I am no stranger to waking up morning after morning after morning with the heavy cares and thoughts of a fifty-eight year old twice-divorced woman. This waking state for me – and last night followed a good nine hours of sleep and unrecalled-but-difficult dreams – seems to be becoming quite a time of emotional and spiritual grounding and observations.

During the past seven to ten days, somehow my first heavy waking thoughts of either I can’t do this or I don’t know if I can do this have taken on a new question:

Can you just do today? No more.

This morning, I listened to the regularity and expectation of songbirds singing – actually loudly, here – and hens making the sounds they make when they lay eggs each morning. I thought to myself, if today, the world found itself fully entered into World War III or nuclear actions, these birds would still be singing on that same morning in the same way.

Nature has a way of reminding us that it all goes on and in a sense, though surely affected by man, it is above man…and…God is above nature.

As I thought of what tasks lay ahead, I had a sense of immense fatigue and even a despair of sorts. Then, as I lay there I began to think of others and other thoughts, somehow tracing various things back to other times…back, back, back…and like the idea of the butterfly effect I wondered…what if I hadn’t this…what if I hadn’t that…what if I hadn’t this…what if I hadn’t that….what if they hadn’t this…what if they hadn’t that…what would my morning now look like if this…what would my morning now look like if that…what would their morning now look like if this…what would their morning look like if that…

It was a confounding mental, emotional and spiritual downward spiral of questions and impossibilities…somewhat an exercise in futility, merciless and dreadful, devoid of any thoughts that might find harmony with the joyful and hopeful singing of birds outside and the greeting of a new morning.

I went downstairs, started my coffee and fed the cats. My cats know that I will start my coffee before I feed them, and they know they need to wait that extra two to three minutes for me to bring relief to that which they need and want, and are looking to me to provide them with…

As I moved on to organizing my day in my mind, reviewing an email, browsing social media just a bit, and wondering what today might hold (we never know for sure what surprises may come whether pleasant or unpleasant) I thought about the audiobook started yesterday and I wondered about music…

I thought about endurance – when morning after morning after morning no full relief seems to come, and I thought about this against the backdrop of knowing that Scripture tells us that “sorrow and weeping may last for a night but joy comes in the morning…”

Somehow, a strain of a song that has held meaning and joy and provided strength to me during other times of deep difficulties in my life came into my mind. Actually, I believe the thought that triggered it was returning myself to the question to myself, “Can I just do today?“

And thinking, there really is no other reply to God or to myself or to the question that I and billions of other humans have been asking in some form since the dawn of time….other than, “Yes, yes I can do today…”

And that prompted the line of this song/expression to enter my mind, “Yes Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes Lord…”

Glancing down the staircase I took notice of my framed image of Jesus, that came from my childhood home, that was my possession, not that of my parents. I remember asking for it in Woolworth’s when I was in late grade school. It had originally come in a cheap plastic, decorative black frame, which held this fine art reproduction for many years until I matted and reframed it about twenty years ago. Actually, it may have been left at my mother’s house, and it was probably in 2001 that I kept it, when cleaning out that house for the last time.

Glancing at this image I thought, with the song in my mind, I can’t say that I feel anything right now in the sense of presence of Jesus, and certainly I don’t feel like freely and spontaneously dancing in joy, to some song, as sometimes I experience...

Drinking my coffee, I pulled up the song on my phone to listen.

The familiar strains of our dearest songs often have certain lines that leap out to us in various moments.

This morning, the line “song of a child-like heart” was there. It isn’t in the actual lyrics, but if you listen to the video, it is in the ad-lib portions of this song.

If I don’t walk through this day as a dependent child of God and understanding that is the true situation, I will not survive it too well…

Trading My Sorrows (Yes Lord)

I’m Trading My Sorrows
I’m Trading My Shame
I’m Laying Them Down For The Joy Of The Lord
I’m Trading My Sickness
I’m Trading My Pain
I’m Laying Them Down For The Joy Of The Lord
And We’re Singing

Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord
Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord
Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord, Amen

I Am Pressed But Not Crushed,
Persecuted Not Abandoned
Struck Down But Not Destroyed
I Am Blessed Beyond The Curse
For His Promise Will Endure
That His Joy Is Gonna Be My Strength
Though The Sorrow May Last For The Night
His Joy Comes In The Morning

I’m Trading My Sorrows
I’m Trading My Shame
I’m Laying Them Down For The Joy Of The Lord
I’m Trading My Sickness
I’m Trading My Pain
I’m Laying Them Down For The Joy Of The Lord
And We’re Singing

Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord
Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord
Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord, Amen

And We’re Singing
Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord
Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord
Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord, Amen

Yes Lord, Amen
Yes Lord, Amen!

Darrell Evans

Track 1 on Freedom