We Are The City Harmonic ናሙና

"Oh, What Love"

At fourteen years old, as two lifetimes of pain took their toll on each other, my family was divided as my parents divorced. I have two younger brothers, and I vividly remember being called into my parents’ bedroom one night with my brothers, rubbing our eyes from our sleep after a hard day of arguing, while they broke the news to us. Our house was rarely peaceful to begin with, but we struggled through it, like most families in our situation. It wasn’t easy. 

Our parents loved us, of course, but for them, the situation was dark and desperate.  Soon, we brothers lived in separate homes, visiting together some of the time.  As the family broke apart, it left me painfully aware of how hard it can be to truly love. 

At eighteen years old, I sat at my mother’s piano one night after reading through Zephaniah 3:17.  It’s an incredible passage of Scripture speaking of God’s devotion to us. 

This God, who saves us, quiets us with His love, and rejoices over us with singing. It was exactly what I needed to hear. This is our Father. This is love. And this same God became one of us, inviting us through His Son to participate in His way of life, His way of love, and to live out the reality of His love every day of our lives. 

Fully man and fully God
A Great High Priest upon a throne of Grace
and in this priesthood I am one
By grace restored to bow before you now

For on that cross one final cry
You traded purity for all my shame
The Son of God for man to die
And even then, I know you knew my name

Jesus, Oh What Love.

He calls us—the Church—His Bride. And what can separate us from His love? Nothing. No mountain or valley is too great for Christ to not seek and find us.  No struggle too difficult for Christ to abandon us or to give up hope.  We can speak in beautiful prose of the things God has done, but the incredible thing, above all else, is that He has done it all out of an incredible, sacrificial love.  There’s so much that we could say about Him, and yet, my prayer that day came down to this: oh, what love.

-Elias Dummer, The City Harmonic