Sing over me

Another look at Ephesians 5:18-19, with Kevin Antlitz

Ephesians 5:18-19 Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your heart.

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.

Life has been crazy. I simply haven’t kept up with everything, including this blog. The last time I posted was April 29, with a poem written by our daughter Rachel after the shocking death of our son’s best friend, Silas. Rachel’s poem witnesses our uneasy relationship with time, a struggle not one of us can escape.

Today’s post will be a bit longer than usual for me, but I hope you’ll take a couple of extra minutes to read it all.

Marsha’s roses

Ironically, traveling yesterday from Pittsburgh to Meridian, Idaho has given me a sort of reprieve—a chance to walk into a slower rhythm, a slow dance with time, if you will. I came to visit my sister Marsha, who lives in a different reality than I do. Delightfully, Alzheimer’s has not robbed her of music and praise. She seldom speaks. But she often sings! Her lovely voice captures a range of emotions, often acknowledging the tender care offered by her husband Vance. “He does all the things, alleluia!” she sings, gazing lovingly at him.

Yesterday Marsha surprised me by singing over me. I didn’t expect her to recognize me. But at one point she looked at me and sang, “My mother and my sister, alleluia!” Somehow, she seems to know I’m her sister and blessed me with her love.

It’s such a precious thing to witness Marsha’s repeated alleluias. There is so much she can no longer do or communicate. Yet her soul still resonates in harmony with her Lord.

On Pentecost Sunday, our church bid farewell to our assistant pastor, Kevin Antlitz, and his family. He has accepted an invitation to be senior pastor at a church in Atlanta. I will especially miss his thoughtful sermons.

I just did a search of this blog and discovered that I have recommended one of Kevin’s sermons six times. So today is number seven. You can listen here to “Why We Sing,” Kevin’s unusual discussion of the importance of singing together in praise to the Lord.

Kevin notes three reasons why Paul tells us to sing:

It’s evidence of the Holy Spirit active in our lives, drawing us into praise. The Spirit fills us with song. When we’re filled with the Spirit, love overflows. “Only the lover sings” (St. Augustine). A Christian is someone who sings.
Singing knits our hearts together into one heart and mind and soul.
Singing gives us an opportunity to bless and encourage and teach each other.

Sometimes we lose our voice, whether in grief, discouragement, or shame. Sometimes we need others to sing over us, helping restore our faith, our hope, and our love.

As Marsha is doing for me.

I invite you to let Sing Over Me (The Porter’s Gate) touch your soul:

1.When I am lost inside my mind, Sing me the hope I cannot find

When my despair has left me blind, Sing me the tune I’ve left behind.

[Chorus] Will you sing over me? Will you sing over me?

Sing of the goodness I cannot see. Will you sing over me?

2. When all the grief pours through my hands, When I’ve forgotten who I am

I can’t feel anything but shame, Sing out and give me back my name.

[Bridge] When I sink down beneath the fear, The weight is more than I can bear

Keep singing though I cannot hear. Someday I’ll sing for you, I swear.

[Chorus] Will you sing over me? Will you sing over me?

Sing of the goodness I cannot see. Will you sing over me?

As we grieve, a thoughtful and thought-provoking poem

After Silas’s and Marie’s deaths April 4 and 15, my daughter Rachel wrote this poem on her birthday. Read all the way to the end.

Eaten

By Rachel Kornfield Becker

In memory of Silas, Marie and all of us who know we are aging – and the beloved community

April 19, 2026

I’m slowly being eaten by the monster of time

I fight

Wishing to eke a little more purpose, a little more meaning

A little more chance to atone for my mistakes

I’m slowly being eaten by the monster of time

I thrash

Wishing for a younger body

With less discomfort and

An easier pathway of care

I’m slowly being eaten by the monster of time

I flail

Not knowing how long it will take

For it to reach my heart

How long i still have to tell you goodbye

I’m slowly being eaten by the monster of time

I panic

Wishing to know what they’ll say about me someday

Remembering, unexpectedly

I’m beloved

I’m slowly being eaten by the monster of time

I remember

That like many before me

In the end I’ll be lauded as an example for my goodness

Instead of reviled for my mistakes

Although a very different story could be told

I’m slowly being eaten? by the monster of time

I reach

Perhaps through acceptance

Can come a measure of peace

Yet it vanishes before me

Through a misty dark tunnel

I’m slowly being eaten by the monster? of time

I look

Closer

I see warm, honoring eyes

A friend with a hand held out

Saying, “see, come, this way”

I’m slowly being… eaten? by the monster? of time

I gaze

Again down the tunnel

Seeing peace go before me

Making the path… Visible

I’m slowly being eaten by the monster of time?

