Songs in the Night

My women’s bible study is studying “The God of All Comfort” by Dee Brestin. The author shares how God comforted her through the death of her husband who had brain cancer. In chapter two she shares about the songs of night referred to in Psalms 42:8-“By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me–a prayer to the God of my life.”

While alive, her husband would softly sing her to sleep. After her husband died, she wondered how she would find any comfort at all, during the day and especially in the middle of the lonely night.

One night she “curled up in the middle of their king-size bed and wept” herself to sleep. God reached out to her by bringing to her memory a night long ago when her infant son woke up demanding with screams that she feed him.

She tried to calm him and nurse him but he only flailed more and screamed louder. She repeatedly whispered to him, “I’m Here, I’m right here.” Finally, he calmed down, latched on, and comfort and peace filled his little tummy.

She wrote, “Suddenly, I realized, I was that baby. She sensed the Lord saying, ‘Dee, I am right here.’” The Lord quieted her soul and eventually became her song in the night.

Aren’t we all in need of that kind of comfort? Not fleeting, momentary relief, but the kind of comfort that gives “peace beyond all understanding.” Peace that penetrates our souls and guards our hearts and minds and keeps us from going to the dark places where torment waits for us.

We all have deep loss and grief in our lives. We all have walked through deep waters. This is where our faith in God is most real and most needed. He desires to grow our faith before these deep waters come so we won’t drown, so we will trust His sovereignty and cling to Him.

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight

Lord, Help me!