Last weekend, a flash flood in central Texas took the lives of over 100 people, with many more still missing. Tucked in between the pictures of those who have died and articles about how the cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service may have impacted the warning system, I saw a video taken from inside a bus full of girls and counselors being evacuated from Camp Mystic, posted by Devon Paige.
In the video, the camera is focused on the devastation outside the bus windows – the brown water and fallen trees, the emergency vehicles and debris. As you watch the world from Devon’s perspective, you hear the sharp intakes of breath, the sighs. “Oh, my God,” some say. Others sniff. “I’m trying so hard not to cry,” one says.
And singing. The girls are singing. The first song you hear is the last verse of Pass it On:
I wish for you, my friend, this happiness that I’ve found.
You can depend on him, it matters not where you’re bound.
I’ll shout it from the mountaintops (Praise God!), I want the world to know.
The Lord of love has come to me; I want to pass it on.
Several generations of Christian kids have sung this song in the years since it was written by Kurt Kaiser in 1969. I grew up singing it in the 1980s. I even wrote my own verses to the song, finding different ways to talk about things that start out small, like a spark or a blossom… or a drop of rain, and then grow into fires and springtimes… and storms.
The young voices in the video are startlingly strong and sure. They’ve sung this song dozens of times, after all, around campfires and in cabins and at Sunday School.
As one song ends, a single voice starts another song and others join:
Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true…
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…
They just keep singing. In the midst of the shock and devastation, their voices find each other, and they find the songs that they know. The songs they need.
I’ve been there. I remember sitting in the passenger seat of a police cruiser on the way from Calvin Theological Seminary. I’d just been called out of Hebrew class without taking the quiz I’d been studying for that morning. The police officer was taking me to Butterworth hospital where my husband had been transported after his car accident (and before his death three days later). I remember looking out the window of the car at the falling snow – knowing that its cruel glaze was responsible for the accident that had just happened. As I stared out the window, I sang the song that came to my lips. The song I knew. The song I needed:
You are my hiding place. You always fill my heart with songs of deliverance.
Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you. I will trust in you.
Let the weak say, “I am strong in the strength of the Lord.”
Over and over. I just kept singing – by myself in the police car, and the next afternoon in the ICU waiting room with family and friends as we watched and prayed, our breathing and heartrates joining and synchronizing.
at Spectrum Health – Butterworth in December 2000.
Like Paul and Silas in prison in the middle of the night.
Like Jesus and his disciples in the upper room before they left for the Mount of Olives.
There are times to hang our harps on the poplars and weep by the river – times that we cannot sing the songs of joy (Psalm 137). Perhaps this busload of girls was not yet aware of the extent of the loss as they sang their way to safety. Perhaps their songs have now quieted to tears.
Or perhaps they are singing different songs.
For there are times when we simply cannot keep from singing. When the song rises up from within us to anchor us to our foundation or to connect us to our community or to calm and focus our spirits. At deathbeds and disasters, when we are afraid or sad.
My life flows on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation.
I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Love is lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?
19 Responses
Thank you. Your words, and your singing, were needed today.
This is heart-wrenchingly beautiful, and just what I needed to read this morning.
Thank you,
Heidi, thank you. What could the girls say in the midst of such terror? But they could sing. It reminds me of the Leonard Bernstein quote: “Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”
At the monthly hymn sings sponsored by the Young People’s Society of Burton Heights CRC, the first church that nurtured my faith, our theme song led by Mel Verwys included this line: “Sing when the day is bright; sing through the darkest night; every day, all the way, let us sing, sing, sing!” It re-sounds in my heart whenever I think of it.
Thank you Heidi for sharing your own story and thank God for the hopeful and healing gift of music. My favorite version of this song is by the late Eva Cassidy (thank you Mark Hiskes for introducing her to me!) She died too early from cancer and I would like to believe this song meant a lot to her. https://music.apple.com/us/album/how-can-i-keep-from-singing/307047201?i=307047842
I saw that video, too, and the singing is so beautiful and so solid (I want to say strong but the voices are definitely young girls). The song that God gives in our darkest moments doesn’t have to be loud but is so powerful. I grew up in a family that loves to sing, especially the hymns, and the singing we do together now at family members funerals gives us all a glimpse of the language of music we will share in heaven someday. Singing in our joy is great, and singing in our sorrow is even better. Thank you.
Thank You.
Thank you Heidi for once again writing words we need to hear.
When I was in high school myself, I was also on a youth trip (I was a student leader for middle schoolers). A canoe accident one day had left a scared 12yo with a gash that needed medical attention, and I was the first one there—calming her, distracting her with songs. They sent me w/ her to get stitches, and she asked me to sing and hold her while the doctor worked on her. It was all I could do, but it was exactly what she needed from me.
It has such an important place in our experiences of life.
And then I’m reminded, too, of the times “even music cannot substitute for tears.” And how important it is to listen for which is needed when.
Thank you!
oh, Heidi.
thank you.
We have a friend who lived in Kerrville for a number of years, and feel connected through our relationship with her.
And this feels so very devastating–the grief of loss, the grief of our country’s decisions, the grief of wondering where hope might be.
That view out of the ICU window, btw, now looks very, very different (the ICU has moved….).
The perspective remains.
Thank you, Heidi., for writing about the singing of these girls and of your singing in that awful, grief-stricken “night” in your life. You help us to see that in the darkest valleys we, as CHILDREN of God, are weak and strong, tender snd tough, weeping and rejoicing, hopeless and hope-full, defeated and victorious, conquered and conquerors.
Often, as I wake up, I realize that there’s a song running through my mind. It’s usually a hymn, either one from a recent service or one I haven’t heard in a long time. It’s a gift from God.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thank you, Heidi.
I am in tears…..and I need to be. Thank you for this. I can’t tell you on how many levels this spoke to me.
Joanne
Thank you Heidi for this beautiful reminder. My husband’s funeral was held graveside with my family because of Covid. But we sang 3 beautiful hymns expressing our comfort in God’s faithfulness.
Thank you, Heidi.
I found myself singing these songs as you named them and others as well.
Thank you.
Heidi, I did not know this about you. I lost my husband 8 years ago after taking care of him for nine years. The pain is still there each day. I am glad to hear that your life took a turn in a positive direction. I don’t see that happening in my life. At least not yet. Blessings to you.