music and tears

There is a worship song that I really love.  Sometimes I like the words more than the music.  Other times I like the music more than the words.  But usually if I really like a song it's because I like both the words and the music.  I know....this is a really new idea, huh?

Anyway, we sang this song at church yesterday.  Sometimes when the band starts playing I know instantly that it's a song that I like, but I cannot for the life of me remember the words.  And even when we start singing and the words are up on the screen I can't remember which words will come next.  And it REALLY bugs me when I don't know the name of the song but know that I really like it (I know I'm weird like that), but that's what Google is for, right?

So that's what happened yesterday.  But with this song, which we've sang countless times, I didn't really consciously know what words were coming next but they just came to me as the song went on.  Does that ever happen to anyone else?  It happens to me a lot.  Is it just me?  Am I just weird about that too?  Of course, the words are on the screen, so that helps when my subconscious fails me :)

But we got to these words and I started crying buckets.....

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades

Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

 

Now just to set the stage here I have to tell you that, of course, it would have to be a day when Brian was working, so my friend, Lisa, saw me sitting alone and came to sit with me.  I'm always cold in church so I was wearing a t-shirt with a cardigan over it and a belt around the cardigan.  Of course today it wasn't cold - or I was having a hot flash (thank you chemo drugs), not sure which, but it was hot in there.  About the second song into the worship service, I was sweating and kept telling myself to just relax and it would go away, but no.  I was trying to avoid the inevitable because to get the sweater off I would have to take the belt off and that, for some reason, was totally embarrassing to me.  But the sweating wouldn't stop so I had to do it.  I tried to do it fast so no one would notice.  I'm sure it worked :)  I apologized to the friends behind me (luckily they are good friends and would only tease me about it I'm sure) and to Lisa.  So now I've shed some clothes and am currently crying buckets.  I'm sure that as my tears kept coming she was regretting her choice of seating as she probably thought I was going to flood us right out of the sanctuary!  The Taxotere (one of the chemo drugs) makes my eyes water almost constantly anyway, so once a single tear escaped there was no stopping the waterworks.  Ugh!  I was so thankful that it was toward the end of service so that I didn't have to cry all through the message and everything.   And I was also thankful that most everyone else started tearing up not long after as we said goodbye to our woship leader from the past several years - at least I felt that my tear-stained face would blend in with everyone else's at that point. 
 
It was the "Your light will shine when all else fades" part that got me.  Even though I don't feel like things are fading so fast for me anymore, they did just a few short months ago.  When we were hit with "you have cancer" we didn't know what was next.  We didn't know exactly what that meant for our future.  We were scared.  We were left wondering, most days, "what's going to happen?" There were questions left unanswered after each biopsy, after the MRI, after each surgery.  Each one was crucial to determining what we were dealing with and it made our heads spin awaiting the answers that we were looking for.  But through all of that, there was also a peace, knowing that our God is constant.  That He knew the answers and no matter what they were, that He had a plan for us and He was still in control.  His light was shining for us to get us through this.   Yes we were scared.  Yes we asked why.  Yes we were upset.  Yes we cried.  Yes we wanted it all to end.  But at the end of the day we knew that there was nothing we could do.  But we knew that God was in control and all we needed to do was trust Him.  And yes, that is hard too.  I struggle with that daily.  I'm a fixer.  I want to fix things.  For me, my family, my friends.  I can't.  I have learned through this what it truly feels like to fully trust God.  I really thought He could have used something else to teach me, but I won't question His methods of choice :) 
 
As I sang the song, I wasn't only crying for myself, though.  I was thinking of certain friends and family who also feel like everything is fading away right now.  I hope that they feel His light, too.
 
Oh, just in case it bugs anyone else, the song in "From the Inside Out" by Hillsong United.  Thank you Google.