Thirty-One: When My Light Is Low

I used to tell people that autumn was my favorite season, but I've come to realize in the last couple of years that really isn't true. There's a certain romance to the season that I can't escape. But it's also always a dark time for me. As I've come to realize that I'm very much impacted by the season and lower light, I've also learned to cling more strongly to God's promises when my spirits are low.

My brother wrote a song last year and the first time I listened to it, I cried and cried. It perfectly captures my feelings in seasons like this one. The words are Tennyson's and the melody all Daniel. Siblings are a mysterious thing - they are so oddly similar to you. The good thing about it is that when my brother expresses his soul though music, a medium I'm not gifted in, it sometimes feels like he is sharing my heart as well. 

So on a dark, autumnal day, I hope you enjoy these words and this music as much as I do. I find a certain refuge in them and I hope they bring you solace, as well.

"Be near me when my light is low, 
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick 
And tingle; and the heart is sick, 
And all the wheels of Being, slow. 
Be near me when the sensuous frame 
Is Life, a Fury slinging flame. 

But what of that? My darken'd ways 
Shall ring with music all the same; 
To breathe my loss is more than fame, 
To utter love more sweet than praise. 

Behold, we know not anything; 
I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last―far off―at last, to all, 
And every winter change to spring. 

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; 
What seem'd my worth since I began; 
For merit lives from man to man, 
And not from man, O Lord, to thee. 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 
The faithless coldness of the times; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, 
But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 
Ring in the Christ that is to be."


~Hannah