Singing in the Dark: Finding Hope in the Songs of ScriptureSýnishorn

A Song of Victory

In the early months of 2008, my mom was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer. We were all blindsided by the news. She would go through multiple rounds of potent chemotherapy with intense side effects. Then surgery. Then more chemo. And finally, radiation.

It was a dark, scary, rotten season. And I, the author of so many hopeful songs, felt my hope and peace ebbing away.

Enter Aunt Carol. Despite her own sadness at the situation, over the next few months, she began to teach us victory songs to carry us through the storm. She calls them “cheer songs” these days, though they aren’t light and fluffy like the word cheer connotes. They are subtly powerful choruses of praise, calling us toward hope in the midst of suffering and doubt.

What does it mean to sing of victory during life’s storms? We all find ourselves in darkness from time to time. In fact, I think there’s always a low-level storm brewing in our souls. Worry, unrest, and fear threaten our sanity and diminish our joy.

Whether it’s a global pandemic, unrest, or rising panic about what the future may hold, the world seems to have a knack for finding ways to throw new fears at us. 

So often we are paralyzed by these fears. We don’t move because we don’t know what God wants us to do. I’ve been delighted to learn that we actually do know what He wants us to do—or at least where to begin. And He’s been telling us for years. 

For the Israelites, He carefully laid out the ways His people were to live, and Jesus succinctly summarized them later: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.… Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37, 39).

Deborah, a judge of Israel in the days before they had a king, knew this. She loved God with all her heart, and she trusted and obeyed Him and sought the good of her people. Her trust was contagious. The military leader, Barak, caught on too. Though skittish and fearful at first, he followed Deborah’s example. They influenced ten thousand troops to follow suit in defending their fellow Israelites and trusting that God would give them the battle.

So even when we face the unknown, even when we are surrounded by uncertainty, even in the waiting, we have important things to do. We get to entrust our searching hearts to the Lord and to share them with one another. We love as we have been loved. And we continually practice resting our wearied souls in the arms of the only One who can fight our battles and carry us to victory.

Reflection: Ask God today how He might be calling you to rest, and where He might be calling you to act. Then ask for help doing that.