Birthday Song

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I’ve been thinking about my life up to this point in time, and my life as it will be after this birthday.  The words that popped into my head today as I was thinking were from “Hallelujah,” written by Leonard Cohen: “Love is not a victory march; it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”  My life’s journey has certainly not been a victory march—it hasn’t been a linear journey from point A to point B.  The choices I made to cope with chronic pain, depression, and anxiety derailed me again and again on my journey.  I spiraled down into addiction and spent years feeling so broken that I didn’t think I would ever see or feel joy again.  Yet God met me in that dark and broken place, and He led me to today—about to celebrate another milestone in this life He so graciously redeemed for me.

I’ve been clean and sober for seven years, but that doesn’t mean that my life consists of days where I wake up and march victoriously through every moment until I go to sleep.  My days are filled with broken hallelujahs: with moments of pain so intense that all I can do is hold on and keep breathing.  With moments of beauty so awe-inspiring that every fiber of my being is filled with a hallelujah.  The moments of hallelujah make the other moments bearable.  So I choose to be grateful for ALL the moments.  I choose to look up, hold on, and listen to the One who redeemed me.  And right now, He’s whispering a reminder of an old, familiar refrain: “It is well; it is well with my soul.”  Tomorrow, when I blow out the candles on my birthday cake, I will say, “it is well.”  On days to come, I will remember “it is well.”  Through every rock bottom moment of brokenness, and through every height of hallelujah, I will know: it has been, it is, and it will be well.

Even So

—Renee Adele Phillips
with Horatio Spafford (“It Is Well”)

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
You know me, Lord—I crave peace.
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
But for so much of my life, I’ve felt like I’m drowning in pain.
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
Through the peace and the pain,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
I learned from You to say, “Even so, it is well.”

It is well
For this moment in time, I will say it,
With my soul,
and every fiber of my being will know peace.
It is well,
Tomorrow, I’ll say it again–no matter what–
it is well with my soul.
Until I mean it—even so, over and over again.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Even when pain floods me again and again,
Let this blest assurance control,
I believe that I can rest in Your love;
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
I know You see my fear and pain–
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
In Your pain, You rescued me—You saved my soul.

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
I think about my past, and I marvel,
My sin, not in part but the whole,
That You took all of its brokenness and left it at the cross;
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
The guilt and shame that weighed me down are gone,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
And in this new freedom, my soul sings hallelujah.

And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
Someday, I will know all of the answers,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
and all of the mysteries that cloud my faith will fall away.
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
I will see You face to face and know
Even so, it is well with my soul.
That all along, it had been well, with my soul.