The following was a post from my bloggy friend, Lisa Tuttle, and I loved it so much that I had to share it on my blog. So accurately describes a process that King David went through countless times in his life in his walk with the Lord. Also accurately describes what I have felt in that moment of feeling cold, broken and the breath knocked out of me….but in the end setting your face toward God and uttering that hoarse, raspy “Hallelujah”, though it took what strength was left in you to do so. Thank you, Lisa for this deeply stirring, well written post and for letting me ‘borrow it’.
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Sometimes I have to think about something a good long while before I decide what it is I actually think. Lack of information, internal conflict, ambivalence, and apathy can all slow my processes to near gridlock. As can my tendency to over-think things at times.
I’m sure you’re really surprised about that last one.
Or not.
Earlier this week I ran across a video that was so hauntingly beautiful that it gave me chills. I’ve heard a lot of breathtaking renditions of this song, but I think this is one of my favorites:
I loved the song the first time I ever heard it. That was years ago. But I have to admit, there is a line in the song that I found disturbing, and I just couldn’t shake it.
How can a hallelujah be cold and broken? It just sounded so…wrong. So cynical and faithless.
The word hallelujah means “praise the Lord”. I had always associated that phrase with joyful exclamation. I also associated it with agreement, false humility, and a lack of knowing what else to say but still wanting to sound reasonably pious. It was a religious phrase that was rather loaded, to be honest, and I was very weary of loaded religious phrases.
In the end I had to ask God to help me understand and to show me if a cold and broken hallelujah was an idea I should accept or reject. And He did. He’s really good at that revelation thing.
God loves praises of all kinds. But I also believe that some are more precious than others, simply because they are more costly. I can think of nothing more costly than a cold and broken hallelujah. It is not the shout of the jubilant celebrant. Neither is it a show of religious fervor. It is the anguished cry of submission of a shattered soul. It is sacrfice in the midst of gut-wrenching pain. It’s laying it all down in the garden and saying “ok…do it Your way”.
Sometimes our cold and broken hallelujahs are a result of our own screw-ups. It’s devastating to come face-to-face with one’s own broken humanity, realizing that your own choices have created a mess that ripples out and touches everyone and everything around you. Other times our cold and broken hallelujahs come from living in a world that is cold and broken. Death, betrayal, suffering of all kinds…we can either fight them, or we can offer the hallelujah that has no guarantee of peace on the front end.
I’ve known my share of both kinds. Both shake you to the core and make you wonder if life will ever be ok again. And sometime it isn’t. Sometimes that cold and broken hallelujah comes out of the realization that something irrevocable just changed and that you have no choice but to find a new normal, and it takes you out behind the knees and leaves you gasping for air on the floor. And that broken heart, that humbled spirit that has nothing left to offer but a hoarsely whispered “hallelujah” in the middle of the mess and blood and tears and the snotty nose, is like a magnet for God. He runs to be near. Even if we caused our own problems, He is there instantly. In that moment we are so incredibly beautiful to Him…and He rescues us with no regard for whether or not we deserve it. We’re His kids. He loves us so passionately it’s nigh scandalous.
It’s no wonder that song is achingly beautiful.
Come, walk with me a while..... 