When The Evening Comes

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. -Victor Hugo

The sun comes up
It’s a new day dawning
It’s time to sing your song again
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes…

It was one of those moments that pierce right through your thoughts. I have sung this song a dozen times before but it never stopped me like it did today. Immediately I choked up at the last line.

Let me be singing when the evening comes…Oh how I felt the weight of the proclomation in that moment.

We have had so many ‘evenings’ over the last 10 years in this career. So many dark moments in our journey as a first responder family. I long ago stopped doubting the absolute soverignty of God, however it hasn’t always made the intensity of these times easier.

These words caused me to reflect on the posture of my heart during recent events.

How was I found when the latest ‘evening’ came? We’ve reeled after critical incidents before but today I thought of my preparedness for all seasons. My heart did a pivot and I prayed, let me be found to be singing when the evening comes. Every time.

The Pastor shared the back story to this Matt Redman classic. This modern rendition stems from an old hymn, penned in 1834, titled “Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven” by Henry Francis Lyte. The enduring truth of its words remain to this day.

“Father-like, he tends and spares us, well our feeble frame he knows; in his hands he gently bears us, rescues us from all our foes: Alleluia, alleluia, widely as his mercy flows… Frail as summer’s flower we flourish; blows the wind and it is gone; but, while mortals rise and perish, God endures unchanging on…”

Oh what a beautiful truth to hang your hope on.

Our days are so unpredictable. Our tomorrows unknown to us.

The one thing we can be sure of is that a heart found to be singing even when, especially when, the evening comes, will most assuredly find its rest on high.