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

A Song of Strength

Becoming blind is one of the top three fears of many people in the world. I learned early on that being different could lead to isolation and sadness unless I took matters into my own hands. Making a better life was up to me. As I practiced applying makeup—or ironing clothes, cooking, or cleaning the house—I knew all of it was preparing me for the future.

Mastering each new task gave me confidence that I could do almost anything I set my mind to and that my drive to do so would help me thrive in a sighted world. But there is a problem with this sort of inner grit. At some point, it runs out.

The work of earning and maintaining your place in the world is a relentless, endless, exhausting pursuit that eventually drains you of all your strength. Then you falter and feel like a failure. You try to recover by gritting it out, and you fail again.

Nobody wants to be weak or thought of as weak. Yet we all face challenges and we all have weaknesses. 

Hannah is a beautiful example of meeting with God in vulnerability. She entered the tabernacle on her family’s annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but this time, in deep brokenness with many tears, she poured out her heart to the Lord (1 Sam. 1:10). She did not resign herself to her circumstances and just praise anyway. She brought her aching heart and passionately prayed about the thing that weighed her down the most: the fact that she was childless.

In her weakness, she went to the Lord and offered up her desire to the only One who could bring change.

Hannah didn’t pray for only a son. She also gave God the anxiety and bitterness that had been holding her prisoner. Hannah laid on the Lord her deepest longings, her deepest sadness, and her deepest darkness. She gave all that was in the recesses of her heart to the God who created her.

And now no walls stood between them. In the confessing, the lamenting, and the offering of Hannah’s prayer, we see God’s empowering begin.

The reason I struggle daily to live in God’s strength is that it means I have to be okay with being weak. Though you might think blindness is my greatest obstacle, my internal weaknesses are much more challenging. The great weakness for a driven “entertainer” like me is worrying about how I am perceived. Yet as I rest in my identity in Christ, I find true strength.

How does this play out in real life? It means I try to look at myself the way the Lord sees me—as His dearly loved daughter, the recipient of Christ’s finished work on the cross. 

If others think I’m weak, that’s fine. They’re right—I can’t do life on my own, and I’m becoming ever more confident in that fact. 

Reflection: What desires do you have that you need to give to the Lord? And where have you been relying on your strength instead of His? Ask Him today to give you a deep sense of His presence, and to teach you to trust Him with everything, even your deepest desires.

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