He's Always Been Faithful...

Sunday was Mother's Day. My first Mother's Day. Well, I believe last Mother's Day was really my first and I got a few cards and lots of "Happy Mother's Day"s last year. But this year I was an obvious mother. My beautiful daughter was in my arms looking perfect and daughterly. 

I sang a special in church. A few months ago, I was at Keisha Brown's house, vocal jamming. She played this song for me which I vaguely recognized, but which spoke deeply to me. It is by Sarah Groves and the link to hear it is here: http://chadandkeishastory.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/hes-always-been-faithful-to-me/

My favorite hymn has been- for at least all of my adult life, if not all of my life- Great Is Thy Faithfulness. It is the perfect hymn to describe one of my favorite attributes of God. Man is anything but faithful- even the best of us fails. But God is perfectly faithful to all of his promises and to all of his children. I belt out that hymn every time with my entire being full of joy; especially at the last verse:

"Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessing all mine with ten thousand beside!"

When I heard the Sarah Groves song, I felt the same passion of joy that I do with my favorite hymn. I asked Keisha if I could sing it in church sometime before I move. She picked Mother's Day. It was pretty perfect and fit well with the sermon, as well. One hitch: I found that I had a hard time not crying while singing the last verse.

I am not a professional singer. Well... I did get paid once, so I often joke that I am technically a professional; but I do not make a living with my voice. I'm happy with the talent God gave me and more than willing to use it for Him, but I'm no [insert your favorite artist here]. I've always made it through a song, though. I have never choked. Until Sunday.

My MO is usually to listen to a song once or twice right away and then hold off practicing until the day before the performance. Maybe two days before, if it's a hard song. I feel that I make the least mistakes when it is fresh in my mind. This I did- but when I practiced on Saturday, I broke down the first two times through on the last verse. I got it by the third time and had no trouble when I reviewed it Sunday morning at home. However, when going through it with Keisha before service, I broke down again. It was always at the same line. I got it the second time and prayed a lot before service, hoping I would be alright. I talked to myself a lot, saying that it was all fine and good for me to feel such emotion, but there might be some people that actually needed to hear those words, so I had better be audible. 

The time came. Keisha asked me if I was OK. I thought I was, so I said, "Yes." But once again, at that same line, I began to cry- the hardest yet! Tears ran down my face and I didn't recover on the next line or the next! Keisha picked up for me until the last line, which we sang together.

The thing is, I was not embarrassed. I'm still not. This song is beautiful and because of my tears, I got to express the reason behind them to each person at church and now to you. The line I kept crying over is:

"God has been faithful, He will be again."

We are moving to Texas soon, leaving the Pacific Northwest probably for good. We have loved it here and God showed us his faithfulness very powerfully in bringing us to a wonderful church so quickly. We knew no one when we moved here and now we have some wonderfully close and lifelong friends. It happened without effort from us and with almost no waiting on our part. As we move to Texas, our hope and prayer is that He will do it again.

And, as the song says, He will.

Need a tissue?