Better Than a Hallelujah

I sat on the edge of my couch, nervously waiting for the ten o’clock news to air. I had never really cared much about watching the news, it usually depresses me. However,  this night was different because the news was telling a piece of our story. A big part of my heart was about to be on display for audiences to view. I held my breath as I watched picture after picture of Jake appear on the screen. Then came the video, thirty seconds of Jake playing in the pool and I silently watched that particular video for the second time ever. My uncle had just found the small video of Jake and we just watched it for the first time last week. Not even writing my book prepared me for my reaction to seeing him move again. I have only seen pictures since he died and watching him splash in the pool was painful.

Telling our story has brought back so many memories that I had shut up tight and I woke with a burdensome heart this morning.

Memories blinded my vision and left me breathless.

I felt the weight of grief pushing me back in time; a time when Jake was alive and splashing in a kiddie pool.

I lived in the past for a few minutes and then crawled out of bed and to my coffee. I started my day, silently thankful for new mercies each morning.

After I dropped my oldest off at school, I drove back home as the sun began to rise. As I watched the sun rise, hope arose within in. The God who created the sun holds me. The God who spoke that very sun into existence knows my name and collects my tears in His bottle. As I focused on the Majestic God I serve and sang Amy Grant’s “Better Than a Hallelujah,” a different reaction occurred inside me. My song was no longer “a mother’s cry in the dead of night”  but a whispered, broken hallelujah with the rising sun.

Immediately I knew there was something “better than a hallelujah”

a broken hallelujah.

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