Songs in the night

 The Lord, your God, is in your midst; … he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival. (Zephaniah 3:17-18a)

I’ve been singing more lately. Maybe, it’s because the darkness gathers so early … or because Christmas is near … or because I long for something I cannot give myself.

Yes, this, a lifetime of longing takes me to a chair by the window where I page through my hymnal, seeking songs my heart knows, like tonight … as a cold rain drizzles through the downspouts in the cold December darkness.

I ache to sing myself home … where the heart that I am … and the Heart who made me for himself … are one heart, one love, breathing in time, if only for a moment or two, for this … is heaven.

The longing grows stronger this time of year, or perhaps it is stronger at this time of life … when the heart finally wakes to the one thing it most needs.

Singing in the night, songs come one after another. Advent songs, Christmas songs, whispered in the dark silence of the house, my voice once strong, now a tremorous prayer for God’s great love to fill me whole, banishing every doubt and sorrow and setting my sluggish heart to flight.

Some songs I sing over and over again, night in and night out, knowing how deeply they touch me and awaken my heart to the Love who loves me.

The Spirit breathed those songs in the hearts of those so divinely privileged to make music of the soul. Through these songs, the same Spirit fans love’s flame within me, opening a door in my heart for which I have no key.

Love is the only key, the Love who loves me, the Love who sings to my soul even as I sing in the night.

We sing together, my Lord and I. We are one in the music of the night. One in love, one in Spirit, singing Love’s eternal song, my heart’s holy longing still, at rest.

No, it won’t last. Joy will slip away. The weight of the world will crush it from my heart. I will lose the melody in the midst of my moods, anxieties and contrariness. But Love’s holy song does not end or fade.

The One who sings with me in the night makes melody in every love and beauty that touches our senses to beguile our hearts. The Loving Mystery, whose face is our Lord Jesus Christ, everlastingly sings Love’s everlasting song, hoping we will hear … and sing … all the way home.

David L. Miller