Lullabies for the Year's Longest Night
Photo by Jeff Nissen on Unsplash
Right here in these short days and long nights before the celebration of Christ’s incarnation, His coming to dwell with us, right here I want to offer you some peace.
These long nights can feel anything but silent.
Tonight is the longest night of 2021 and maybe you need something to help bring that stillness and silence and solace that only comes with the sense of His abiding presence.
More people than I can remember have told me that my first album Cri de Cœur* played by their bedside to help them rest at night. Last year I received a random response from a listener I’d never met, saying Cri de Cœur was the music that soothed her son and helped him fall asleep.
I haven’t talked much about Cri de Cœur (released early 2014) since I recorded it pre-merileebarnard.com. I really didn’t know what I was doing when I recorded it. This teenager just had some songs and prayers and cries that I took into the studio as I sang my way through one of the longest, most silent nights of my life.
Repeatedly listeners still tell me that Cri de Cœur is their favorite of my albums.
If you need some lullabies to get you through the longest night of 2021, through any dark night, I offer you Cri de Cœur to listen to on all of your favorite streaming platforms (Spotify, AppleMusic, YouTube, AmazonMusic, etc). Many of you have asked for this and now it’s here. Finally.
Here are a few selections if you’re not sure which songs to start with:
“I love to think my father knows
Why I have missed the path I chose
And that I soon shall clearly see
The way He led was best for me”
— “He Knows it All” words by Ophelia Adams, 1905. Music by Merilee Barnard, 2014.
True story, something on the studio’s Hammond B3 was broken, so I had to have my brother Martin hold a key down and then I’d tell him to switch when needed in the middle of the song because it wouldn’t hold itself down. #behindthescenes
“You know where I am
You’ve been here before…”
— "Been Here Before” words and music by Merilee Barnard © 2012
Loved Martin’s guitar on “Been Here Before.”
If it pleases Him to bruise me
If He desires to make me trust
If His motive is to break me
And to turn my dreams to dust…
All that He'll expect
All He requires
Is a heart that trusts His heart
And hopes in His desires”
— “He Is Pure” words and music by Merilee Barnard © 2013
My sisters, Mercy and Jonelle, sang “I Just Came to Talk” and “Home Safe” with me.
My mom sang “Worship the Lord” with me on a later album.
“Through the wilderness you’ve led me
Through the terrors of the night…
You are there when I am troubled
Granting grace in time of need
Until mercy without measure
Like a blanket covers me”
— “Ever Near” words and music by Dee Gaskin and Marty Funderburk
Laying the piano track for “Ever Near.”
The longer I walk down this narrow road, the more grateful I am for that “mercy without measure” that covers “like a blanket.”
Through every terror of every long night I’ve found that mercy and grace sufficient to sustain and succor me. Sometimes that mercy has come in the form of someone singing to me in the dark. Other times it’s been me singing my own way home in the night.
Feel free to listen in. May you find courage for your own journey home.
*Cri de Cœur is French for “A cry from the heart.”