Writing These Words

Morning has broken Like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing Fresh from the Word!

I wander through the rain-soaked back yard humming "Morning has broken, like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken like the first bird…" on repeat. It is too wet from the night's storm to set up camp on any of my outdoor chairs, so I wander back inside and feed the dog – which is not my job – but she just looks so hopeful I can't deny her.

And I know what I have to do. I have to sit down and write. Write what - I don’t know. I only know it is a feeling, not unlike the bite of the mosquito that left its mark on my toe last night as I sat outside and talked for hours with Lauri. Hours later my heart is still filled with the joy of being with her and I am aware that there is an itch remaining that is demanding to be scratched. 

That is writing to me. I don’t know what I need to write about, I only have a vague line of words in my head that continue circling around my brain until I put them down on paper. Where they will end up, I never know. And Lord knows I don’t need to produce them in any way. The stacks of books grouped in quantities of 60 packed tightly in cardboard boxes standing guard around me are testimony to that. 

I started writing because I was teaching and speaking to my little group of loyal women who wanted to read God’s words and get to know Him better. So I wrote about God and listened to Him talk to me and intertwined my life experiences with what He was teaching me. And I shared it by writing it all down. I have years of ringed notebooks filled with these talks – from Genesis to Revelation, through the Jewish Prophets to the Jesus Disciples. To me, they are a treasure trove lined up on shelves above my head above my desk.

And then came the poetry. My sister died and my mother died and my husband was forced into early retirement and my children struggled with the hard things that hide out in those teen-age years. So my words came in half-thoughts, line by line, to get me through the day. I wrote about my heart hurts and my observations of the smallest moments. I wrote about the odd things I used for bookmarks, I wrote about chipmunk dissection, I wrote about women and their calendars, I wrote about women who came before me who had traveled their journey beyond me into death. They were written on random index cards and scribbled on notepads in the kitchen drawer beside the coffee maker. Writing those words helped. It was my therapy. It was my release.

And then came the insistence of the book. It had been presented to me more than once or twice over the years. Always by a well-meaning person with sincerity in their eyes. Over the years my bible study class had expanded to include children and teens and men. And God brought yet more friends into my life to bring up that same old idea of book writing. “You must,” they would say. And I would laugh. I loved art but I wasn’t a very good artist. I loved the written word but I wasn’t a very good writer. God would not let me off so easily. He insisted. And He didn’t care so much about my opinion on the matter. 

One cold day in Colorado He told me so in no uncertain terms. It was like that voice of thunder Moses heard on the mountain. It certainly was not my own resistant argumentative small little voice. It was a strong voice that saw me clearly through and through. It was a voice of both judgment and encouragement as God called me out on my fears and my doubts. And to make sure I heard Him clearly, He arranged to have the pianist play a song that has always been a soul shredder for me: “Great is Thy Faithfulness”. 

The pianist stood and walked away from her keyboard, and a woman who walked beside her saw me standing there in an empty room which earlier had held thousands. She veered away from her friend who continued on her way, walked straight toward me, took my hands in hers, and said to me, “I haven’t met you.” 

God had been telling me for three days that I needed to have a ten-minute conversation with this woman who led a worldwide ministry. This woman who was always surrounded by others; each moment of her day planned, her life filled and overflowing with responsibility. I had been very annoyed that God had been even suggesting I should try to get a meeting with this specific woman. I mean, really.

And suddenly, with no warning, I stood alone with her. For ten minutes. I poured out my heart, I poured out the strong words God had just spoken to me, and I heard her insisting with no doubt and no fear, “You must. You must write this book.” Okay, God, I hear you.

And so I did. It was a process that was unfamiliar and confusing and time-consuming and expensive and humbling. Three years have come and gone and I still sit here, scribbling words and slowly typing and wondering what in the world I am doing. And why? 

This season of the long Sabbath rest – which is the way I am choosing to see this time – I have asked God over and over again, “What are you doing with me? What am I supposed to do now?” 

“Write words down…” is the softest answer I continue to hear.

And this is the reason why, I think. Remember those words playing over and over in my head this morning as I walked out into the new morning light and the lingering wetness from the rain? I looked them up.

Those words were not written by Cat Stevens. They were written and first published in 1931 by an English children’s storybook writer. Her name was Eleanor Farjeon and she was asked to write a morning prayer for children to be set against a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune, Bunessan. And I wonder - what if she had said ‘no’ to those words whispered in her ear?

Words. Words come from our heart and sometimes they reach out to touch other hearts. When Eleanor wrote these beautiful words a century ago, she never could have comprehended how God would use those words - written to reach the heart of a child -  to be my morning prayer today.

“Write,” God says. May His words soften your heart and help you pause for just a moment to praise Him for the new day.

1 Morning has broken
Like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken
Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing
Fresh from the Word!

2 Sweet the rain’s new fall
Sunlit from Heaven,
Like the first dewfall
On the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness
Of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness
Where his feet pass.

3 Mine is the sunlight,
Mine is the morning,
Born of the one light
Eden saw play.
Praise with elation,
Praise every morning,
God’s re-creation
Of the new day!                 Lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKGpaVHspa8

Morning Has Broken         Cat Stevens and Rick Wakeman