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“Broken Hallelujah”

Excerpted from Sifted: Diary of a Grieving Mother by Karen Harmening

OCTOBER 17, 2017

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”  These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.  My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon–from Mount Mizar.  Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.  By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me–a prayer to the God of my life.  I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”  My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”  

Psalm 42:1-10 NIV

I’m sitting here with my Bible open before me, its pages wet and wrinkled from a seemingly endless flow of tears. I hear the ticking of the clock on the wall next to me and it reminds me of the steady passage of time, yet time seems to stand still for us in so many ways. 

Sarah left us 131 days ago, that’s almost nineteen weeks without my child. My heart aches with the same intensity it did that very first day. I miss her desperately. While we as a family do find joy in each day, my pillow is still wet with tears of longing and pain most nights, if not every night. 

I’ve said it many times, but I will say again how much I miss the sound of her singing filling our home. Sarah had a song in her heart that constantly overflowed and brought such joy to our home. Missing Sarah’s constant singing has prompted me to think a lot about the importance of our songs. 

The four-month anniversary of her death was two Sundays ago. It was an exceptionally raw day for Scott, the girls, and me. In our church service that morning as we worshipped we sang a song that had “holy, holy, holy” in it. Instantly I vividly imagined Sarah before the throne of God singing and worshipping with all of her heart. It took my breath away and prompted a flood of tears. 

After that, we sang of falling down and laying our crowns at the feet of Jesus. I envisioned Sarah doing just that, her face glowing and eyes sparkling with joy as she set her crowns before Him. I celebrate for her as I envision her in His presence. God graciously set a passionate longing for His presence and heaven in her heart and then He fulfilled it. Her faith has become sight and I am confident she is rejoicing and praising Him with the song of her heart at this very moment. 

Both Scott and I long for the day when we, like Sarah, stand before Him singing “holy, holy, holy,” but for now we instead stand here, so very far away, with shattered hearts in our hands. We cry out with the voice of the Psalmist in Psalm 42, “Our tears have been our food day and night, our souls are in despair and are poured out within us as breakers and waves have swept over us.” In the midst of the pain, He is so faithful, though. 

Like the Psalmist we acknowledge that He commands His lovingkindness toward us in so many ways. He pours out grace and mercy upon grace and mercy in His dealings with us. Each day He has been faithful to put a song in and on our hearts to sustain us and minister to us, as well as to offer praise back to Him. Sometimes the same song resonates over and over again for a week or even weeks, and sometimes just for one day, but every day our hearts lift a song to Him. 

As I was meditating on Psalm 42, I was struck by verse 8, “And His song will be with me in the night.”  As I read that I was immediately reminded of Zephaniah 3:17, “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (ESV). 

I wonder if this is what the Psalmist had in mind as He was inspired to write of God’s song being with us in the night. Nighttime is the worst for this shattered heart. In the still of the night, I feel the pain with each pulse. Perhaps in the darkest moments of the night, He is singing over me, singing for me as I lie there too shattered to lift my voice. Perhaps the reason I am able to rise in the morning is because He has quieted me with His love in those moments, as He alone can. 

Perhaps in the shattering of our hearts, He has given us a more beautiful song to sing. Perhaps the brokenness that our hallelujah flows from makes it a more fragrant offering to Him. 

In the hours I frantically drove to Atlanta on June 8th, I sang “Even If” by MercyMe, over and over again. In those hours I pleaded with Him to move the mountain and not let Sarah be taken from us, but He did not. 

Even so, like the lyrics of that song, and like Sarah wrote in her journal, I proclaim again—though He did not move the mountain I longed for Him to move, I will praise Him still. I will trust Him to give me a new song, like the Psalmist, knowing that my hope is in Him alone, and I will yet praise Him. 

After Sarah left we found a recording on her iPod of her singing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. She knew it was a secular song, but she loved the fact that even as a secular song it reflected the beauty of people in brokenness singing “Hallelujah” (Praise the Lord). So today I am singing with her, lifting high my broken heart and broken hallelujah as a fragrant offering to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

From Sarah’s Journal:

October 27, 2016

Psalm 42:1-5 – this is a great example of how God won’t always move mountains when we ask him to and through that, we should still praise God.