March '26

For my sweet friend, Michelle.  

Michelle is one of those rare individuals who is always pointing others upwards to fix their gaze upon the Lord.  She's one of those gems that make you pause and think: "okay, this lady knows Jesus intimately."

You were one of my earliest "adult" friends and I am so grateful for you. 

You're a blessing to so many people and I count myself blessed to call you friend.   You make me want to know Jesus more.  Thank you for sharing with us about this month's song.

Written by: Michelle Lowrance

“You are Beautiful Beyond Description” is a song I’ve been singing since childhood. I know all the lyrics. But that doesn’t mean I always feel the impact of the words. Sometimes when something is second nature, it can lose meaning. 

Fast Forward from childhood to my late thirties, married and 2 kids later - 

The kids’ bedtime routine is something that can be cherished and sweet OR exhausting and draining. I remember the nights putting my daughter to bed when she was a toddler. Her strategic ways of drawing out the routine were exhausting. She’d do anything to make the bedtime routine just five more minutes. I remember trying everything to keep it the same each night thinking “if we just did the same three things, it wouldn’t get so drawn out.” Without fail, it would get stretched out one way or the other. 

One of the ideas I had during these years of drawn-out-bedtime-routines was to sing her a hymn. I wanted her to learn the hymns of my childhood, the songs we don’t necessarily sing each week in Sunday service anymore. One night I sang ‘You are Beautiful Beyond Description.’ I don’t know if she thought I was singing about her and how beautiful she is or what, but that song stuck. It became our ‘thing’. I’d sing the song each night, sometimes she would sing with me, sometimes she would listen. Over the weeks and months, I’d catch her singing the song while playing with toys. I really started to listen to the lyrics. They sank deep in my soul in a different way than before - “who can grasp your infinite wisdom, who can fathom the depths of your love…”

Don’t get me wrong, bedtime wasn’t cherished and sweet every night. I remember her stretching out the routine still, and asking me to sing her the song, and I was tired wanting the bedtime routine to be over. I would sing it reluctantly some nights, singing it faster than the beat should be, rushing through it. But over the years, that song remained ‘our special mommy/daughter song.’ It became engrained in her heart, just like it was being re-carved in mine, “too wonderful for comprehension, like nothing ever seen or heard.” 

My daughter is 8 years old now, and to my surprise, we sang “You are Beautiful Beyond Description” recently in Sunday service, and my daughter turned her head and looked at me while singing, gave me a huge smile that lingered, and I froze that image in my mind to remember forever. Because, as the song lyrics say “I stand in awe of you” - I was standing in awe. In awe that God can use an old hymn from my childhood to form this deep and special bond with my daughter, and not only that, but He used it even when it was just a ‘tactic’ I used to try and get my daughter to bed quicker. What I meant for efficiency, God used for His Glory. He can take our human-level ideas and turn them into sovereign and powerful ways that not even I can understand and fathom. As God says in Isaiah 55:9, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” He is worthy to be praised. “Holy God to whom all praise is due, I stand in awe of you.”