The Blessing of Darkness – Nighttime, part 7 of 8

So, I bring you back to this theme of The Blessing of Darkness. I think it is fitting as I come closer to the end of this series to include another of Mrs. Cowan’s entry in Streams.

I would like to note here that the last time I read Streams was when I was single in 1999 during a 5-month revival period. Today, as I read this book aloud with my husband during our devotional time, I comment to him what I underlined then, including exclamation points, bracketed paragraphs, smiley and frown faces, and personal written comments in the margins. It was a hard time then and yet, also one of great discovery with the Lord. I smile now in comparison to the current “hard.” 😊 The Lord has brought me so far.

All glory be to His name!!

I took the liberty of mixing up the order of paragraphs, but not the content of what Mrs. Cowan said.

Streams:

“I call to remembrance my song in the night.” (Psalm 77:6)

Indeed, it is extremely doubtful if a soul can really know the love of God in its richness and in its comforting, satisfying completeness until the skies are black and lowering.

Light comes out of darkness, morning out of the womb of the night.

James Creelman, in one of his letters, describes his trip through the Balkan States in search of Natalie, the exiled Queen of Serbia.  “In that memorable journey,” he says, “I learned for the first time the world’s supply of attar of roses comes from the Balkan Mountains. And the thing that interested me most,” he goes on, “is that the roses must be gathered in the darkest hours. The pickers start out at one o’clock and finish picking them at two. . . “actual scientific tests had proven that fully forty per cent of the fragrance of roses disappeared in the light of day.”

Mrs. Cowan

(not the attar roses, but still pretty!😄)

Photo by Asad Nazir on Pexels.com

I believe I found the original of another story related in Streams by Mrs. Cowman in the Google book Record of Christian Work Volume 19. Editors Alexander McConnell, ‎William Revell Moody, ‎Arthur Percy Fitt – published 1900, Words of Comfort:

“A writer tells of a little bird which would not learn to sing the song its master would have it sing while its cage was full of light. It listened and learned a snatch of this a trill of that, a polyglot of all the songs of the grove, but never a separate and entire melody of its own. Then the master covered its cage and made it dark; and then it listened and listened to the one song it was to sing, and tried and tried and tried again until at last its heart was full of it.  Then, when it had caught the melody while its cage was uncovered it sang the song sweetly ever after in the light.” (emphasis mine)

Photo by Charles Postiaux on Unsplash

My college choir sang a version of My Song in the Night years ago based upon the same verse in the Streams devotional. Of course, that morning memories came flooding in, which made me nostalgic. I’ve said a few times that life was so much easier when I was single! 😊

“My Song in The Night”

O Jesus my Savior, my song in the night,
Come to us with Thy tender love,
my soul’s delight.
Unto Thee, O Lord, in affliction I call,
My comfort by day, and my song in the night.

O why should I wander, an alien from Thee,
Or cry in the desert Thy face to see?
My comfort and joy, my soul’s delight,
O Jesus my Savior, my song in the night.

My song in the night, my song in the night,
in the night, in the night, in the night.

O Jesus my Savior, my song in the night.
Come to us with Thy tender love,
my soul’s delight.
My comfort and joy, my soul’s delight,
O Jesus my Savior, my song in the night.

My song my song in the night,
in the night, my song
My comfort and joy, my soul’s delight.
O Jesus my savior, my song in the night,
in the night. My song in the night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j86LlxBVwl8 (This was the arrangement I sang in college by Paul Christiansen)

Another version produced by my alma mater which I just discovered is touching also, but in my opinion not as picturesque as the above as to sentiment of feeling the melody and chords produce:

My Song in the Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcfM8xGO6II

Each one of the struggles has been present to some degree during my life, but during this period the Lord allowed them all to come crashing in to produce this dark night of my soul.  I promised myself when the vision for this blog was born that I wouldn’t write anything that I didn’t believe was from Him. I take it very seriously. Hence, the delay as I worked out my “salvation with fear and trembling” – Philippians 2:12. Others have experienced far more trials than I, but in all of us, darkness works in the heart and soul of a yielded vessel the MOST PERFECT LIGHT!

In life’s dark, difficult places we can release ourselves into the care of our Sweet Heavenly Father Who knows what He is doing. Ours is simply to trust and obey.

My prayer: Lord, You are unfailingly faithful to me. Your steadfast love never ceases. Thank you for these hurtful times, Lord.  Day by day restore the joy – in You, and You alone, so that I may sing the only melody you created for me to sing!!

I am your fuzzybunny