Daily Reflection: Wednesday of Holy Week

I’ll talk more about what was on my mind yesterday after Holy Week is over, since it is actually pertinent to this blog. I almost wrote about it yesterday, but I feel like this being Holy Week, I need to stay focused on that subject for the time being. After Easter, there will be plenty of time to ramble on about what I was thinking yesterday.

The gospel readings this week are basically pieces of the Passion which we already talked about on Sunday and will revisit on Friday, so we’ll go with the Psalm (69:8-10, 21-22, 31, 33-34) for today:

Lord, in your great love, answer me.
For your sake I bear insult,
and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers,
a stranger to my mother’s sons,
because zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak,
I looked for sympathy, but there was none;
for consolers, not one could I find.
Rather they put gall in my food,
and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify him with thanksgiving:
“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”
Lord, in your great love, answer me.

This psalm stood out to me because of the line “I will praise the name of God in song and I will glorify him with thanksgiving…”

As a child, there were two things that I loved to do more than anything else. The first was to sing and the second was to write poetry or song lyrics. The deepest desire of my heart was to be a songwriter, but it’s hard to be a songwriter when you don’t play an instrument. I constantly wrote poetry. I probably have tons of it stashed away in my boxes of things that I still need to go through that came with me when I got married. At some point in time, I stopped writing as much poetry. I only wrote now and then, and it was kind of a sad thing. I think there was just a lot going on in my life and I didn’t have the time do devote to writing like I used to.

But a strange thing has happened in the last year or so. I’m writing songs again, but this time I have someone to help me with the instrumentation. And even more than that, I think the songs I’m writing are good songs. And part of the reason why, I think, is that my songs are praising God. The songs I tried to write in my youth were songs about love and/or unrequited love - not something I really knew anything about at the time I was writing them to be totally honest.

I’m using God’s word as inspiration and the songs are flowing out of me. And you know what? I have a feeling that some of them at least are going to be published one day and that other people will be singing my songs. I truly believe it’s going to happen. And having a dream come true, even 30 or 40 years after you first dreamt it is a pretty amazing thing. It just proves that God does answer prayer. Always. He just doesn’t always answer it right away. Sometimes you have to wait a very long time. But you know what? That’s okay. I’ll take it.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for the gift of song. Thank you for letting us sing praises to your name and songs of thanksgiving. And thank you, Lord, for letting my dreams start to come true. You are amazing God. In your great love, Lord, you will and have answered me.
In the name of Jesus the Christ,
Amen