Songs for Mourning with Hope

I grew up in a home full of music. My dad introduced us to classic rock during solo car rides with him. My mom played guitar for church and for fun. She was always singing and listening to contemporary Christian radio, cassette tapes or CDs, and Christian concerts. My siblings and I learned to love music along with her. We all sang in our church's children's choir and joined our school's band. My sister and I got hooked on country music for a while, and she made sure I was also aware of Hanson, N'Sync, and the Backstreet Boys. One of my brothers is a middle school and high school band director, and the other brother met his musician fiance while drumming for her at a retreat. It is no wonder then that God has used music to speak truth to me, to guide me in my grief, and to give me hope. 

I am pretty sure my dad's younger sisters are letting me
check out their music in this picture. 

Here is a list of four songs that were crucial to me right after Oliver died and remain on my playlist: 

Weep with Me - Rend Collective

I love all things Rend Collective. This song is a lament and was written after a suicide bomb attack at a concert in Manchester in 2017. Openthebible.org defines lament as: "a prayer expressing sorrow, pain, or confusion" [1]. The song is a call to weep, to reach out to God and find that He weeps with us, and to take our questions and doubts to God. I had a hard time picking just one or two lines from the song to share here because each lyric is carefully crafted and worthy of reflection. Most hopeful to me was:

Turn my lament into a love song
From this lament raise up in anthem

Red Sea Road - Ellie Holcomb

I was first introduced to this song during a different season of grief, which I hope to write about soon. Its words remained a comfort and reminder after Oliver passed away: God is with us, He calls us to do hard things, and He always makes a way. It is a song of hope that deeply acknowledges the suffering we all experience as we journey through life.

We will sing, to our souls
We won't bury our hope
Where He leads us to go
There's a red sea road
When we can't, see the way
He will part the waves
And we'll never walk alone
Down a red sea road

One Day (When We All Get to Heaven) - Matt Redmond

This song is a great reminder of the specific, Biblical promises we have to look forward to when Jesus comes to take us all home. Grief has a way of increasing our longing for heaven, and this song highlights all the things we long for. The verses full of God's promises are combined with a chorus from the hymn "When We All Get to Heaven".

One day You'll make sense of it all, Jesus
One day every question resolved
Every anxious thought left behind
No more fear
When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We'll sing and shout the victory

Psalm 62 (My Soul Finds Rest in God Alone) - Aaron Keys and Stuart Townsend

I believe I first heard this song at church while we were stationed in Kansas three years before Oliver passed away. The song (and the psalm it is based on) remind us to cling to God during hard times. One line in particular stood out to me after Oliver died and is related to the verses this blog is named after:

The fields of hope
In which I sow
Are harvested in heaven


Which songs do you come back to again and again during times of suffering? I'd love to add them to my playlist!


[1] https://openthebible.org/article/biblical-lament-what-it-is-and-how-to-do-it/#:~:text=A%20lament%20is%20a%20prayer,side%2C%20lament%20can%20be%20jarring.