I wrote the song “Hold on, the Light will Come” in a dark hour. That may be why it means so very much to me. I had been working on a musical about Noah’s Ark and was trying to come up with the perfect song for Noah to sing to his family after it stopped raining. In my own life, it had been raining so long and so hard I didn’t know what to do. I tried to ignore it, hoping it would just go away, but it wouldn’t.
Someone told me once that heaven answers our prayers when the last amen is uttered. I felt like I was at a point where praying about a particular problem I was having was just plain stupid. I’d prayed it all a thousand times. If He wanted to answer me, He could. What was the point of making the same petition over and over and over again? Not knowing what else to do, however, I kept praying.
I looked for evidence that my requests were being heard. I looked everywhere and I looked long and hard. Nothing. I tried different approaches to my problems. Read the books, talked to the people, listened for wisdom, prayed at different times, in different places and in different ways, hoping that Heaven would open up and hear me. At last it came to a point where I just couldn’t do it anymore. I gave up. I made my giving up a formal thing. I announced, prayerfully, that I was no longer going to pray about this specific challenge THAT WAS KILLING ME, in case He hadn’t noticed, and that I wasn’t mad about the lack of response, though I had been before, I was just exhausted .
I didn’t feel any particular peace when my last amen was spoken, nor did I feel flooded with hope and reassurance. I was just done.
There’s a problem with “being done” with God, however, and that’s that He’s never done with you. While you’re busying your life with activity to fill the void He’s busy preparing you for the perfect moment in which He can manifest the very love you are denying by “being done”.
For me, it was a drive down the canyon. It was overcast, like my life, and an unusual melody started to fill my mind. At first, I could hear it, but couldn’t sing it back to myself. It was in a musical language I didn’t understand, but which was more moving than anything I’d ever heard with my ears alone. I wished I could translate it into a tune I could understand, but I didn’t have the skills.
“What is this? I love this. Why can’t I sing it?”
I felt a peaceful invitation to simply listen for awhile. I didn’t need to think about how I could translate it into a song. I just let it speak to my soul.
So I listened. The tune was accompanied by lyrics in yet another language I didn’t fully comprehend. It was a language of the heart and it pierced me to the very center. Whatever it was saying to me was beautiful, but I couldn’t share it with anyone, and I suppose I wasn’t supposed to.
I just listened.
I remember thinking how much I didn’t want to forget what I was experiencing, but I had no tools to remember this song, so I just tried to hold on to it …appreciate it…hear it…feel it…receive as much of it as I could, and trust that that was enough.
What I was desperately trying to hold on to was the hope that wherever this was that I was feeling, it was part of my answer. I remember saying “thank you” over and over again, in a whisper, as the song without comprehendable words or melody just filled me to overflowing.
When I got to my office, I sat at my piano and played the opening notes of a new song. It wasn’t the song I’d heard in my head. I couldn’t re-create that one if I tried. That one was way beyond my abilities. But what flowed from me was my song of gratitude. My humble effort to put into my musical and lyrical language the smallest part of what I’d been given.
The message of this moment is so clear
And as certain as the rising of the sun
When your world is filled with darkness, doubt or fear
Just hold on, hold on
The light will come
Everyone who’s ever tried and failed
Stands much taller when the victory’s won
And those who’ve been in darkness for awhile
Kneel much longer when
The light has come
It’s a message everyone of us must learn
That the answers never come without a fight
And when it seems you’ve struggled far too long
Just hold on, hold on
There will be light
Hold on, hold on, the light will come
Hold on, hold on, the light will come
If you feel trapped inside a never ending night
If you’ve forgotten how it feels to feel the light
If you’re half crazy thinking you’re the only one
Who’s afraid the light will never really come
Just hold on, hold on the light will come
The message of this moment is so clear
And as certain as the rising of the sun
When your world is filled with darkness, doubt or fear
Just hold on, hold on the light will come
A few years ago I had an opportunity to sing this song in New York City at a workshop for musicals I was invited to attend. Each night of the workshop writers would present portions of their musical and then have it critiqued by industry professionals. Broadway legends would listen to your songs and give feedback, is another way of explaining it. Basically, you got beat up by really smart people.
On one of the evenings I had a chance to share some songs from the show we were working on about Noah’s Ark. “Hold on, the Light will Come” was the last one I sang. Afterward everyone took a break before the second half of the workshop was to get underway. While I was milling around, trying to grab what looked like the most perfect oatmeal raisin cookie I’d ever seen, someone approached me.
“You don’t sing, do you?”
“No, not really. I think the idea was that tonight the writers would just share their work themselves.”
“Well, I’ve been to all the sessions of these workshops and usually we hear Broadway stars singing all these songs, but tonight…well, tonight you…you…You know, you really can’t sing.”
“I really heard you the first time.”
The awkwardness that I thought was the natural result of such New York bluntness ended up really being about something else entirely. This guy pulled me aside from the rest of the group so he could say something he didn’t really want anyone else to hear.
“Could you answer something for me?” he asked.
“I’ll try”
“Tell me, what was it I was feeling when you were singing that I wasn’t feeling when the real singers were feeling?”
His question was direct and sincere and didn’t seem to have any kind of hidden agenda. I wasn’t really sure how much of an answer he really wanted from me and I didn’t know how much I could share with him in that setting.
The Mormon in me wanted to say, “Well, I’ve got a couple of friends who’d like to come over to your house and talk about that feeling” but I didn’t. I just asked him what he thought it was, and he said he wasn’t really sure, but it felt like something. Then the crowd dynamic moved him away and we didn’t continue our conversation.
I wished there had been time for me to tell him that I think what he might have been feeling was that same thing I was feeling driving down that canyon…and those feelings weren’t from the song. They were from the Master Orchestrator of our lives, the Man With Many Names, the one who is the source of all light, all hope and all truth. And when He sends us those feelings, often when we’re listening to music, it’s to remind us that the greatest songs have yet to be written and the greatest melodies have yet to be heard. They’re out there waiting for us to listen closely enough to hear them. And once we’ve truly heard them, we can never be the same.
If you haven’t heard yours yet, hold on, the light will come. I don’t know where you’ll be or how you’ll hear it, or when you’ll feel it, but it will come. It has to come. In fact, in may already be there.
Just listen.
Listen to “Hold on the Light will Come”
