Raise a Hallelujah

“Let the wilderness and its towns raise their voices; let the settlements where Kedar lives rejoice. Let the people of Sela sing for joy; let them shout from the mountaintops.”

Isaiah 42:11

For Month 6 of the Race, we were staying at Africa 4 Jesus in Lesotho. It’s a gorgeous campus with two gardens and a huge building that includes 6 bedrooms, a kitchen with a sitting area, a large porch, and a church sanctuary. It’s perched up on a hill that overlooks a beautiful valley with lush, green pastures and peaks upon peaks of mountains. The dirt roads, cow bells, and fields of wildflowers make it so easy to immerse yourself in the simple lifestyle.

It rains quite frequently here, at least 2 or 3 times a week. And when it rains, it pours. As soon as the first drops start to fall, we all scurry away to hide in our rooms or in the church. We bundle up in our thick blankets with a book and listen to the rain pelting down on the tin roofs. We’ve had some of the most magnificent storms here complete with unbelievable lightning, heavy rain for hours, and thunder that shakes the walls. It’s truly magical and humbling to get to experience a force of nature to this scale. It’s even more humbling when you’re trying to have a conversation in the middle of a storm.

Since we’re in a new team, we decided to once again share our testimonies so that we could get to know each other’s hearts. For our Team Times in the evenings, we each got a night to share our story. When my turn came, we made ourselves comfy in the church and I jumped in. I only got a few words in when we heard the first drops of rain hit the roof. Determined to keep going, I turned up the volume and kept talking. As the storm picked up, the rest of girls moved closer and closer until we were huddled in a tiny circle. Even with me yelling as loudly as I could, they still had to strain to hear what I was saying. It was actually really comical, and we laughed about it for days after. I jokingly asked God what His goal was with making me scream my testimony but didn’t think too much of it.

That is until it happened again. Cass and I put on a Beauty for Ashes event for our teams. All 11 of us gathered together in the church with some hot chocolate and blankets to do a forgiveness exercise. Cass and I gave short talks on forgiveness and then gave everyone time to pray through, journal about, and/or write a letter to someone they need to forgive. We joined our teams and began to work on our own letters. As we wrapped up and moved to the discussion part of the night, it began to rain. Yet again, we huddled together as closely as possible as the storm picked up. I decided to share first, which meant that once again I was screaming out all my feelings and struggles to be heard over the rain. As soon as I finished speaking, the rain eased up. The rest of my team still had to speak up to be heard, but I definitely got the brunt of the storm.

The next morning, I was genuinely curious if there was more to this that I had initially thought. I wanted to be careful that I wasn’t overspiritualizing something again like I did with the snails. However, I did find it interesting that the two times I had been most vulnerable this month had involved me screaming over a storm. During my time of silence with the Lord in the morning, I asked Him about it. He didn’t answer and turned my attention to something else. I figured that it was nothing but a coincidence and moved on. At 7:00am, I met up with Sav and Cass for our daily prayer time. Sav is one of our Prayer Warriors and organized a morning prayer time that everyone is welcome to come to. Each day has a different topic such as World Wednesday or Family Friday (SO CUTE!) and she always plays some soft worship music in the background.

As we started praying, the song “Raise A Hallelujah” began to play.

I raise a hallelujah, in the presence of my enemies

I raise a hallelujah, louder than the unbelief

I raise a hallelujah, my weapon is a melody

I raise a hallelujah, heaven comes to fight for me

I’m gonna sing, in the middle of the storm

Louder and louder, you’re gonna hear my praises roar

Up from the ashes, hope will arise

Death is defeated, the King is alive!

I raise a hallelujah, with everything inside of me

I raise a hallelujah, I will watch the darkness flee

I raise a hallelujah, in the middle of the mystery

I raise a hallelujah, fear you lost your hold on me

All the pieces fell together. Raising your voice and speaking God’s goodness out loud does something special. It’s different than meditating on what you’re thankful for or softly speaking it to a friend. There’s something empowering about shouting your story from the top of a mountain, over the rain. I realized that this was the first time I had been able to share my testimony without any tears or nerves. It was also the first time I had been able to talk about forgiveness without breaking down. Singing in the middle of a storm and letting your praises of His faithfulness grow louder and louder is truly something everyone needs to experience.

This is our last week in eSwatini which has been mind-blowingly amazing! Soon, we’ll be off to Rwanda for 8 weeks. Please keep praying for me as I continue to practice silence with the Lord and explore what it means to live in His abundance. He has been so sweet to me this month and I’m going to miss Manzini a lot.