Lift Up Your Head

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9pfdu5ceUE

God would speak to me as a child through this song. I didn’t have the language to call it as a child, but I felt it doing something in my heart. And what I felt was that its words were true.

When moments were too low to feel anything but hopeless... I recall sitting in my then inner darkness and not understanding why hope evaded me. I didn't get it. Even in moments where I should have felt hopeful and safe, somehow, I couldn't. Nothing made sense and nothing seemed to change. It was what seemed like a continuous cycle of pain and disappointment. There was a tunnel, but the darkness was so thick, up close and personal, that walking in any direction was fruitless. It was oppression and diminished hope that caused me to call on THE deliverer. And every time...He showed Himself... and on many occasions through music.

... then from nowhere a song would invade my heart ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F7dDtJlJDQ

... followed by another...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELwBa9Stp6I

... and before I knew what was happening, I was being soothed through the saddest and some of the most difficult moments of my life, and for the moment, I was okay.

There is something about gospel music that is stirring, infiltrating, and it has the ability to seep into the hardest and coldest hearts - giving way to often much needed validation and comfort. If you couldn't feel anything before it, the vocalist's intention and the cries from the hearts of the worshippers could move even the highest hurdles of one's life when those hurdles seem to have elastic bands.

Music has forever been in my DNA and the DNA of my people. The daughter of a singer who prided himself on acknowledging his appreciation and musical affiliations with artists as great as the late Sam Cooke - who frequently dedicated his talent to exalting the Great I AM, I understand the heart of gospel music apart from its root that is seeped deep within appreciation of the Most High Himself. The heart of our plight and the soul of our melody never cease to find its way back to our hearts in the hour of our greatest need, and God Himself, never ceases to find His way to seat of our despair and the door of our enemies in the time that He has set.

May His presence never cease to reveal itself to you.

... and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.

Exodus 2:23 - 25 (KJV)

Amen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDEfPJ4j5P5X8&v=EfPJ4j5P5X8