![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/121\/2013\/09\/SarahHart-4.png\" "\\"SarahHart-4\\"")
<\/a>\u201cI asked you for the light. You gave me a long dark night.\u201d<\/p>\nGrammy nominated singer-songwriter Sarah Hart<\/a> penned those lyrics to God during the anger phase of a \u201cdownward spiral through grief\u201d that began with the death of her beloved grandfather. Though Sarah was and remains Catholic, that alone didn\u2019t lessen the pain she was enduring. <\/p>\n During an interview on \u201cChristopher Closeup\u201d about her most personal and moving album to date, \u201cAbove Earth\u2019s Lamentation<\/a>,\u201d she revealed, \u201cI\u2019m not ashamed to say I was very angry at God, and I really wrestled with Him. I wondered, \u2018How could you let this happen? Why? Did you forget us?\u2019 It\u2019s a very honest lyric. So many people, though, relate to that song. I have gotten a lot of feedback, and that\u2019s the song people feel attached to.\u201d<\/p>\n The Soundtrack Through Grief<\/strong><\/p>\n While there\u2019s plenty of literature on grief, Sarah looked for solace in music because it touches her on a deeper level. Unfortunately, she couldn\u2019t find anything appropriate outside of classical music, so she reviewed the songwriting she did during her own struggles and found they all dealt with exactly that topic. She made \u201cAbove Earth\u2019s Lamentation\u201d to be a healing blessing to everyone walking through grief now and in the future. <\/p>\n One of the album\u2019s greatest strengths is that it doesn\u2019t put the false veneer of a happy face on grief. Sarah explained that was a conscious choice: \u201cSometimes when people are walking through grief \u2013 and it can be grief of anything: addiction or divorce or death \u2013 and I think a lot of times our Christian answer is to put our arms around someone and say, \u2018It\u2019s gonna be okay. Now get over it.\u2019 In truth, these are big, gaping wounds that, if we are believers or not, still take so much time to heal. The healing is faster when we know God and cling to Him, that\u2019s for sure. But it doesn\u2019t change the fact that walking through it is going to be the same. I look at it like a valley, where you cannot go around it; you have to go through it. It\u2019s just a matter of how long you\u2019re going to stand on that cliff before you walk through it.\u201d<\/p>\n Love\u2019s Burden and Mercy\u2019s Refining<\/strong><\/p>\n That walk will be painful, as Sarah sings about in \u201cThis Is Not Forever,\u201d whose lyrics include the lines \u201cEvery burden love has given will be beautiful in time again\u201d and \u201cI will walk through mercy\u2019s refining until the day I see the silver lining.\u201d We generally think of love and mercy as feeling good, but Sarah acknowledges they bring \u201cburdens\u201d and \u201crefining.\u201d Why?<\/p>\n She explained, \u201cThat\u2019s something Ecclesiastes says \u2013 that the beautiful burden is from God. And the mercy we experience is through the lens of understanding God\u2019s mercy for us. It really is a beautiful thing and a burdensome thing, all at the same time\u2026I think if we are at a place in our Christian faith where we expect everything to be good and light and perfect, we\u2019re about to be terribly disappointed. So we have to understand that even the burdens are a mercy. And even with the hard stuff, the love of God is present in it.\u201d<\/p>\n The Positive Side of Doubt<\/strong><\/p>\n All three did come to work together for Sarah, leading her to a place of hope, as revealed in the lyrics of \u201cHallelujah is Our Song\u201d \u2013 \u201cWhat joy we have \/ For the stone is rolled away \/ And the tomb holds nothing now. \/ No sting of death \/ No power over sin or grave. \/ Hallelujah is our song. \/ What hope we have \/ Even in the longest night \/ For the light will overcome. \/ And we shall live \/ Sinners, we will rise to saints. \/ Hallelujah is our song.\u201d<\/p>\n Facing Your Own Mortality with Hope<\/strong><\/p>\n Sarah\u2019s comfort with the topic of death has grown so much that she even included a song called \u201cOne Beautiful Day,\u201d in which she reflects what she wants her own passing to be like some day. Despite the fact that the topic sounds depressing, the song contains a genuine aspect of hope and joy.<\/p>\n Sarah revealed that she wrote those lyrics while thinking of the day her cancer-stricken grandmother died: \u201cI was with her, my mother and my two aunts, and we sat on the bed around my grandma and we prayed the rosary and sang every song we could think of. We held her hand and told stories and we laughed. When it was over, I remember thinking, \u2018Please, Lord, let me go like that.\u2019 It was so beautiful and such a celebration of her. It was sad and hard and there were a lot of tears, don\u2019t get me wrong, but it was definitely a celebration. I think that is what I was clinging to in that song. I was thinking, \u2018When I go, I know you\u2019ll be sad, but I want you to celebrate with me too because we will see each other again and this is not a scary thing. This is a beautiful thing. This is what we as Christians have been waiting for and hoping for and longing for.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Far from diminishing her faith, Sarah\u2019s doubts and struggles actually strengthened it. That\u2019s why she believes that doubt can be a good thing: \u201cIf I am just blissfully ignoring my questions, I\u2019m not going to have a deep relationship with God. But if I\u2019m constantly striving to know Him and sometimes to doubt Him and to wander, that makes my relationship with Him much stronger\u2026I know people who do not doubt and are blissful believers \u2013 and that\u2019s a beautiful thing too. I am not one of those. I question things. For me, it is not just a matter of heart; it\u2019s a matter of mind and spirit. All three have to work together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Listeners will find that \u201cAbove Earth\u2019s Lamentation<\/a>\u201d provides them with a beautiful confluence of hope, despair, faith doubt, melody and poetry. It was a labor of love for Sarah, and she hopes it can be a blessing for others: \u201cMy hope and prayer is that God will allow it to reach whoever it needs to reach. As a writer, I always find that you think you\u2019re writing from your experience, but that personal walk is actually a universal one, and there are a lot of people who can relate to what you\u2019ve been through even though you think you\u2019re writing the most personal song in the world. But it really is because the human experience is so shared.\u201d<\/p>\n