Real Talk #1: Putting On Praise when You want to put on Heaviness.

"Put on the garment of praise. For the spirit of heaviness." (This song gets it lyrics from Isaiah 61, fyi. Read it, :))

I was driving today, and I thought about this song, and I cried. I cried a lot.

I will just be honest; I hate this song. My church has sung it 249 times over the past few years, and I have never really been fond of it.

But I think that the real reason that I don't like this song is deeper than just not liking the beat of it.

This was one of the songs played on February 22, 2009. Two days after my Grandpa went to be with Jesus. This song was played at church, and I remember that the praise team was singing it like it was the the easiest thing to do in the world. They were all smiles. Then, I looked around to the rest of the church, and they were all smiles.

Me? I was not all smiles. I remember thinking to myself,

"Look at them singing that I can put on a garment of praise instead of heaviness just as easy and quickly as I put on my favorite hoodie... Yeah, right. Sorry, Abba. Not today. I will keep my heaviness...You got Grandpa, and I get to wear the heaviness. I want to drown in it a little bit more..."

I was so mad. My heart couldn't sing those words; therefore, my mouth didn't sing them either.

Allowing yourself/forcing yourself to put on the garment of praise is hard. It takes surrender of pain and heartache. And to be real with you, it took me months to put on a garment of praise after the death of my favorite person in the world. I was sad, hurt, broken, confused, and just in a state of heart-chaos. But it's worth it. Trust Abba's goodness. I promise you, He is faithful...

But, just b/c you put on the garment of praise doesn't mean that the hurt goes away; I still hurt every day...But it does FREE your soul from the ties of anger.

That's my real-talk thought for the day.


The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."-Job 1:21.