Can You Still Sing?

Today I received a card from a woman who is my hero in the faith. A wife and mother who has been in trenches I couldn’t bear to battle through, yet in those trenches experienced Christ in ways most people couldn’t even imagine. Her own loss is still so very fresh, yet she has faithfully been writing me, encouraging me, and lifting me up in prayer since my diagnosis. In her card today she wrote of Paul and Silas in prison and posed a hypothetical conversation between them, a question that Paul might have asked, and it pierced my soul…”Silas, can you still sing?”

In Acts chapter 16 is the story of when Paul and Silas were thrown into prison for casting a spirit out of a girl. Not only were they thrown into prison, but they were also severely beaten. While chained in their prison cell they began to pray and sing hymns. Suddenly there was a great earthquake that caused their chains to fall off and the doors of their cells to open.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have definitely felt beaten down and imprisoned by emotions, sickness, and even fear over the past two weeks. The Lord has given me such a peace throughout this journey, but the last two weeks I've been under attack and it's become a fight at times to keep my eyes on Christ. I'd begun entertaining that nagging little voice in the back of my head that was asking all the “what-ifs”. What if treatment doesn’t work? What if it just comes back a couple years down the road? If I got Breast Cancer so young, what other types of cancer am I going to get? What if my husband doesn’t find me attractive after my surgeries? And a dozen other morbid thoughts. To top it all off, my last treatment left me extremely fatigued for a full week, and for the first time I couldn’t take care of my kids. Thankfully my sister was in town to help take care of them, but still, I spent countless hours laying in bed crying because I was physically unable to care for my sweet children. I battled feeling completely defeated and like a failure as a mother. The fatigue tapered off last weekend and I was able to resume my daily activities this week, but I’ve still struggled with all the other emotions. Feeling bound for the first time in a long time. Needless to say, my friend’s card came at the perfect time. And I felt the Lord asking me…”Michelle, can you still sing?” And then the song that I’d been humming for the past two days came to life inside of me and I had no choice but to start singing aloud with tears streaming down my face…

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light
My strength
My song.
This cornerstone
This solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought or storm.
What heights of love
What depths of peace
When fears are stilled
When striving ceased.
My comforter
My all in all
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
In Christ alone
Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save.
Till on that cross
As Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied,
For every sin on him was lain
Here in the death of Christ I gain.
There in the ground
His body laid
Light of the world
By darkness slain.
Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave he rose again.
And as he stands in victory
Sins curse has lots it’s grip on me
For I am his and he is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.
No guilt in life
No fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me.
From life’s first cry
Till final breath
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell
No scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from his hands
Till he returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

I have experienced my own "earthquake" of sorts, and had the chains of fear, doubt, and failure shaken right off of me, I am free! His peace has surrounded me again and I know I can do anything for Him...even Breast Cancer. So, I will sing His praise with every breath that He gives me. And I challenge you, if you find yourself bound by things of this world to start singing His praise and just watch what happens!

Thank You Erin!