I notice

Where peace has gone

And that perhaps only through the cold clingy cobwebby mist

Will I find it’s full fruition

I’m slowly being eaten by the monster of time

I liberate

I will make so many mistakes

But in the end they will say

She loved deeply

She lived with passion

She figured a couple things out

She kept going

And most of all, “she loved me”

And it will be true

I’m slowly taking the hand of my friend Time

I clutch

My only pathway

My solace

My old enemy

I cling

I hope

I’m slowly accepting the guidance of time

I know to live

Is to live within its grasp

For all things end

But some things end well

Live generously

But God honors those with generous hearts

Psalm 112:4, 6, 9 Light shines in the darkness for the godly. They are generous, compassionate, and righteous. … Those who are righteous will be long remembered. … They share freely and give generously to those in need. Their good deeds will be remembered forever. They will have influence and honor.

I last posted on March 24 and 25, the latter an invitation to write a short story inspired by a photograph. If you’re interested in this, the deadline is coming up soon!

I didn’t anticipate this month-long break from writing blogs. These weeks have been intense. If I can add to Allen Saunders’ quote (popularized by John Lennon), “Life and death are what happen to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

During Holy Week, while we remembered Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us, our son’s best friend, Silas, suddenly died of a massive heart attack, leaving his wife and kids 6 and 3. As we joined a mosaic of people crowded into a large church and overflow room in DC a week later to honor Silas, the theme “Live generously” captured his life perfectly.

We arrived home from DC just a few hours before heading to the Pittsburgh airport in the wee hours of April 13 for a flight to Colorado Springs. While engaged with mission teammates there we received the shocking news that our beloved, vivacious niece Marie had suddenly died, also of a heart attack. How can it be true that she is gone from us?

While looking through my photos of Marie, I found this one, with our daughter Karis in 2011. This is a special photo in part because Karis hated the way she looked at that time, her “chipmunk cheeks” a consequence of high steroids required to keep her from rejecting her second intestinal transplant. She rarely allowed people to take photos of her. But when her wonderful cousin Marie visited, she made an exception. Marie came to Pittsburgh from San Diego to care for Karis for a week while Dave and I traveled, an example of her generous nature.

Marie with her grandmother Margaret Daly. I posted a blog written by Margaret a few years ago. She helped translate the Bible into two languages. Marie loved butterflies. She grew up in Guatemala and called herself “Mariposa,” butterfly in Spanish.

A few hours after we arrived back home in the middle of the night Friday, our friend Lori (related to us by marriage) went Home. And at the same time Saturday, we learned that another person precious to us has stage 3 or 4 cancer. And now the mother of a dear friend is “actively dying.” I keep checking my phone for updates about her.

It’s a lot to grapple with all at once. Grief drains a lot of energy.

Silas, Marie, and Lori lived generously. Each of them left a legacy of love that won’t be forgotten.

Influenced by my own book, Three-in-One: The Mysterious Friendship of Derry and Benny, I’ve been imagining Karis greeting each of these dear ones and showing them the ropes in Heaven. I imagine the party they’re having: Silas, Marie, and Karis are all party people. I imagine Silas’s reunion with his father, who died when Silas was 17. I imagine Lori’s joy in her reunion with her daughter and husband, who went before her. I imagine Marie delighting in her Aunt Bev and in her grandmother Margaret and grandfather John.

And most of all, I imagine each of them thrilled to be with Jesus, discovering with him the grand mysteries of true Life.

Our grief is profound. It’s painful. And it’s temporary.

Joy, though, is eternal.

I think and dream about Karis, and Silas, and Marie, and Lori, and Bill, and Bev, and Margaret, and John, and other dear ones, asking: How can I honor their example by living more generously myself?

There’s a story here: Try your hand at writing it!

On my way to pick up my car from the mechanic this morning, I took a shortcut through a patch of woods. Just off the trail, I saw this:

There’s a story here …

What does this scene evoke in your imagination?

You can use this information or not: In the grass a few feet from the swing was a small bag with its contents spilling out. Things a woman might carry with her and use.

Write your story in no more than 500 words and send it to me: debrakornfield@gmail.com. Deadline: April 30, 2026.

I’ll choose one story for ButGod.blog and one for HorseThief1898.blog. Prizes for the stories chosen:

free publicity (If you win, I’ll ask what you want people to know about you and your work.)

your choice of one of my books. (If you win, I’ll ask for your address so I can mail your book to you.)

