Perhaps my favorite thing about having a baby in the house was rocking that sweet little one to sleep. I loved holding my babies, especially when I was putting them to sleep. It was such a pleasant time to me.
I suppose I liked it so much because it was comforting to me, and I knew it was comforting to my babies. The room was dark. Just the two of us ... my arms filled with the tiny body of my child. And I'd sing ... mostly hymns, but I found that it really didn't matter what words came out of my mouth. Almost any song would do, especially if I sang it slow. And maybe the best part about that was that it really didn't even matter what my voice sounded like or if I was singing in tune. My baby was lulled to sleep by my soft singing, simply comforted by my presence and my voice. Sometimes, I really miss those days.
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Zephaniah 3:17. It says this: "The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."
Isn't that the most amazing verse? God sings over me! Just like I comforted my babies with songs, so God comforts me! I love it ... the image brings me such peace. Sometimes, when I am all stressed at work or I come home and I'm so tired I'm not sure if I have enough energy to last until bedtime, I just imagine God holding me in His arms, stroking my head and singing over me.
Even though I love that verse, Zephaniah isn't the most popular book of the Bible. Sometimes when I share that verse with a friend, they will say that they weren't even aware there was such a book. So imagine my surprise when I saw this entire display of items decorated with that verse in the Christian bookstore yesterday afternoon. I picked up a tiny metal sign that was $4 and bought it to hang in my office.
The clerk who checked me out was this older black lady. We spent several minutes chatting about some books I was buying and a movie she had just seen. And then she picks up the sign to scan ... and she reads the verse and she says, "Is this really in the Bible?" And I said, "Oh, yes mam! It's one of my very favorite verses. Just think ... God sings over us just like we sang over our babies when they were small. Isn't that the most comforting thought ever?!"
She stood there a minute and then she whispered, "Wow. My amazing God sings over me." Looking up, she grabbed the other clerk by the arm, and said, "Hey, Linda! Get this ... God sings over us! Just like we sang over our babies when we rocked them ... God sings over us, too!" The next thing I know, this little black lady and I are over at the display looking over all the items with this verse on them, and talking to each other about this verse and how wonderful it is. Before I left, she had written down the verse to look up in her Bible when she got home and thanked me at least a hundred times for sharing it with her.
As I was walking out of the store, she called after me, "Thank you! You've been a blessing to me!" But she didn't know how much she blessed me too ... for you see, as much as I love that verse and that image, it's been a while since I felt awed by it. And really, I don't want to ever lose my sense of amazement over this:
Almighty God, who created the Grand Canyon and Mount Everest and Saturn's beautiful rings, also sings over me.
Wow ... how amazing is that?!
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