Onward to Zion
Leading God's Weeping Children in Singing
“We need […] sad songs at home and at church. We need more people with the courage to lament. We need compassion to affect our work, to soften our tone, to slow us down, and to make us more empathetic neighbors.”
— Sandra McCracken, Send Out Your Light: The Illuminating Power of Scripture and Song
Sandra McCracken’s most well-known song is We Will Feast in the House of Zion. In recent months, that song has popped up all over my life. I sang it from the audience at her concert. I sang it with thousands of brothers and sisters at General Assembly. I sang it at a relative’s wedding, watching God restore the years the locusts had eaten. It’s a song with beautiful melody and powerful lyrics. The power of sorrow, the power of fire, the power of hope — it neither ignores nor abuses the hardships of God’s children. Go listen to it. Of late, this song has helped me to define and specify my calling. For a few years now, I’ve known that music and writing were gifts I’d been given, but I had no idea what to do with it or why. Then God showed me what He was doing with it. And recently, He showed me who I am working with and who He’s put me here for.
When I was nine years old, I finished my first real book. It was nine chapters long, complete with a plot and Narnia references. It was a real accomplishment. I very gradually decided to become — or rather, to continue to be — an author. I resisted the dream, because writing isn’t a reliable source of income. Then in 2020, I got home from camp and fell into boredom. I had been homesick while there, but when I got back I found that I wasn’t even sure where home was. I picked up a ukulele and googled how to play chords. The next year after camp, I found two guitars stowed away in a closet. I began to write the lyrics that had been drifting through my mind down on paper, scribbling chords between the lines. Again, I resisted the urge to say that I would be a musician when I grew up because it also was not a reliable source of income. Finally, I broke down and admitted that I’d just have to part-time work at Walmart and live with my parents and write stories and songs because I just knew that it would turn out that way. I haven’t made many advances in planning. Still, there’s no mincing matters, this is who I am. And I didn’t know why.
In December of 2021, my parents surprised me by taking me to a Sandra McCracken concert. To my surprise, Matthew Perryman Jones was also playing that night. I was starstruck. After that concert, I began writing songs in a frenzy. None of them were inspired by what was happening, but just a way to work off the adrenaline from the concert. On Boxing Day, I sat down to write Mercy’s Lullaby. I had a melody in my head, and I decided that I wanted to make a song for my baby sister. There was none of the deep-stirring whisper or spur-of-the-moment lyric that you hear about all the big songs. This was a time where I sat down to write a song in cold blood. I made my sister come up with some lines so that I could call it a collaboration, and then we sang it a few times to solidify it. Then it sat in my journal, untouched for weeks. In May 2022, my dad encouraged me to learn how to record. He knew I’d taken to songwriting, though I never played them for him. Late one Sunday night, we pulled out an old iPad and his new microphone and recorded a guide track and some vocals. A week later, I had released my first song.
A few months ago, my dad told a family friend about my music. He sent it to his sister, who was battling some health issues. Not knowing it was me, she took it as a sweet song he’d randomly sent her because of the struggles she was going through. Later on, I got to know her, and in a conversation about my music, she told me about this experience. This was the first time I’d seen my music do something like that. Somehow, my words were able to resonate with someone else, even my words that came to me without feeling. God used that to prove to me that when I was faithless, He is faithful, and that He will use whatever broken vessel He chooses.
Another similar circumstance occurred when I released Weep with You. When I wrote it for my grieving friend, it felt raw and unrefined and tasteless. I knew that what I was writing was true, but I had to “say it over and over.” Was it enough? Was it just how I felt? Could I be expected to write anything else? On March 27th, I lost my words. I felt that I had no right to speak. I still don’t have any. So instead, I sang. I had already recorded Weep with You, and I felt torn between the justice in silence and the need for lament in song. Release day would have been joyful for me, but how unfitting it would have been for me to be happy because I released a song of weeping. The joy was gone. Joy had no place.