Happy imagining! An extra point if you make it a But God story!

A Lenten Lament

Revelation 22:10-17

Smashing, shattering, breaking—

NO.

This is not the Jesus way.

War is not a video game, reboot and replay.

It is torn, tender flesh.

It is hunger and thirst, darkness and cold.

It is disease, deprivation, despair.

It is death.

Snatching, scattering, beating—

NO.

It’s easy to destroy, to decimate

What others have found courage to create.

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Swindling, sucking, betraying—

NO.

Carelessly wasting what others need to survive.

Each child, cherished, precious unique

Thrown away. Trashed, like the earth

While mothers watch, and weep, and wait

For the One whose own flesh is bleeding and bare.

My heart aches for those who know nothing of grace,

Who will not taste the Kingdom when it comes.

For they too were made in the image of God.

Paul’s songs: wisdom all the way back to St. Patrick

But God gives wisdom

Colossians 3:16-17 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

Romans 11:33 Doxology: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

I’m posting today instead of tomorrow so you can join me in saying “Happy birthday” to my husband Dave. I’ve chosen to feature one of his favorite hymns. Having a St. Patrick’s Day birthday has meant he almost always has a cake with green icing. Here are some pics I found from a few years ago (2011).

Paul’s admonition to the Colossian church, like Ephesians 5:19-20, embraces “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” And it brings in the concept of wisdom from God, which immediately makes me think of the hymn “Be Thou My Vision.” The second verse begins, “Be Thou My Wisdom.”

I’ve received several communications from Wheaton College classmates the last few weeks asking, “Are you going?” What a delight to respond “Yes! Are you?” I’m extra-motivated because my brother’s 65^th birthday falls on the same weekend, and he lives in Wheaton (when he’s not in Guatemala building his retirement home).

None of us can believe it’s been fifty years since we graduated from college. When we reminisce, someone is bound to say, “Remember singing “Be Thou My Vision” in chapel?” Two thousand voices, “all the verses, all the parts” swelling with the organ in Edman Chapel’s amazing acoustics.

I don’t know whether previous or later generations of Wheaton students hold the same regard for “Be Thou My Vision.” But I do know that Dave, who graduated three years before me, and my sister-in-law Jennie, who graduated three years after me, love this hymn as much as I do. The wisdom packed into this ancient Irish hymn has helped anchor each of us through the choices and challenges of our lives.

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart

Nought be all else to me, save that Thou art

Thou my best thought, by day or by night

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word

I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord

Thou my great Father, I Thy true son

Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle shield, sword for the fight,

Be Thou my Armor, and be Thou my Light

Thou my soul’s Shelter and Thou my high Tow’r

Raise Thou me heavenward, O Pow’r of my pow’r.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise

Thou mine inheritance, now and always

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart

High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won

May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall

Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

We learned more than knowledge at Wheaton. We gained wisdom as well.

Here’s the story of “Be Thou My Vision” told by Veronica of A Woman’s Song Ministry, taking us all the way back to St. Patrick in the fifth century.

Do you have a favorite rendition of “Be Thou My Vision”? Here are several I’ve been enjoying:

Audrey Assad

National Christian Choir (A dear friend of mine sings with this amazing choir. I had the privilege of attending one of their concerts a few years ago.)

Ascend the Hill

Keith and Kristyn Getty

Young Adelaide Voices

The Riverside

Paul’s Songs: In Community

But God wants us to worship with understanding

1 Corinthians 14:15-17 I will sing in the Spirit, and I will also sing in words I understand. For if you [a rare singular] praise God only in the Spirit, how can those who don’t understand you praise God along with you? How can they join you in giving thanks when they don’t understand what you are saying? You will be giving thanks very well, but it won’t strengthen the people who hear you.

While writing Three-in-One: The Mysterious Friendship of Derry and Benny, I thought a lot about worship in Heaven. Will the gathered believers from around the world and through all human history each worship in their own language? Will it be like Pentecost in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus’ followers to understand and speak languages they had never learned? Will everyone there speak the same language?

If you read Three-in-One,you’ll see how handled these questions for the sake of the story. But of course, I don’t know for sure. As I say in my letter to parents prior to the story, I can’t wait to find out what Heaven is really like.

