As I was preparing for the NEXT conference a few weeks ago, I had an ongoing impression that God wanted to minister through a prophetic song to attendees who had lost one or both parents unexpectedly. I wasn’t aware that two of the testimonies that were going to be shared at the conference referenced parents who had died recently. In any case, I ended up sharing a spontaneous song on Sunday night when I was leading corporate worship with Generation Letter.
A number of people said the song encouraged them and have asked for a copy of it. You can download the audio by right-clicking here. You can also listen to it here:
[audio:https://worshipmatter1.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/those_who_have_lost_parents1.mp3|titles=those_who_have_lost_parents]I’ve posted the lyrics below.
No longer a hand to hold you
No longer those eyes to look to
Looking back at you
Telling you “I love you”
Or maybe you never knew them
They were gone before you were born
And you’ve lived all your life
Wondering what went wrong
Well maybe in the night
As you lie on your bed
You cry out, “Why did they have to die?
I want to know the reason why
Because it hurts
The pain is deep inside me.”
There are times and there are seasons
And everything I do is for a reason
And the loss you feel right now will fade one day
When you stand before me and see my face
And I want you to know
I have seen your tears
And you have a place to go
For I am always near you
Saying, “Trust in me again.
I am faithful to the end.”
And though you wonder
If it could have been different
My plans are always good for you
I know just what to do
For you
And I am your Father
Who cares for you each day
I always have my way
And my ways are good and wise
And I am your Father
Holding you each day
I never let you go out of my sight
And the loss you feel
One day you will see
That I had planned it
To draw you close to me.
I lost my dad 23 years ago (he was 44 and I was 25), and 3 years ago I lost my husband (age 38) who was the father of our 3 children. I have often wondered if there was a curse on me. Thanks so much for sharing this. It was very encouraging.
God sure knows how to encourage us, heal us, and draw us close. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Thank God for His timeless words of encouragement.
How precious the voice of God is to us in times of pain or suffering loss like this. I just laid my mother to rest and now both my parents are with the Lord in heaven. I thought of all the younger folks who may have been at next 2011 and how refreshing this song must have been to them. I realized that this song was also for me. Thank you Lord for your reasons and for your purposes. And thank you Bob for this gift.
Thank you so much for posting this. My sister sent me the link and I am incredibly thankful. Both our mother and father died suddenly when I was a teenager about 13 years ago. This song seems to have broken down a part of my heart that has built up against God forgetting that He does want our hearts and He does love us. I know that, but sometimes my heart forgets. How easily I forget His love and grace! Thank you for ministering to me and my family.
Thanks for sharing this, Bob. Hearing this at NEXT was a wonderful time of the Lord’s ministry in my heart, and hearing it again is both saddening and refreshing. My mother died of an undetected cancer in her brain when I was six years old, and though it’s been thirteen years and though God has blessed me with a wonderful and Godly step-mother, there has been a residual doubt of God’s goodness in my heart ever since. I usually don’t cry, but when I heard this in Orlando, I was bawling. Thank you for being sensitive to the Spirit’s working!