From Story to Song

As a child, I loved bedtime stories. After donning my pajamas, I thumbed through rows of colorful books lining my bookshelves and picked as many exciting tales as my parents would agree to read before bed—usually one, but two or three at most. My imagination was sparked as rhyming plotlines weaved their way through faraway adventures and framed lifelike illustrations. But today I realize another more-obvious reason why I loved my bedtime stories: aside from being filled with the stuff of dreams, they were written in English. And that’s the only language I understood for most of my life. I mean, if you tell an American kid a bedtime story in Russian, things just don’t fly.

It works in the reverse, too: when you tell a Russian girl a bedtime story in English, she doesn’t like it so well.

I speak from experience.

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Three weeks ago this past December, I spent a night at Freedom Home, a place of restoration for those who have been rescued from human trafficking. I visit weekly to teach English and spend time with the women and children, and I had been looking forward to spending the night for quite some time.  

The evening, which followed the annual Christmas party of that afternoon, was marked with merriment and conversation. As usual, I understood bits and pieces of what was said and communicated slowly in broken Russian. I am overwhelmingly grateful for the grace and friendship extended by these women when even simple questions are a struggle for me. Thankfully, my presence nearly always induces laughter because my language mistakes, which are almost a given in my interactions, are quite humorous. 

Relatively early in the night, the children were put to bed so that the women could have a time of prayer and sharing. This time was even more special than usual, however, because a woman from Ukraine had come for the weekend to tell her story of restoration after human trafficking. This was going to be a late, powerful night for all except the children.

 I said goodnight to a beautiful two-year-old girl with whom I weekly play as I listened to her mom tell her a bedtime story; it was in Russian, of course, so I didn’t understand most of it, although I could tell that it rhymed. One of the staff workers came into the room shortly afterward and said that the Ukrainian woman was about to share her story. Both staff worker and mother looked at me. “Can you tell her a bedtime story? You only have to stay with her until she falls asleep.” “Sure!” I responded. They looked grateful, kissed the little girl goodnight, and went downstairs. 

I moved to the chair next to the little bed and started answering in Russian to cries of, “Momma! Where’s Momma?” I explained that she was downstairs, that she loves her, and that she would be back. 

That didn’t help. 

So, faithful to my assignment, I started making up a story in Russian. Since I can probably count the number of Russian words I know at this point, the story wasn’t that interesting. Or that long. But it quieted her for a few seconds. As soon as I began hesitating for words, though, she chimed back into her pleas for her mom to come back upstairs. I tried for a few more minutes, but gave up when she only grew louder. 

Then I switched to English. I placed more emphasis on a steady, upbeat voice than on picking an interesting story. And it worked—for a few minutes. But then the Russian cries rang out louder from the little body, and I was afraid that the other sleeping children in adjacent rooms would wake. As soon as I started thinking about the possibility of calling her mother back in, I stopped because this was a special time of healing for the women with a woman that had traveled to Moldova to spend one night for this very purpose. 

I turned back to the screaming child, who had now added crying to her nighttime repertoire. A good twenty or thirty minutes had passed since I had been alone with this girl, lights off to help her sleep, in the second-story of a Moldovan house on a lonely street. The sun had set hours ago and I turned toward the window to see the falling snow as the cries in the room grew louder. I tried to keep talking, in both Russian and English, but nothing was working, and she seemed more awake than ever. I didn’t know what to do. God, I don’t know what to do. I—

Sing. 

What? Sing to her, I heard God say. Um, God? No. I’m not singing, I retorted. 

Sing. It came again. Never.

Why was I so obstinate? Because this was the third time I was called upon to sing in the past few weeks. 

Confused? Allow me to digress briefly. This is necessary for understanding my frustration.  

I’m not the best singer. I can do it, but I don’t consider it one of my strengths. As far as strengths go, I’d much rather write something or perform a classical piano piece or teach grammar. You see, if I’m going to do something in public, I want to do it well. Those things I do well are my strengths, and I prefer to operate in them when people are watching.

In the past few weeks, however, I’ve been called on to operate in areas that are not my strengths—namely, singing. I’ve shown up for worship practice, been given new songs, and then been asked to lead them for the congregation only a few minutes later. With a head cold. I’ve been asked to sing with a duet roughly half an hour before they performed. In other areas outside the musical arena I have recently needed to do things with and for people that put me in pride-swallowing mode as I stepped out, knowing I had little to give. 

Being asked to operate in my not-strengths—and without ample preparation time—has been stretching for me. Common sense tells me that people will benefit more when I do something that I’ve practiced, something that I have confidence in doing. I was shocked the first couple times that God asked me to do something more or less “in public” that was a stretch for me. Several times after that, I was a bit confused. And this final time, I was worn out. 

Just for clarification, though: singing to a toddler? Not on my top-5-fears list. Or even on my top 500.

(But I don’t actually have a top-500 list, just so you know.)

I wasn’t afraid, and I knew I didn’t have a listening, critical audience. It’s just that this was like the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

Still, I knew was that something had to be done to stifle the shrieks of the beleaguered child, and all I could do was what God told me. Her cries begged immediate action. And so I sang.

“Jesus loves me, this I know / For the Bible tells me so—” I had to clear my throat and cough before getting to “Little ones to Him belong.” My throat’s sore, and I’m just getting over a cold. I can’t sing. I tried this Sunday. Remember, God? But I dared not interrupt the flow of sound too long lest my silence be interpreted as permission for “Momma!” cries to resume. 

