When Gray Gives Way

Yesterday a good friend defined my mood as melancholy. Just out of curiosity, I looked up the definition and the words "a sad, thoughtful state of mind" fit quite well with my spirit. My mind was full of my Mom's memory and the next day would have been her eighty-fourth birthday. 

Everything outside reflected my mood on the inside. My drive through the country to chapel choir practice was dulled by shades of gray that painted the landscape. What's usually beautifully was bleak. I anticipated a lifting of the gray inside me once rehearsal got underway, but my usual antidote of music was not successful.

At rehearsal, John Rutter's The Lord is My Shepherd presented the choir with some new challenges. I focused on confusing meter changes, unfamiliar rhythm patterns, and singing above third space C. Our director, Rob, promised if we listened to the recording of Rutter's anthem, we would experience the flow of the piece and not struggle with its' technical aspects quite so much.

So today I took Rob's advice which proved to be much more than what I thought I needed. In my melancholic fog yesterday I completely missed the lyrics; the scriptures of the Twenty-Third Psalm. I missed the shepherd's peace, the shepherd's presence and the shepherds's promise. Now as I let the music float over me, I freed myself from the rhythms and the notes. It was like the choir performing the choral work was doing the thinking for me and I was being carried by the message as I sang along.  

A message that has meant so much to me and to so many others who have experienced the valley of the shadow of death . . .

With much gratitude for my step-mother, twenty-seven years ago the Twenty-Third Psalm was the final words in my Dad's ears before he took his last breath.  And a few short months ago, a printing of this Psalm was given to all that attended my Mom's funeral. And now it was ministering to me on the anniversary of her birthday.

And yet, another gift completes the picture. Bright, clear, golden sun streamed through my bedroom window where I sat with the song and I was reminded that the Lord is always there to lead me. Even in the valleys of deathly shadows, he is there to bring me out of the gray into his comfort.

Thanks, Rob, for this song.

And thanks be to God.