The Song in the Dark

When journalist Sarah Bessey's daughter was born premature at a hospital in Abbotsford, British Columbia, the NICU nurses told her something she never forgot. They said the babies who were held and sung to — even the smallest ones, even the ones too sedated to respond — healed faster. So Sarah sat beside that plastic isolette night after night, her hand resting on her daughter's back, and she sang. Hymns, lullabies, half-remembered folk songs. It didn't matter what. The tiny chest rose and fell, and the monitors steadied.

What strikes me about that image is who was doing the singing. Not the baby. The baby couldn't sing. The baby couldn't even open her eyes. She had done nothing to earn that music. She was simply loved, and the one who loved her was mighty enough to hold her and tender enough to sing.

Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that the Lord, the Almighty, is in our midst — not pacing the hallway, not watching from a distance, but right here, hand on our back. And He does something we rarely imagine God doing: He sings. He quiets us with His love. He exults over us with loud singing.

You don't have to earn that song. You don't even have to be awake for it. The God who saved you is already singing over you tonight.