A Teenager's Lullaby

Rachel Yorty

Professor Danley

English 1100

9 June 2016

A Teenager’s Lullaby

Remember that lullaby your mother would sing to you right before you fell asleep? As a little child, you would squirm into bed and the song she sang would comfort you and would allow you a restful sleep. The soothing lyrics laid rest to your heart and encouraged peaceful dreams. Likewise, the song “Be Still, My Soul” soothed, comforted, and encouraged me and an entire group of teenagers to rest in God alone during a trying time for us.

I belonged to a youth group in Calvary Bible Church. This particular Sunday, instead of Sunday school, a meeting with the youth group and their parents had been called together by the youth pastor, Hunter Sipe.

I grabbed my coffee from the kitchen where my dad made complimentary coffee for the church. I made my way through the hallway to the fireplace room. It looked as it always did with multiple, white folding chairs facing a small pulpit.

I took a seat next to Hunter’s wife, Nikki Sipe, while the smell of my warm cup of caffeinated goodness wafted into my nose. As usual, she greeted me with a smile. Other familiar people started to trickle into the room. As Nikki and I spoke, Hunter took the pulpit. Talking died down. No one really knew what this meeting was about. At the dinner table the other night, my parents had speculated what it was about. They thought that perhaps Hunter and Nikki were moving away.

I dearly hoped that they were wrong. See, Hunter and Nikki had been at our church for five years and we had grown fond of them. They came to attend our church and become the youth pastor back when I had first entered the youth group. Back then, there were only six youth members, two of which were my siblings. From then on, the youth group grew in size and grew in our relationship with God and others.

This was why I didn’t want them to go. Hunter and Nikki had become great friends to me and I didn’t want to lose that. However, as Hunter began to speak, I could tell by the careful words he was choosing what direction it was going.

He spoke for about ten minutes – what he said, though, I’m not sure – before stating the purpose for the meeting. “I’m taking a job to pastor a youth group in Greenville, South Carolina,” he said.

My heart fell. Hunter and Nikki had come to help spiritually guide the church’s youth group when I had first entered it. Now that I was graduating from the youth group come summer, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to see them as much. However, I never thought that they would leave and I wouldn’t see them at all.

Yet, I understood. While it was sad that they were leaving, Hunter had only been a youth pastor here in preparation to go elsewhere. My youth group had become comfortable, and perhaps Hunter and Nikki leaving was the shaking awake that we needed.

He preceded to tell us how this had come about. The church in Greenville had needed a youth pastor for about two years now. The pastor at the church had hinted that they would like Hunter to be the next youth pastor. He replied that he would pray about it, saying that he was comfortable where he was. Pray he did, and another youth pastor was hired there. This other youth pastor didn’t stay there long, though. Hunter then accepted the position.

Sniffles were heard and tissues were passed around. Nikki dabbed at the tears in her eyes. While hearing this was hard on us teenagers, it was more difficult for them to move and leave everything they knew behind.

Hunter finished by praying and having us sing a song. This was an old, familiar hymn to all of us, but there was an added chorus that none of us had heard before by Kari Jobe. The verses seem to lead up to the chorus, though they were written in a different time period. The old, familiar verses implored our souls to know that “He says, ‘be still, and know that I am God’” (Psalm 46:10). The lyrics reminded us that “in every change, He faithful will remain.” Even though we don’t know what God has in store for us, He “undertakes to guide the future as he has the past.”

All this led up to the chorus which we sang with all our might. Because of what the verses said and because we knew that God was in control, we sang out, “In You I rest. In You I found my hope. In You I trust. You never let me go. I place my life within your hands alone.” The chorus finished by, once again, imploring our souls to be still.

The room fell quiet. There was nothing else that needed to be said. Those of us that were in choir hurried away so that we wouldn’t be late. Without knowing it then, that hymn had become a theme song for our youth group from then on.

That Wednesday night, the youth group met as usual in the coach room. I took a seat on one of the many mismatched couches and started to talk with one of the other girls. The room buzzed with conversation over school assignments or simply catching up with one another. Our time together started with prayer and singing.

“Any testimonies?” Hunter asked. When no one answered, he asked, “Any songamonies?” This was a made-up word that we used to express a testimony by picking a song for the group to sing.

A boy on the other end of the room raised his hand. “Could we sing ‘Be Still, My Soul’?”

From then on, every time a ‘songamony’ was asked for, one of the boys would always pick “Be Still, My Soul.”

When it was time for Hunter and Nikki’s last Sunday with us, we held a church-wide goodbye party. During this, the youth group got up to sing. We awkwardly filled up the front in true youth group fashion. As we did so, there were whispers of, “What song are we singing?” No one seemed to know.

“Be Still, My Soul,” I said, “We all know that one.”

So we shared the song with the entire church.  That song had become a comforting lullaby to us. Even though friends come and go, the song “Be Still, My Soul” reminds me that God will always be there and that I can rest in him. Even the next day when I helped Hunter and Nikki move out of their house, I was comforted knowing that I would never be alone.

“Be Still, My Soul” contained the message that Calvary Bible Church’s youth group wanted to live for and share. Though there are trials in this life and hard times fall upon us, God assures those who love him will have a joyful end. “Be Still, My Soul” was presented to me and my youth group at God’s perfect timing. I will never forget this song and what it means to both me and a large group of teenagers.