This morning for the closing of the Sunday morning service – otherwise called “the meeting”, we sang the song, “There is Sunshine in my soul today”. The SA songbook has three verses though I note from my search that the author, Eliza Edmunds Hewitt, wrote four verses. She wrote many poems and many were set to music. Clearly, she was not a composer but did write poetry.

This poem, set to a very happy and uplifting tune certainly sets the mood for skipping out of “the meeting” at the end thinking about all the good of Jesus in our lives. I don’t always think these are great songs – well most of the time life is not about happiness, about skipping up the aisle, or believing that life is all sunshine!

That’s when I noticed the last two lines of the second verse. I think I should give you the full song first…

There is sunshine in my soul today,
  More glorious and bright
Than glows in any earthly sky,
  For Jesus is my light

There is music in my soul today,
  A carol to my King;
And Jesus, listening, can hear
  The songs I cannot sing.

There is gladness in my soul today,
  And hope, and praise, and love,
For blessings which He gives me now,
  For joys laid up above.

As we sang I couldn’t help but note these words: “And Jesus, listening, can hear
The song I cannot sing.”

I wondered what the author had in mind… the songs I cannot sing. There are times when the events of life are so difficult that we feel too wounded to really be able to sing anything. Yet, Jesus knows our hearts and he knows the deepness of our wounds. He knows our hearts and he knows what we would sing if we could – that’s how I read the song.

Doesn’t it remind you of Paul’s words; “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.” Romans 8:26

Yes there are times in our lives when only God knows what is really in our hearts.