The Song in the Night Nursery

In 2019, a NICU nurse named Mary Beth Harrell at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville started an unusual practice. Each evening during her shift, she would softly sing hymns over the premature infants in her care. The babies couldn't understand the words. They couldn't even open their eyes yet. But something remarkable happened — their heart rates steadied, their oxygen levels improved, and their tiny fists unclenched.

One mother, watching through the glass, broke down in tears. "I can't hold her," she said. "I can't fix her lungs. I can't make her stronger. But someone is singing over my daughter."

That image — a strong, capable caretaker bending low to sing over someone fragile and unaware — is exactly what the prophet Zephaniah describes. "The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing."

Notice the stunning reversal here. We expect to sing to God. But Zephaniah says the Almighty sings over us. The Creator of galaxies and ocean currents leans close — not with judgment, not with a lecture — but with a song. His love doesn't demand that we first get stronger or open our eyes wider. It meets us in the incubator of our weakness, steadies what is erratic in us, and unclenches what fear has tightened. The Most High sings, and we are quieted.