Music is just one of the many ways God speaks to me. It’s in music that He touches me the deepest. In those lyrics, My Father reveals His love, desire, and message for my understanding.
I guess in songs my mind and spirit become more open, so He uses that a lot.
I was listening to Carol King on a Pandora radio station when the Simon and Garfunkel song came on. The song was “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and it was a song I thought I knew, however, God began to speak to me about the deeper meaning of the lyrics.
The song began and I started to get the download. I could feel the great love being released in each note. The lyrics were weaving a story that was speaking to the depths of my soul. It was a love song that was being sung for my heart to receive.
The lyrics so beautifully were written by Paul Simon for Art Garfunkel and came from two lines of a gospel hymn. Paul wrote it after the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Racial tensions were high when he penned it in the spring of 1969. He was looking over the Hudson River in NYC when he started singing “When you’re weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all. ”
Immediately I began sobbing as the words continued saying, “I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough And friends just can’t be found. Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.” I could feel the love of a friend trying to send hope and comfort through the song.
I knew that feeling and felt all the emotions that make a person believe that they just can’t go any further. I began to reflect on that hopelessness and weariness I had as the storms of life came. It was like they were pounding in a never-ending assault on my heart, mind, and emotions. The tears continued as these memories began flooding my mind. All the losses, rejection, abandonment, anger, fear, depression, and loneliness were rising back up from the aftermaths of each storm that I had gone through.
The song continues “When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you (ooo).
I’ll take your part, oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down”
I was a puddle of tears as I listened to the last note. I knew that God was showing me how He was there through it all.
I started to see the bigger picture as the song came to a close. The song was about Jesus and His great love for us. How He has been in each storm and I never went through any of them alone.
It was then that The Lord started to show me a vision of Jesus wiping all the tears that fell from my eyes during those hard times.
I could see the times when I couldn’t stand that Jesus held me up. His hand wrapped lovingly around my waist as I received terrible news. How He walked with me on the beach as I cried out for the unfairness of a situation. Jesus just laid in bed with me as tears of rejection and abandonment consumed my every breath.
He reminded me of all those situations where God sent Jesus who could hold me and comfort me. His love was so great for me and then I saw Jesus laying Himself down for me to cross over the storms. I then saw myself on the other side of those storms whole, restored, rejuvenated, and healed.
The same scene shifted and instantly it wasn’t Jesus laying down, but a friend that loved me. Each of those same memories was replaced by the different people in my life that helped me through those hard times. The friends who held me or cried with me. The ones who spoke life back into my feelings of hopelessness. My friends spoke the truth about the lies of a terrible situation. The friends who laid down their time for me so that I could walk over and out of the storm.
It was Jesus all the time in the spiritual realm, but it was my family and friends that God used in the natural. Here on earth, it’s people God uses. We are the arms that hug and hold people together. The fingers wipe the tears and grab the other’s persons hands. We’re all an extension of the body of Jesus that can representation of Him.
We are called to love and to be loved. Jesus showed us how we are to love, by laying down His life He made a bridge for humanity to cross over into The Father’s arms.
Each day we have that same opportunity although we don’t have to die but to put away our needs for the needs of others. We can be that bridge to help a friend get to the other side of their pain, hurt, loss, rejection, or struggle. We can help to close the gaps that life can bring. It’s in our willingness to lay down ourselves for a friend that we can be like Jesus.