Click to hear an audio recording of: “Why I Sing in the Dark” by Lisa-Jo, The Gypsy Mama
Sometimes a song drops into your soul.
And it’s as warm as the sun shining out of the chaos at midnight as a friend tic, tack, toe types beauty out of bedlam by the nightstand light as her nose drops below her keyboard and her hands never sleep.
It’s shared snicker bars at 2am and a bus load of people waiting to love you in the morning through the suffering you are about to experience. It’s the drip, drop echo of rain and the mother who sleeps awake ready to rescue her kids from the muddy floods. Again.
Take it to the bridge and the great wide divide between us and them that is hairline thin and wide as the ocean.
Hotel bathrooms with deep tubs that embrace and wash and repeat the day away to the strains of Skype calls from far away farms. It’s small boys that kiss and smooch and hug the computer screen you are separated by and mamas who hoot and holler at their fart jokes because they understand the language of love when spoken by toddlers.
There’s the rhythm of love that undergirds it all. The steady bass beat of the heart that keeps time when all around the rest of the melody might be lost in moldy, week old everything recycled by the hands of desperate dads.
Lean back your head and listen to the sky.
Vultures rock the crisp blue notes and the white, white clouds seem stark contrast to the black hollow that would eat the world if it could. But The Word has gone out and will never return void. The notes play on and over and above it all and it is the refrain of hope.
Hope.
A single note sounding in the neighborhood where music long since left along with the wealthy and the living.
But pastors pluck it out faithfully and volunteers gather and sing and their voices raise the roof with hot lunches and kids who line up to learn how to brush their teeth after they have re-learned what it feels like to be full.
We make music. We praise His name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine words and our harp paragraphs. And small feet lead the way. And small hands raise in happy chorus and answer stories about their lives and we listen in awe – mesmerized by their song.
Sometimes a song drops into your soul and musician or not you must sing it.
Delayed flights and lives and intersections with three boys you dream your kids will grow up to be are only the first soaring notes. When He writes you into the score, you must learn to sing. And He will make the harmony.
So I raise my trembling voice cracked with a salty week and gaze up away from my inadequate feet, and lean back into Him. This desperate-to-be-the-disciple-He-loved, girl from the land of in between, I will sing for Him.
Of sunshine that seeps into dark places and new days that can’t be lanced by poverty. Of the power of pen and paper and postage stamp. Of hearts forged anew and eyes that can see beyond their borders for maybe the first time.
I will sing till my throat is raw and the melody cracked and only one note remains.
Hope.
Hope.
And a crescendo of love.
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Now, these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corn 13:13.
{With thanks to Keely for the remarkable photos.}
Thank you, Lisa-Jo, for indulging my selfish request! I love hearing you read your posts! You have truly spoiled us again, so thank you. :) Cannot wait to meet you in person!
Hope….it rises from adversity. A theme that has been prevalent in my own life recently and one that was clearly demonstrated on your trip. I’ve been thinking of you all, praying for you. I know that the “re-entry” process can be difficult.
Beautiful!
Really cool to hear your read it. Good stuff. I especially connected to the teeth brushing part for whatever reason. Kelly
Oh, that I would remember today — every day — that my voice in my blog space is every bit as much a song of praise to Him, a testimony to how big and great He is as my real, live voice is while I’m signing His praise aloud. Thank you for this reminder.
Missing you! And by the way, I worked in the nursery with a lady yesterday who spoke just like you. I got the courage to ask and she was from South Africa. Have a blessed Monday!
Hope and Love… the most beautiful duet ever created :) lovely Lisa-Jo :)
“Of sunshine that seeps into dark places and new days that can’t be lanced by poverty.”
Caught me in the throat to here you speak these words.
“Of sunshine that seeps into dark places and new days that can’t be lanced by poverty.”
Caught me in the throat to hear you speak these words.
I got to hear your voice! I got to hear your voice! And it was so soothing and melodic…just beautiful! I bet your babies never tire of hearing you read to them.
Your words about having eyes that can see beyond their borders…YES! That’s what I want for me and my family…eyes that see beyond our driveways, our communities, and our country.
This blessed me like crazy today!
“Sometimes a song drops into your soul and musician or not you must sing it.”
Precious, truly! Yes, you must sing!
What a beautiful post! ” Of the power of pen and paper and postage stamp”–you have inspired me to be even more intentional about writing my sponsored child. These precious, precious lives–seeing the pictures from your trip, I can’t shake the images. But I want to give hope, and if writing a letter can help spread hope to one person, then I must do it!
I loved hearing you read; you have such a soothing voice. I’m sure your sons must delight at having Mommy read at bedtime!
It was lovely to hear your voice Lisa-Jo. The words are precious and hope is a precious commodity. Our hope is in Him, and I cannot imagine life – in any circumstances – without it.
P.S. Two letters winging their way to Albania and South Africa. Thank you for nudging me:-)
I loved hearing your reading/poem, Why I Sing In the Dark. It was so beautiful and so profound. I shared it with a dear friend who leads a ministry to African grandmothers who are left to care for their grandchildren because the parents have died from AIDS. I believe this will encourage her. Check out http://www.gogograndmothers.com/. I write my Compassion Child often and yes, pen and paper are great tools of ministry to others!
God bless you.