A few days ago my daughter asked me to sing these words to her in bed. It struck me more deeply than it ever had just how powerfully lyrics can capture both the story of life as it is and life as we wish it were.

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s ‘all as it should be’
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I’ll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Music isn’t really my thing. Jess makes fun of me because of the sheer volume of lyrics that I don’t know. It really is shocking. I just don’t connect with music. But in singing this song to India I was struck by the strangeness of how this song so captures the messiness and brokenness of life as it is and yet also makes an attempt to speak a new reality into existence. Or rather, the song itself isn’t attempting to speak a new reality into existence but is trying to capture a new reality that God is able to speak into existence. That’s what God does, he speaks and things that did not exists begin. When Jesus spoke things happened, reality changed, existence was different. That’s just what God does, it’s who he is. It’s why Christians speak of new birth, its why they cling to the symbolism of baptism, its why they speak of resurrection–because they celebrate the miraculous emergence of new things.

Back to the song…In the midst of cancer, in the midst of divorce, in the midst of whatever darkness that happens to be closing in on us, are we really able to say “blessed be your name”? Is it even appropriate to say that in those moments?! My quick answer would be a resounding “no!” Of course it’s not appropriate to say “thank you Jesus that I just lost my child”. It’s appropriate to scream at God, to be angry, and to be outraged. So often we feel forced to move into a place of happiness in the midst of pain or to act as if everything is better.

Here’s what I think (at least what I’m thinking now). I think that the invitation of this song is not to artificially say “thank you Jesus” in the midst of our dark places. I think the refrain “blessed be your name” invites is to place our hope in the only place we know that can handle our brokenness. It invites us to not mask our grief but to allow our grief to be carried by God who has experienced the death of a child, extreme physical pain, social rejection, and divorce. Claiming the lyrics to this song is to own the brokenness of life as it is now while also placing hope in the only source of hope beyond life as it is–it is to live in the tension of life as it is and life as we wish it were–the exciting part, though, is that in Jesus life as I wish it were is actually a possible reality…and that’s something that brings hope.

Not many songs speak to my heart. Not many lyrics actually stick in my brain. This song did both. Thank you India Jayne.