December 3rd Advent Devotional

December 3

Zephaniah 3:14-17

"The LORD your God is in your midst, he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exalt over you with loud singing".  

-Zephaniah 3:17

Not long after our grandson Gabriel entered our life, Lisa and I were invited to keep him and his sister overnight. As stars fell on Alabama, my job was to get Gabriel to sleep. After two failed attempts, I gathered my six-string, pulled a chair bedside and begin to play. I doubt he had seen and heard a guitar before, but it seemed to soothe him. I know it did me. Soon the boy was in heavenly sleep and I was in heaven. Picking, grinning, smiling, crying, beaming over that beautiful boy.

Songwriters will tell you how lines are labored on. Meticulously moved, searching for an image that rings right and true. Fusing word and sound takes talent. Tenacity. Tears. And time. Words rarely just float through the air begging to be caught and claimed. But that night they did. And I heard them.

“A boy from the bowery in Bogota sleeps in a Sweet Bama suburban bed

While his brand new abuelo imagines a halo just two inches over his head.”

I finished the song in time for Christmas: a timeless gift to Gabe, his sister, and parents, who sacrificed so much to make him ours.

I wonder if God ever does that? Looking down on us in love, belting out the deepest feelings of his heart. The prophet Zephaniah says he does. I’ll take his word for it.

On that Huntsville holy night, I still don’t know if I was acting on his behalf or just mine. But I do know his spirit was in the room as one of his children lovingly sang over another one. Just like the prophet said he did. And does.

Glen Money