Songs of the Season: Breath of Heaven

Yesterday I was invited to pray at a holiday meal for the women who are a part of GLIDE's Women's Center. I looked at the faces of the women sitting around the table..women who were survivors of domestic violence, who were struggling with addictions, who were working hard to maintain sobriety, who knew homelessness, who resided on the margin's of society's vision, and my thoughts turned to another woman, long ago, who, although residing on the margins as well, took center stage.

I couldn't help but see Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the women who sat around the table.

Mary knew something about the trials and tribulations these women faced. She became pregnant before marriage and married a carpenter who must not have had a thriving business, because he couldn't buy or find he and his laboring wife a hotel room anywhere. Homeless, she would up giving birth in a barn, amongst the animals, their scent and stench filling the air.

With so much stacked against her, Mary opened herself up to God's possibilities. While she might have "won God's favor", as the scriptures put it, she didn't exactly win the favor of those around her. Folks surely talked, tried to overlook her swelling body and, eventually overlook her altogether.

Yet, this woman wound up birthing into the world something so unusual, so precious and blessed, that the world would never be the same again. Who could have imagined that Mary would bring forth the Savior of the world?

As I looked at these women, I wondered: What possibilities does God hold for them? What is it they are carrying, that the world desperately needs to have be born? What is theirs, and theirs alone to labor over? What hope for us all do they hold?

We are approaching Advent III, which is traditionally known as Mary's Sunday (the candle color even changes, from purple or blue to pink for this third Sunday). "Breath of Heaven" by Amy Grant isn't a congregational song. Yet it is one that I believe resonates within all of us, at one time or another. For we are all asked to carry God's yearning for the world in our lives. It is frightening, overwhelming. Yet, there is something precious within each of us, that yearns to be born. Can we, like Mary, open ourselves up to God's possibilities and bring forth God's blessing for our lives and world?

What are you carrying, that God is asking you to birth into our world?

I have traveled many moonless nights Cold and weary with a babe inside  

And I wonder what I've done Holy Father, You have come  

And chosen me now to carry Your Son
I am waiting in a silent prayer I am frightened by the load I bear 

In a world as cold as stone Must I walk this path alone? 

  Be with me now, be with me now

 
Breath of Heaven, hold me together Be forever near me, breath of Heaven  

Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness Pour over me Your holiness for You are holy  

Breath of Heaven

 
Do you wonder as you watch my face If a wiser one should have had my place? 

But I offer all I am For the mercy of Your plan  

Help me be strong, help me be, help me

 
Breath of Heaven, hold me together Be forever near me, breath of Heaven  

Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness Pour over me Your holiness for You are holy
Breath of Heaven, hold me together Be forever near me, breath of Heaven 

Breath of Heaven, lighten my darkness Pour over me Your holiness for You are holy  

Breath of Heaven, breath of Heaven  

Breath of Heaven