end of yesterday’s church service. A service spent rembering Aunt Lois, praying for her children and grandchildren, thinking about her two remaining siblings, Mom and Aunt Donna, wondering what it is like for them to be the last living children from a tightly knit group of eight. I was reaching for another tissue when the worship band played the chords of the last song in the service.
Can you guess what it was?
Yup. It was Blessed Be Your Name. I sorta sang along. But it was hard, what with the lump in my throat and wanting to plug my ears because God was speaking so loud it hurt enough to make me laugh and cry and laugh all at once. Until I ran out of tissues and wished I’d picked up the extra funeral home packets off the pew at the funeral, knowing such frugality would please Aunt Lois and her living siblings to no end. World without end. Amen and amen. While God spoke the life of Lois through the words of this song.
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
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 the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
