On the worst days, it’s tempting to doubt. You lose your job, your kid’s flunking out, your mother, favorite uncle, or grandson has cancer. There’s heartache and joint pain and no matter how many Roach Motels you set out, bugs still find a way to roam the kitchen. So you think, bah, no creator, no Savior. You’re all alone.
But then, if you’re listening, God steps onto the stage and sings. The song goes deep and straight to the truth, humming Fear Not. You’re super-thankful, at least until the next awful thing. And if you’re lucky, that song tips the scales toward love.
On one of my worst terrible no-good days, in 1961, I walked home from fourth grade along the dried-up canal bank in Yuma, Arizona. Halloween was right around the corner, and I was going to borrow my friend Marcia’s angel costume.
But Mom and Dad weren’t thinking about Halloween. They had strange looks on their faces. Maybe the cat threw up in Mom’s shoe again? Were they glad or mad?
Mom smiled too wide. “We have news, Honey.” She kicked off her high heels. “Tomorrow,” she said, “you get to go on an airplane ride. The doctors are going to fix your arm.”
O-kay. In first grade doctors had fixed my polio-paralyzed left arm with a heavy metal brace to straighten my wrist. But it was still bent over like a letter “J.” Now they wanted another chance? I retied my ugly saddle oxfords just to prove I could. “I don’t need fixing,” I said.
Daddy’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re so lucky.”
Something stabbed my middle. Going to some dumb hospital wasn’t lucky, even with a plane ride.
Mom chimed in. “They fix kids for free. Be thankful.”
How could I be thankful? There wasn’t even time to tell Marcia goodbye. But I acted grown-up—and definitely didn’t cry.
That night, I hugged my white leather KJV Bible. The cover had my name stamped in gold and inside, Jesus said stuff in all red letters. I couldn’t cry. I prayed but felt alone.
Then I heard singing, the lowest notes ever. Sound crawled along the bottom of my mind, like orchestra sheet music or a perfect grade in long division, everything all at once. No words, just bright white vibrations of Fear Not. I drifted off.
Next morning, still clutching my bible, I flew alone on Bonanza Airlines to Salt Lake City, Utah.
A stranger met me at the airport and left me at a huge hospital high on a hill, where the sign read, “Hospital for Crippled Children.” Crippled? There must be some terrible mistake.
But there wasn’t. Right away, a beak-nosed nurse pointed to a green bathtub. “Let’s get you bathed.” I sat there naked, and she stowed my clothes in a cardboard box. “Keep your shoes,” she said. I wished I’d held out for patent leather instead of dorky oxfords. She handed me a starchy homemade dress. “Put your book in with your things,” she said.
I shook my head at Beakface. Her eyes narrowed, but then she shrugged. Next, in an echo-ey room, a nice man forced my polio wrist straighter—ow—and wrapped a plaster cast on it. I went to a ward full of toddlers in plaster casts.
And giant baby cribs. The bars and the kids grinned, but I shivered too hard to talk. “Get in,” was all Beakface said. She walked away, her shoes squeaking.
That night I held my bible and stared at the city lights below. Maybe God lived in the glittering Cinderella castle below—nurses said it was a Tabernacle. I tried to remember the song, but my wrist hurt, and my teeth chattered loud.
I prayed. Maybe God was busy. A tear leaked out. I swiped it away and closed my eyes.
A strange yet beautiful melody drifted across me like a cool breeze, and the notes made their way into me, until my own heart kept perfect time.
I danced on a golden street, hanging out with a God who happened to have all the time in the world for me. We harmonized and sang a thousand verses: Fear Not, fear not, fear not. Overhead, stars blazed out their applause.
Morning came with surgery and more surgery and lots of recoveries. Then awful food and hospital school and soon I couldn’t remember the tune at all. Since then, I’ve doubted and been grateful and back again, always searching for the God who is a song. Whenever I surrender, the faraway strains swell and I’m thankful but unafraid.
Sometimes as I elbow my way through life, I can’t find what’s right in front of me. But on the darkest nights, I taste, smell, touch, and yes, listen my way to God, and it’s a mystery but I know the lyrics by heart. I may never know why God is a song, only that God sings. Shh, listen.