What do umbrellas and songs have to do with each other? Thanks to Mary Poppins I barely have to explain…though I will!
I was praying the other day with a friend and I saw her getting lifted off the the ground by an umbrella. The Lord began to explain to me what He was doing with her, and it was both exciting and full of wonder. Every day since I have been seeing umbrellas everywhere; commercials, the back of a magazine, earrings at the checkout. I started to ask the Lord if this wasn’t just a singular picture to my friend but maybe a word for His body and after His smile and her agreement here we are.
I asked the Lord what He wanted to share about this picture that stirs up so much awe and I heard Him whisper for us to “pay attention to the songs in the night” (Job 35:10) and the other songs that are in repetition around us that are going to take us higher and let us see from His perspective.
That made so much sense to me becuase I was doing the dishes last week and a song came out of my mouth that I haven’t heard for at least several years and I knew it was God’s reminder to me of the things to come. Then I noticed a song my husband has been singing (that now my sweet daughter is also singing) from “The Five Stairsteps”- ooh child things are gona get easier…and when I asked him where he heard it, he answered with “it just kinda came out of me and now I can’t get it out of my head,” I wasn’t surprised. I’ve been paying more atttention to what I’m hearing in repetition around me, so by the third time I heard the same song when I got in my car I took notice…and I’m so glad that I did.
Umbrellas are symbolic to covering or protection, which I think is apt becuase for some of us these “songs in the night” are going to stir up hope for us in an actual night/dark time. For others the “songs in the night” will be literal and it’s a sweet thing to wake with a new note our spirit has picked up on while our mind is at rest. The verse God has put with me comes from the book of Judges out of “Deborah’s song” in chapter five. “Wake up, wake up, Deborah (insert your own name) and break out in song! Arise, O Barak!” Ok, wait for it..in the Hebrew the name Barak is “lightning.” Psalm 29:7 says “the voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightening.” There are other verses that also associate lightening with His presence. (1 Sam.22:13/ Ex.19:16/ Match.28:3 etc.) I have a strong sense that the Lord is using songs around us as His way to release and reveal His words to us. He stirs up and speaks in all kinds of creative ways (“For God does speak-now one way, now another, though man may not perceive it.” – Job 33:14). Let’s lean in this season and get caught up in what He is saying. Ask Him as David did, “put a new song in my mouth.” Psalm 40:3
-“for anything is possible..even the impossible is possible” (Mary Poppins and Jesus in the Gospels)
Letting hope arise, DeAnn Carpenter