Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.  Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody.  With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout joyfully before the King, the Lord.  Psalm 98:4-6

Praise when things are going well, when we are blessed by a great time of Christian fellowship and learning, or amid a large body of believers is usually fairly easy, but what about the dark days…the days of pain and suffering? As I’ve mentioned many times, music is important to me.  I love to listen to it, I love to sing it, and I love to dance to it.  What I love most is singing to praise God.  As much as I love it, there have been two periods in my life that required a bit of effort to sing praise.  The first was a longer period (several years) from the time it was determined that I was chronically ill until God began to instruct me regarding the value of trials and pain with respect to my soul.  During that time, songs like “Blessed Be” and “Untitled Hymn” became very important as I struggled understand and to come to peace with God’s plan for me.  The second period was the years from 2012 to 2015 in which we dealt in varying degrees with the various health issues of our fathers and their deaths. While I had previously learned about God goodness even in trials, the struggle was still difficult and there were many times that I had to will the praise out of my mouth.  Rather than succumbing to the urge to be silent, I knew that praise to God is especially critical in difficult times.  What makes it so critical is the message that it sends.