One of my favorite songs by Bill Gaither is “Then Came the Morning.”

There is something so moving about the words to this song and the promise that we have in His resurrection.

The first verse has these lyrics

They all walked away, with nothing to say,

They’d just lost their dearest friend.

All that He said, now He was dead,

So this was the way it would end.

The dreams they had dreamed were not what they’d seemed,

Now that He was dead and gone.

The garden, the jail, the hammer, the nail,

How could a night be so long. 

This is sometimes how we feel during so many low points in our lives. Our life is not going the way we want it. Our family may not understand us, our kids are doing things we do not approve of, our job is going badly, and life overall seems to be a pile of bad stuff. We may feel abandoned by those who once were closest to us, we feel like we are all alone in the world. We feel like life is not even worth living anymore.

Many times we may even feel abandoned by God also. We cannot feel His spirit in our lives. During times like these the devil himself tries to move in and fill our lives with his deceit as well.

If we do not make room in our busy lives for God, Satan will find his way to get in someway. Just like a mouse can get in through the smallest hole, Satan can ease in and sometimes we do not even realize he has set up shop.

But then here comes the chorus:

Then came the morning, night turned into day;

The stone was rolled away, hope rose with the dawn.

Then came the morning, shadows vanished before the sun,

Death had lost and life had won, for morning had come. 

Just as we feel that we can’t go any further, just as He did on that first Easter morning, Jesus pulls us close to him and we can feel the light of His love in our lives. The hope that we thought was gone shines brightly again. We have the reminder that no matter how low we may go, we are never alone. He will always be there, no matter what situations we face in life, because of His death and resurrection we have won the battle. The winning may not come on this side of eternity, but the price has been paid and victory has been declared.

During our darkest times in life, all we have to do is look towards Him, call on His name, and believe, seeking the new day He offers, with the morning lit by His love.

Neither suffering nor death will separate us from the love He has for us. The stones that we carried have been rolled away, just like the stone that covered the tomb where his body lay. We have that assurance that through our darkest times He has conquered all the world can throw at us.

Randy Garrison is the president and publisher of the Hartselle Enquirer.