Be Ye Glad

Last weekend, for the first time in a few months, my daughters who sing were together.  Although they all 5 can sing -- I will not be convinced otherwise -- only 3 of them will actually do it and/or profess to be any good at it.  Of course they are fabulous and should all be famous.  Not that I'm biased or anything.

So every time we're with the grandparents, they sing.  Awhile back, I asked them to learn a song, which they did, and then because they haven't done it in so long, they had forgotten most of it.  It's called "Be Ye Glad." The song is 20+ years old, and the only video I can find it the group from the '80's.

This song may be my favorite song ever.  It's because the words are so incredibly powerful; they move me to tears almost every time I hear it.  I would sing it with the girls, doing the bottom harmony, but I literally choke up every time I hear it -- every single time.  Maybe I could play it for them, but Jenna likes playing it so much I just hang back and listen.

It's the chorus that gets me -- "every debt that you ever had / has been paid up in full by the grace of the Lord / be ye glad, be ye glad, be ye glad."

Mom and I were talking after the girls went back upstairs, and I was saying how the girls really had no grasp of the power of those words.  Mom said "yep, they don't have enough debts behind them yet."  In their young lives, how true.  My Mom is so wise.

When my friend Gary was dying in a hospital room, the second verse kept coming to me.  But rather than quote it for you, I'll just put the song below and the words below that.  Close your eyes and listen --   I hope it moves you the way it has moved me.  Through my tears, it makes me glad.

BE YE GLAD

In these days of confused situations 
In this night of a restless remorse 
When the heart and the soul of a nation 
Lay wounded and cold as a corpse 
From the grave of the innocent Adam 
Comes a song bringing joy to the sad 
Oh, your cry has been heard, and the ransom 
Has been paid up in full, be ye glad 

Oh, be ye glad, oh, be ye glad 
Every debt that you ever had 
Has been paid up in full by the grace of the Lord 
Be ye glad, be ye glad -- be ye glad 

Now from your dungeon a rumor is stirring

You have heard it again and again 

Ah, but this time, the cell keys are turning

And outside there are faces of friends

And though your body lay weary from wasting

And your eyes show the sorrow they've had

Oh the love that your heart is now tasting

Has opened the gates -- be ye glad

So be like lights on the rim of the water 
Giving hope in a storm sea of night 
Be a refuge amidst the slaughter 
Of these fugitives in their flight 
For you are timeless and part of a puzzle 
You are winsome and young as a lad 
And there is no disease or no struggle that can pull you from God

 be ye glad 
 
(c) Michael K. Blanchard, ASCAP, Paragon Music Corp. 
Gotz Music & Diadem Sky, ASCAP