Here on Earth, Paul thought it important that communities of believers be able to sing together, understanding the words they sang, to encourage and strengthen each other’s faith. I’ve described before my experience of worship in Ghana, where the people who gathered for a conference on discipleship spoke dozens of languages. The worship leader wisely chose songs that had been translated into all these different tongues—and I knew them as well, in English, Spanish, and Portuguese! While not understanding a word of what the people around me sang, we praised God with the same lyrics. The music bound us together in our love for the Lord—a taste of Heaven!

Ghanaian Joy Shutterstock: Sura Nualpradid

The Spirit guides and fills our worship. And understanding each other’s worship enfolds us in a crescendo of praise to our compassionate, all-powerful, all-knowing, incomparable God.

When I discovered Darlene Zschech’s wonderful song Shout to the Lord (All the Earth) sung by Darlene with Ana Paula Valadão, Ingrid Rosario in my three languages, I wept at its beauty.

Paul’s Songs: Steve’s Story – Fear or Confidence? By pastor and artist Steve Easterwood, Kirksville, MO

But God makes you strong March 4, 2026

Romans 16:25, 27 Now all glory to God, who is able to make you strong. … All glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, forever. Amen.

I met Steve in high school, when we both participated in the youth group at our church. He has a particular prayer burden for Ukraine. Pastor Steve is a gifted artist. See more of his work at SteveEasterwood.com. He invites you to email him at SteveEasterwood@gmail.com.

Above: The Christmas Rose, by Steve Easterwood How many symbols representing Jesus can you see in this painting?

Right: Mary, by Steve Easterwood. What stands out to you?

Here is Steve’s story:

Sometimes people who are not yet believers in Jesus ask me, “What difference does Christ make in your life?” He makes all the difference in the world!

In December 2020, I was having some minor swallowing issues, and after a scope, I was told that I had a seven-inch cancerous tumor wrapped around my esophagus.

We all wonder on those sleepless nights how we’ll respond if the diagnosis is cancer. I was no different. There were nights when I wondered the same thing. That night, as was my practice, I prayed and committed my situation to the Lord. I told Him that my life was in His hands and that I trusted Him, whatever His decision about my fate. With that, I fell asleep.

The next morning, I received a notification from my watch that I had experienced the best night of sleep I’d had in four months! How can that happen the night after you receive a serious cancer diagnosis?

I fell asleep absolutely convinced that my situation would have one of three outcomes:

First, God could heal me. I firmly believe that the God of the Bible still heals today.

Second, Jesus could return and take me home.

Third, I could die and, as the Bible says, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). When someone dies, people say, “He lost his battle to cancer.” But where’s the loss? There are only three outcomes, and each one is a win for me!

That’s how you sleep like a baby after you’ve had a cancer diagnosis. So far, God has chosen option number one. He is still Jehovah-Rapha, God the healer.

Recently, I found out that the five-year survival rate for my type and stage of cancer is 0%. Yet, here I am, still alive today. I believe that God still has a mission for me to accomplish. Until that mission is finished, nothing, including cancer, can take my life. When that mission has been accomplished, nothing can keep me alive for another second.

Until the time when God chooses to take me home, I will put all my energy into taking as many people to heaven with me as possible. I’m 71 years old. There’s a party waiting for me soon in heaven. Until that time, I plan to share God’s message of Good News so that people can be confident about where they will spend eternity. My question to you is this: How would you sleep on a cancer diagnosis? If you have faith in God, you won’t have to fear the outcome, and you can sleep like a baby!

Give Thanks by Don Moen

Paul’s songs: Praise for God’s grace to all people

But God loves harmony

Romans 15:5-11 Live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God … Accept each other just as Christ has accepted you. … Remember that Christ came as a servant to the Jews … He also came so that the Gentiles might give glory to God for his mercies to them. … “Praise him, all you people of the earth” [Psalm 117:1].

My granddaughter Juliana spent 24 hours with me while her mom and sister Liliana visited Valerie and family in São Paulo, Brazil. She loved watching neighborhood deer eat groundcover on our front slope–nine of them this time!

This second week of Lent, I’m thinking about grace. Grace in relationships.

My husband and I usually attend the 9:00 service at our church. I enjoy opportunities to attend the 11:00 service at our church, though, so I can hear the choir sing. This rarely happens at 9:00. The harmony created by skilled musicians combined with enthusiastic worshipers thrills my heart, as I imagine it does the Lord’s.

I have several close friends in the choir. They tell me it’s about more than singing on Sundays. It’s about community, about sharing their lives, praying for and supporting one another. A usually shy friend feels completely comfortable in that group.

