It was a mildly melancholy day for our mid-morning drive to our friends home. Gentle sprinkles of rain fell lightly upon our windows. Seth chose to listen to worship on the radio today. The gray overcast subtlety invited us to relax a bit, as we patiently drove with anticipation to a time of play with our friend. Though not too long of a drive there, it was enough time to hear a few songs on the radio and catch our breath from a hurried moment getting out the door.
"Mommy, are these angels singing?" Seth inquisitively asks as his voice ever so slightly raises in tone. "No honey. Does it sound like angels?" I ask in return. "Ya, it does Mommy" he replies with a drawn out childlike conviction.
Here are some of the Lyrics to the song, "Blessings" By Laura Story; the song that begins to play.
"We pray for blessings.
We pray for peace.
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep.
We pray for healing...
What if your blessings come through raindrops.
What if your healing comes through tears.
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know your near.
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise."
As this song played, I looked back at Seth. This is what I saw:
His hands held to his chest, folded. His eyes gently closed.
His lips moving, in silence.
As I watched him, I was immediately enveloped by the presence of Heaven around me. I knew that there was something sacred, surrounding us both. Sifting the soil of my heart where worry and fear, hide...the Holy Spirit opened up to me a picture of what He is doing in our son. Watering His heart with more of Himself, in a moment where the very rains of Heaven flowed down. Laced around those tiny little lips was a prayer only he will know- this side of heaven. Perhaps that prayer was moving mountains, I had no idea he even knew how to ask-
be moved.
Perhaps he was unwrapping in the spiritual realm, things only unwrapped- through the mouth of babes. To even ask what he was praying, felt invasive. The gift of that moment, was enough. One to be kept between him and his Heavenly Father.
There is a sweetness and innocence in children, however when they have their eyes closed, in prayer...it's indescribable the feeling it brings a parent. A gift that is priceless. Especially when you sense something profoundly intimate in such a sacred moment, has invited you in to witness.
I saw something in his face in this moment of prayer that he had...
Pure peace...pure faith...pure abandon. The kind that only the Spirit of Jesus, can give a child.
As the lids of his eyes were closed, I couldn't help but ask, do I look like that when I pray? Do I go with the same depth of conviction and transparency, such as that of a child?
It was shortly after his little lips stopped, he then lifted his hands in worship. I immediately was taken into the realm of the presence of the Heavenly's where the angels; really do sing. And suddenly, just as the raindrops were falling on our window, this mild melancholy morning, they began to fall from my eyes.
Falling from places within where- longings lye patiently for healing.
This was a blessing through raindrops.
A bit of healing, through the tears.
I am sure, I will silently see more sleepless nights yet to come.
I am sure, it will take such nights for me to know once again...
He is near.
And, I am sure it will take many trials more- for me to know that these trials truly are
some of your most tenderest of mercies...
in disguise.
Dear Savior,
Thank you for the many voices You've gifted, that sound like...angels to our ears.
Thank you for the way you find us, a midst many melancholy mornings- so as to bring us into the healing rains- of Your presence.
Thank you that our son, knows the voice of angels in his heart...
the voice of Your Spirit enough...
to raise his hands in prayer.
In praise.
In worship.
Even at four years old.
Thank you that you allowed this window in our morning...to open in such a way...that it became a window- into the days of our lives, yet to come.
Help me Father-
to remember...
there really are blessings in the raindrops.
Your healing can, will and does,
come through the tears.
That in the sleepless nights, still yet to come...
you have not changed. That you are the same yesterday, today and forever.
That you are...
always near.
And though the trials of life...tragically travail upon the terrain of our hearts,
help me remember that your mercy trod's upon them trials more powerfully than the trials themselves.
And that in those truths...your mercy will come-
even if disguised...in the rains of such pain.
