Blessed Be Your Name- {Day 1}

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

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

We sang this song this past Sunday. I was physically standing in Pennsylvania surrounded by a sea of people in a church I call home. I close my eyes and I am thousands of miles and several years away.

Just like that, I am singing the same song, alone with my husband in our car. We sit outside Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland WA. It is 2006.

We brought this CD with us. We listen before we go in. Another ultrasound appointment. We are pros at them. Though I suppose no one ever becomes a pro at learning there is no longer a heartbeat.

“Can we listen to this when we come back out? No matter what?”

It was a “no matter what” result.

Tears streaming. “Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering.” Sobs shaking our bodies. “Though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be your name.”

I don’t know how it is possible to not believe the words I was singing (because I didn’t, they were the last things I wanted to be saying) and at the same time in the depths of my soul know they are true. But I wasn’t singing them out of what I was feeling. I was singing them from a secret source that had walked me through this journey over and over and it’s name was Truth.

“When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Darkness surrounding us. Again. Offering worship, so unnatural. Unnatural, but raw and real. Offering worship because I would be swallowed up by the grief if I didn’t. Grasping for something, for someone, who could stop my world from spinning.

“My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name.”

A choice. A choice to say what is true. A choice that brings the most desperate tears and transforms them to the sweetest. Sorrow and joy mingling as the flow down my cheek, mixing in with Rob’s.

In a parking garage, cut off from the world. Our hearts choosing to say blessed be the name of the Lord. And grace accepts the invitation and enters in.

Friends have often commented “I don’t know how you sustained such loss. I could not have done that.” I have often wondered how to respond, for I too look at the culmination of our losses and think “I couldn’t handle that”. It was only a few months ago I read this quote that named so well my experience:

 “It often happens that those whose loss is greatest receive the greatest share of grace, mercy, and peace. This does not mean that they never cry, of course. But they do not collapse. Those who only watch and pray and try to put themselves in the place of the bereaved find it almost unendurable. Sometimes they weep uncontrollably, for their imaginations never include the grace.” Elisabeth Elliot

(A woman who has become a dear friend through this blogging world recently wrote a series entitled The Testimony of a Young Widow. She lost her husband to cancer when they were in their mid twenties. It was there that I found the quote and would encourage you to read her posts here.)

Our imaginations, our playing out the scenario, never include the grace. But our realities do.

I come back to Sunday. The song is ending. My four minute moment concludes. I stop singing, reminded of grace that shows up when we are beyond ourselves. Knowing that I can never sing these words without feeling their full power.

The redemptive power that lands on one who has walked through desert and still blesses his name. The restorative power of a name. The grace inviting, surrender seeking words that usher in the kingdom of God. Yes, blessed be His Name. no matter what may come.

I’m participating with The Nester in 31 Days of Noticing the Moment. This is Day 1.

You can find all 31 Dayers here. There are so many wonderful topics.

If you miss any days in the series, you can find introductory and each days post here.

Lyrics by Matt and Beth Redmond, c 2002

Linking with Weekend Brew