Don’t You Want to Thank Someone For This?

Life has been more than a little intense/crazy/full lately. We’ve had a teeny, tiny foster baby in our home for just over a month, and somehow late September and October’s calendar got cram-jam packed with events and hosting people for meals and going places and and and.

I’ve barely had a moment to myself, and haven’t been doing a good job of staying in the Word in this time when I so very desperately need Jesus to help me carry on. In this place of my own slackness, God has used music, mostly from Andrew Peterson, to speak to my heart and bring His truth to my fraying at the edges heart/mind.

About three weeks ago, I was particularly weary of soul. As I walked down the stairs to move the laundry over, with a tiny dirty diaper in my hand, I saw my husband reading to our younger two on our bed. It was a sweet moment, and something touched my heart – a deep gratitude welled up and I had lyrics from “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone” dance through my head. I sank to the step, tears falling, and just thanked the Lord Jesus for all the things. All the hard, all the good, all the sweet, all the bitter that is makes up this season in my life.

There’s so much that’s broken here – I wouldn’t be a foster mom if it wasn’t broken. Babies are supposed to live with the mamas that gave birth to them. We wouldn’t be adopting from a hurting country like Haiti where so many parents can’t even afford to feed their kids, if the world was as it should be. As it will be someday.

But then there are moments that just take my breath away with beauty and love and light. When the baby smiles in her sleep, or when the chubby cub of an almost two year-old leans in for a hug and a slobbery kiss. Or when the sassy little four year old girl in my house tells me, “Mom, I just want to be with you.” And the time my big, almost-grown-up boy climbs up onto the couch and snuggles in as close as he can for the few short minutes before breakfast must be eaten and lunches made for school and clothes put on and the van loaded with all the small people in our house and he’s dropped off for another day of school.

  
I want to thank someone. And I know Who to thank. Jesus, thank you. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for your redemptive work that is taking place. Thank you for making all things new again someday when you return. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come soon. Hallelujah.

Can’t you feel it in your bones
Something isn’t right here
Something that you’ve always known
But you don’t know why

‘Cause every time the sun goes down
We face another night here
Waiting for the world to spin around
Just to survive

But when you see the morning sun
Burning through a silver mist
Don’t you want to thank someone?
Don’t you want to thank someone for this?

Don’t you ever wonder why
In spite of all that’s wrong here
There’s still so much that goes so right
And beauty abounds?

‘Cause sometimes when you walk outside
The air is full of song here
The thunder rolls and the baby sighs
And the rain comes down

And when you see the spring has come
And it warms you like a mother’s kiss
Don’t you want to thank someone?
Don’t you want to thank someone for this?

I used to be a little boy
As golden as a sunrise
Breaking over Illinois
When the corn was tall

Yeah, but every little boy grows up
And he’s haunted by the heart that died
Longing for the world that was
Before the Fall

Oh, but then forgiveness comes
A grace that I cannot resist
And I just want to thank someone
I just want to thank someone for this

Now I can see the world is charged
It’s glimmering with promises
Written in a script of stars
Dripping from prophets’ lips

But still, my thirst is never slaked
I am hounded by a restlessness
Eaten by this endless ache
But still I will give thanks for this

‘Cause I can see it in the seas of wheat
I can feel it when the horses run
It’s howling in the snowy peaks
It’s blazing in the midnight sun

Just behind a veil of wind
A million angels waiting in the wings
A swirling storm of cherubim
Making ready for the Reckoning

Oh, how long, how long?
Oh, sing on, sing on

And when the world is new again
And the children of the King
Are ancient in their youth again
Maybe it’s a better thing
A better thing

To be more than merely innocent
But to be broken then redeemed by love
Maybe this old world is bent
But it’s waking up
And I’m waking up

‘Cause I can hear the voice of one
He’s crying in the wilderness
“Make ready for the Kingdom Come”
Don’t you want to thank someone for this?

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallalujah! Hallelujah!
Come back soon
Come back soon