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.
