Arise, My Love

So last week I mentioned that I was going to post "my favorite thing I've ever written" here once it was done... and it is! And I'm really excited to share it with you!

To make a long story as short as possible, I have a very dear friend who's just been in one of those "valley" seasons in her life. One day about two weeks ago she was just really heavy on my heart, and I had been praying for her all morning. I was driving to class that morning just declaring freedom over her life, and telling God how much I hurt when she's hurting, and how I can’t wait to be “on the mountain” with her when she gets there, to rejoice with her, and just soak up all of God’s goodness. And what I learned that morning is that God feels the same way... He told me so!

So I sat down in class that morning, and it was one of those moments when God just started speaking. So I started writing down what I was seeing/hearing in my mind. (And now I sound like my aunt Karen, the schizophrenic) Don’t worry, it was the Spirit — I promise. Ha. Song of Songs 2:10-13 came to mind, which says this:

10 My beloved spoke and said to me,

“Arise, my darling,

my beautiful one, come with me.

11 See! The winter is past;

the rains are over and gone.

12 Flowers appear on the earth;

the season of singing has come,

the cooing of doves

is heard in our land.

13 The fig tree forms its early fruit;

the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

Arise, come, my darling;

my beautiful one, come with me.”

I just love the idea of God inviting us to come away with him … the idea of him wanting to take us on a little adventure and show us something new. I love that those verses talk about winter ending and rain stopping, and flowers blooming and birds singing… it’s God telling us that spring is coming. And he wants us to be a part of it.

I’ve honestly never experienced God’s presence quite like I did that morning, in Communications Law & Ethics class, of all places. He just kind of started painting this picture in my mind, and I wrote it down as he did ... And it came out in the form of lyrics. So I gave them to my friend Noland and he’s been working on it, and he and our other friend Brandon finished recording it last night. It turned out beautiful!

The best part about all of this was getting to give it to the person it was written for last night. It was probably one of the top 5 sweetest moments of my whole life. To see her in tears because of her hope being restored by the words of this song was absolutely incredible. It was so humbling and so encouraging, that God would speak to me so that I could speak — or sing — encouragement into the lives of others.

My hope and prayer for this song was to encourage someone who's struggling... to reassure them that spring is coming... and I hope that if you find yourself in a similar season of your life, these words would speak to your heart and give you a hope and a joy in the promise that God is bringing you towards better days. That they wouldn't just be words that I wrote coming out of Noland Gilmore's mouth, but that you would hear a sweet invitation from your Heavenly Father to just come and be with him.

So here it is: "Arise, My Love"