I’VE SUNG IN a choir much of my life, first as a child at Gladeville Presbyterian in Wise, Virginia, and for the last 30 years at Providence Presbyterian in West Columbia, SC, the congregation I joined when, newly divorced and suddenly a single mom, I took my broken heart (and my small daughter) back to church.

It has truly been one of the great joys of my life, singing in a choir. I am a second soprano and to be clear, I am nowhere near the singer one should be to sit among those in a very fine choir. But thanks to my years with Lucian Priode and the J. J. Kelly High School band, I can read music, and I do believe I can carry a reasonable tune. And when you attend a small church, there are many wonderful things, not the least of which is the fact there’s generally an open and welcome spot for anyone who cares to volunteer.

WHICH BRINGS ME to the point that for a couple of months now, our choir has been practicing for our Christmas Cantata. We’ll sing this during regular services on Sunday, December 14, and this year’s piece is Light in the Manger, a collection I love—moody, emotional, and just challenging enough to keep the seven of us who comprise our 2025 Providence choir joyfully engaged. (There are usually eight of us but sweet Michaela and her husband welcomed baby Benji just two days ago!!) Our beautiful, faithful director, Donna, has been not only our steady leader through all these rehearsals, but also our cheerleader, and she never fails to layer into her gentle comments a soft, wonderful, almost unnoticable and still deeply meaningful bit of ministering. I leave every rehearsal restored.

All of which is to say in this particular program there is a line that absolutely gets me every time. It’s in the song “A Promise Now Fulfilled” by Nancy Kurzweg and Mark Shepperd, and the lyrics are these:

A night like any other,
A sparkling star-filled sky,
Moonlight glazed the hillsides,
And shepherds lay nearby.
A night like any other,
The world sleeps unaware,
While hosts of heaven’s angels
Are winging through the air.

Isn’t that just beautiful? Can’t you just picture the scene? I mean, the world asleep and shepherds under the starry sky and hosts of angels (all the while) up there winging about. There’s a very short interlude—just a couple of measures—then this, with a dynamic change to forte and the note “A little faster, with excitement” (and my heart responds in kind):

Can you feel the ex-pec-ta-tion?

That incredible line is marked just that way, with all the dashes, and we sing it just like that and then the song goes on:

All creation hushed in awe.

(crescendo)

Behold

behold

the revelation

of the greatest gift of all!

(key change; brief interlude then pp)

A mother’s gentle humming,
An infant’s cry is stilled.
Wonder of all wonders,
A promise now fulfilled.

A promise now fulfilled.

I hope you do feel the expectation, just as I do. I pray you sense the angels and feel their joy as they wing in the air above us, filling the heavens with promise. May their joy be your joy! May your heart be full and light! Wonder of all wonders, how blessed we are, in our day and age, to know—to already know—the Christ Child is coming. The Christ Child will come!

XXOO

30 Days of Joy

---