The day I released the song, my dad got a message from his friend. This friend’s friend’s son had committed suicide that day.
I began to get a glimpse of my calling that day: I would write the sad songs, and I would not only write and sing them, but I would weep with the people listening, too. Let every day I sing my songs bring me to tears if it means that helps someone remember that Jesus weeps with them, as well. Grief is not to be taken lightly. God added tears to my raw song, and He showed me again that in my faithlessness, He is faithful.
Last week, I had an amazing time at camp. Every year, the Blue Ridge Mountains wait for me, singing the same song they’ve sung before. Every year, I bring different ears. Every year, different voices join in singing.
From the beginning of the week, I knew that there would be campers that I gravitated towards and campers that I didn’t. There would be moments when I would be the bigger person and give in, or play the child and argue. I would get annoyed and I would ignore my annoyance best I could. Still, I found myself struggling with judging people as worse than myself because of how they were different from me. If I had a fault, I gave a reason, and yet I could not seem to allow them to have excuses in my heart. I felt convicted as the speaker urged us again and again to be of one mine. How could we be of one mind if I was constantly looking down on those I should be looking at eye-to-eye?
The opening night of camp, we sang We Will Feast in the House of Zion. I sang without reading the lyrics, or thinking about them much. Throughout the week, we sang it more than we sang any other song. I sang harmony, I appreciated the music, but my thoughts wandered to the other people in the crowd.
Thursday night in cabin devotions, our counselors shared their stories of God’s faithfulness in their lives, and encouraged us to do the same. Unsuspecting, I wondered if I had anything I should say. Then one cabinmate told us her life’s story. It was hard, and sad, and heartbreaking. Surprised, I found myself crying. I thought I was stronger than that. This friend of mine had suffered, but she could still say that God was good? God, then, is strong. Another girl opened up, with another valiant attempt to speak over another choking sob to tell another difficult story. One by one, multiple of the girls in my cabin shared the darkest parts of their lives and themselves. I was amazed at how such sorrow could exist in the world. Not how could the tragedies could happen, but how incredibly sorrowful it is possible to be without breaking or being broken. There was so much hurting. We all cried, whether it was our trouble or another girl’s. I could never look at those girls the same way if I wanted to. God had drawn back the veil. Slowly, our well of pain and fear was covered once more, though still nobody trusted their voices to speak.
And then my counselor asked me if I would get out my guitar and lead us in a song of worship.
This is what happens, I thought, when you bring a guitar and a voice to camp. Oh, God, I need a strong voice… please don’t let it break.
I pulled out my guitar and my capo and pick, and suggested that we sing We Will Feast. It was the song that ached to be sung. It was unanimous.
We will feast in the house of Zion We will sing with our hearts restored "He has done great things," we will say together We will feast and weep no more ... In the dark of night before the dawn My soul, be not afraid For the promised morning, o how long? O God of Jacob, be my strength
Voices wove in and out; heads dropped down or rose. I kept praying that my voice wouldn’t crack. At some point, I had a feeling something like The Flash from L.M. Montgomery’s Emily books. The curtain was drawn aside, and I found my calling fleshed out in words:
To lead God’s weeping children in singing.
I knew who I was, but this is what I must do. I’ll sing and I’ll write and I’ll cry.
God gave me music and words. God showed me that He would use them even if I didn’t. When I wasn’t sure where I was going, He placed a visual order right in front of my eyes. We march onward to Zion, crying and singing.
Scavenging with urgency, gotta get the best for me Why am I in such a rush, I've already got too much I could die in just a blink, sippin' on my selfish drink It don't matter anyway, nothing here is here to stay Living for myself is no way to live at all Wake up one day, everybody's gone We already know the ending of the story We don't have to worry 'bout the little things Look out for your sisters, don't forget your brothers Gotta take care of each other
Sisters & Brothers by the Vespers (Sisters & Brothers, 2015)