Well, we duked it out with our words—mine in raspy song, hers in high-pitched wails, interspersed with whimpering sentences. I’ve never encountered a worse reaction to my singing.

By the time I reached the end of the song, significant gaps existed between her cries, so I moved onto the next song that came to my mind: “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” My voice was really starting to crack. Oh, God, just help me keep going so she falls asleep! I don’t care how it sounds anymore! I started in a key too low for my voice. I modulated up. I wheezed. She was still awake, but she was less noisy, less agitated. I sang it four or five times.

After that, she was out. Her mouth was silent, and her body turned from side to side every so often in the beginning stages of sleep. But as I sang, I realized something: the fact that I was nervous to sing in front of a little child who does not understand English showed me that my qualm is not with who is listening so much as it is with what I have to give. I grow uncomfortable when I’m not putting my best foot forward. My reluctance indicated that I had been willing to sacrifice meeting the needs of the moment for my own personal comfort. I was making ministry more about me than about God and others. And that’s a serious problem.

The child was asleep, and I was free to leave. But I was not moving. Conviction welling, I knew that I had to compose my own hymn of praise. 

I began to sing my own song.  I suddenly grew tired of using others’ words from worn-out choruses, during which I oftentimes focus more on the sound of my voice than the alignment of my heart with the words I utter. All at once I was fed up with trite melodies learned by rote and sung by rote while my brain went on autopilot. I had a song I needed to sing from within my heart, so I began to tell God what He meant to me. What came out of me wasn’t ground-breakingly original or poetic. A modest, hymnlike melody and chorus coalesced rather quickly in my mind, and I kept singing them, each time inserting fresh words with my croaking voice. I told God how thankful I am that He fights for His children. I told Him how grateful I am to know that I am never alone. I told Him that I will tell His story all over the world. All over—wherever that takes me and whatever that costs me. Because I am His.

As I sang from my heart, something inside of me broke. And at that point, it wasn’t about who was listening. I could have opened the windows, could have stood on the roof, could have shouted down the stairs. But it wasn’t about who heard; it was about Who heard. 

And in a darkened room on the top-floor of a Moldovan home on a snowy night, I found freedom.

As I write this, I hum in vain, trying to recover the lost melody. I probably will never hit upon it again, but the reality of that cold Moldovan night still rings out.

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I had a revelation that night. God wants to stretch us out of our comfort zones even when that includes doing something that is not our best work.

Sometimes we get the idea that God’s going to use us only in our strengths. I beg to differ. And so does the Apostle Paul. Second Corinthians 12:7 says that to “keep him from being conceited,” Paul was given a “thorn in the flesh” that ultimately resulted in weakness. We are not told what this thorn is, although many plausible suggestions abound. But the fact that the “thorn” is not further described makes me think that its type and size is not as important as its result; so many things can render us weak. Even singing in a nursery.

Paul asked the Lord three times to take it away. Huh. I also had three instances, singing-specific, in which I asked God to remove me from or change the situation. And, true to His timeless nature, the Lord’s response to Paul was His same response to me: “Each time He said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness,’” (v. 9). 

Upon hearing that, Paul turned glad. He realized that his weaknesses were disguised opportunities for the power of Christ to rest on, work through, dwell in, and reside within him (v. 9). 

So, this is my weakness-boast. And it’s not about my singing; it’s about Christ’s power being displayed through me. 

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul also connected weakness and power. He reflected on the first time he visited the church in Corinth and noted that he didn’t come with “superiority of speech or of wisdom” but “in weakness and in fear and in much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:1,3). Robin Dowling and Stephen Dray, in the Baker Bible Guide to 1 Corinthians, note that upon his first visit to Corinth, Paul “decided to do without the…philosophical flourishes of Greek ‘wisdom’ [and instead] proclaim[ed] the most scandalous of all truths to the Greek thinker, the humiliating crucifixion of Christ.” In sum, Paul “felt vulnerable and even the message itself seems to have caused him anxiety, making him feel inadequate to preach it” (Robin Dowling and Stephen Dray, 1 Corinthians: Free to Grow [Baker Books], 34-35).

 Paul says himself that his message was “plain” and “without persuasive words of wisdom” (v. 4), but somehow, Paul’s message was still effective. This effectiveness came from outside himself.  His message and preaching did not reflect on his own skill as much as it demonstrated the Spirit’s power (v. 4). Why this pairing of personal privation with spiritual power? “So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God” (v. 5). 

May God shake our misplaced faith in us and rightly rest it on His power.

Are we okay with being used by God when it stretches us out of our comfort zones? Even if we know that we are being called upon to give something that’s not drawn from our reserve of well-polished abilities? 

He’s okay with it. 

We must trust God enough to allow Him to bend us in initially uncomfortable ways if He so chooses. This is not always His method, but such actions do not conflict with His character. He has more in mind than keeping us comfortable and happy. He desires to display His power through us, engendering joys vaster than any happinesses contained in a passing moment.

What a deep love—to look into the caverns of our soul and grapple with our insecurities, to lead us to an understanding of His activity which extends far beyond our self-stuck views, to call for vulnerability in order to foster in us a self-trumping desire to see Him glorified. God, “grant [us] a willing spirit, to sustain [us]” (Psalm 51:12b). 

As we enter this new year, may we ask ourselves whose story is at the forefront of our lives. And whose song. May God’s pen write bolder and God’s melody ring louder than ours.

Still singing,

Renée