If your heart has lost its music and you can no longer sing brave songs, open a hymnal today. You’ll find sturdy, hope-filled words to encourage you.
I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and let me read you this unusual email.
It’s from an 80-year-old woman who loves Jesus, and her words touched me so much, I thought I’d share them with you. Eloise writes; she says, “I am a musician, a piano teacher still, although only part time. I grew up learning classical music and playing hymns which I loved. By the time I graduated high school, I knew my childhood hymnal by heart. Name a hymn and I could tell you the page number and what key it was in. Decades ago when I was a young mother, I sang all the time around the house. As I did housework, I sang hymns. I rocked my babies ([all] four of them eventually) and sang [all] sorts of hymns to them. I knew dozens of hymns by heart. What a treasure! But gradually… I forgot to sing.”
Eloise goes on to say why. She says, “First, I suffered a crushing divorce (many hymns helped me then, but I [did not] feel much like singing them). Then I had to work outside the home to support myself and my children. The years were tired and weary. But then, recently, I read your precious book, ‘Songs of Suffering.’ It revived in me the desire to sing. For the last few years, instead of making a new year’s resolution, soon forgotten, I chose just one word to be a theme for the year. [And] One year it was ‘joy.’ Another, was ‘rest.’ [But] For 2023, [I chose the word] ‘sing.’ I have begun to sing again. Now, [I’m] not a great singer, but because of my musical training I can sing on tune. I sing in the car. I sing mostly in the kitchen, [and all] throughout the house. Thank you [Joni, for reminding me that there are still songs to sing]!”
Friend, you can see why this email from Eloise touched my heart, but then, at the close of her message, this 80-year-old woman gave me a gift. She shared an obscure hymn that, for her, is a favorite. Now, I don’t know the tune, but just listen to these words – especially if your years have felt tired and weary. The hymn is called “The Everlasting Arms” and here are the stanzas.
Art thou sunk in depths of sorrow
Where no arms can reach so low?
There is One whose arms almighty
Reach beyond [the] deepest woe.
God the Eternal is thy refuge,
Let it still thy wild alarms;
Underneath thy deepest sorrow,
Are the Everlasting Arms.
Underneath us, O how easy!
We have not to mount on high,
But to sink into His fullness,
And in trustful weakness lie.
And we find our humbling failures
Save us from the strength that harms;
We may fail, but underneath us
Are the Everlasting Arms.
Arms of Jesus! fold me closer
To Thy strong and loving breast,
Till my spirit on Thy bosom
Finds its everlasting rest;
And when time’s last sands are sinking,
Shield my heart from all alarms.
Softly whispering, “Underneath thee
Are the Everlasting Arms.”
Wow. What beautiful words to such a hope-filled hymn. We don’t have to rise up to God – all we need to do is sink into the arms underneath us, right? And I pray that Eloise’s story has blessed you today, especially if, like her, your heart has lost its music and you can no longer sing brave songs. If that’s you, open a hymnal today, and you’ll find sturdy, hope-filled words like the ones I just shared. They come to you today from the heart of Eloise, who has found her song after so many weary and tired years. Thank you, Eloise, from all of us at Joni and Friends, and thanks for your good word about my book, Songs of Suffering.
© Joni and Friends