Which type of harmony matters more to the Lord? That’s hard to say. Paul implies that harmony of relationship is necessary for true praise (verses 5-6). I think that applies to all of us—families, friends, colleagues, neighbors—not just to those in a formal grouping like a choir.

Pushing this back a step further: to have harmony with other people, I need first to cultivate personal harmony with the Lord. Do you ever experience a song or psalm of praise welling up in your heart at some random time of the day? That happens to me often. I understand it as the Holy Spirit’s invitation to participate in the praise of Heaven, where people and angels never cease to worship the Lord.

This heart-worship matters to me enough that it helps protect me from discord with other people. When that does happen, I’m highly motivated to resolve the tension, because I don’t want my internal praise interrupted just because I’ve been selfish, insensitive, stubborn, critical, or envious.

When I think about how Christ has accepted me, with all my failures and foibles, how can I reject a brother or sister for whom Jesus shed his blood? In the Body of Christ, “us” and “them” must take a back seat to the fact that we’re all sinners saved by grace. Even if we don’t agree about much of anything else.

How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony … For harmony is precious … Harmony is refreshing … There the Lord has pronounced his blessing [Psalm 133].

Psalm 117 in a canon Geneva Academy

Psalm 117 Highway to Zion

Paul’s songs: His mercy is more

But God had patience

Romans 4:7-8 [quoting Psalm 32:1-2] “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”

1 Timothy 1:15-16 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners.

By God’s mercy, joy can become the other side of profound distress.I believe this in my head. In many ways I believe it in my heart as well. But it seems God is calling me today to a deeper experience of this joy.

Karis in 2009 with one of her doctors

Spring, 2009. Overwhelmed. Beyond fatigued. No longer tolerating the unrelenting stress. Teetering on the edge of emotional breakdown.

These words inadequately describe my condition when I made an impulsive decision to get out of Dodge. Or in my case, out of Pittsburgh.

Every other time I left Karis in Pittsburgh, I planned and prepared for weeks. The person (most often my generous sister Jan) who relieved me arrived a week ahead of time to get up to speed with the complexities of Karis care. Complexities that one home health agency after another declared too much for their nurses.

This time, no one could come. Desperate for relief, I patched together a care team of five people who reluctantly agreed to cover a day or two each. I “trained” them for a couple of hours, pointing out pages of written instructions they absolutely must follow. Ignoring my conscience, I got on a plane to Brazil. My home. A place to crash, to be accountable to no one. Precious friends who breathed life and energy back into my parched soul.

The first message came from the hospital. “The paramedics were able to stabilize Karis, but we will keep her here until you return.”

Adrenaline flooded me as I began throwing things back into my suitcase.

The next message was just as cryptic. A telegram from the kind friends who had given us space in their home when we could not afford an apartment: “Come back. Now.”

I went there first. The shouting began when I opened the door to the house. It included phrases like, “If she had died under my roof, I WOULD NEVER FORGIVE YOU! NEVER!” and “You are no longer welcome here.”

A bit at a time, the story emerged. One of the caregivers had given Karis ten times the correct dose of insulin. When the ambulance arrived, her blood sugar was 23.

God was merciful. Karis didn’t die. But this was only one of at least a dozen ways Karis could have died, from mistakes of well-meaning but inadequately prepared and resourced friends.

What on earth had I been thinking? How could I have done what I did, exposing my daughter to such danger—and my friends as well, when Karis’s care at home was deemed too difficult even for trained nurses?

The truth, of course, is that I wasn’t thinking about anything but my own survival. Eventually, with help, I was able to accept God’s forgiveness. My friend’s forgiveness—my friend who had sacrificially opened her home to us—and healing of our broken relationship took quite a bit longer.

This morning, out of the blue, I woke up to the startling question, Have I forgiven myself? Where did that come from? I must have been dreaming about this incident in 2009.

The tears that flooded my eyes bore mute testimony to the challenge in this question.

Yes, God was merciful. Karis did not die from my negligence. Profound mercy.

But finding mercy for myself? That’s … different. I don’t yet know how to get there.

And as I read again Paul declaring himself “the worst of sinners,” I wonder. Was he able to forgive himself?

Four other times in 2009 Karis almost died—not from negligence, but because of the extremity of her medical situation. Each of those times our family gathered from three continents to say goodbye. Each time, we experienced mercy as, beyond hope, God brought Karis back to us.

Today, perhaps, God in mercy invites me to a new level of healing. And of joy.

His Mercy is More Matt Boswell and Matt Papa