Kandule Upan Devinde

God born in tears,
King born in misfortune,
if only I had known it was you,
never, Jesus, never
would I set you on a cross to die,
would I hang you on a cross to die

Why, for all this time,
did you hide yourself from me?
I searched, through the falling tears,
but I did not see Jesus
“I was there, right behind you, my child,
I was holding you so you would not fall
in the tears, in the disaster, I was right beside you
the heavier load, I was carrying it for you”

God born from the cross,
King born from death,
if only I had known it was you,
never, Jesus, never
would I set you on a cross to die,
would I hang you on a cross to die

In the moment I wept, all alone,
there was no one there
I cried out, weeping in the darkness,
but I did not see Jesus
“My two hands were upon your shoulders,
did you feel the warmth? I was there in your tears
I took you by the hand and carried you across
you were resting all the while in my arms”

This is one of the most moving hymns in the collection, because it is a conversation, back and forth between a suffering believer and God, that turns the pain of feeling abandoned into the discovery of being carried. It opens with the believer’s confession of guilt and blindness: “God born in tears, King born in misfortune, if only I had known it was you, never would I set you on a cross.” It is the ache of realizing, too late, whom we have hurt.

Then comes the complaint that many faithful people know from their darkest times: “Why, for all this time, did you hide yourself from me? I searched, through the falling tears, but I did not see Jesus.” The believer felt utterly alone in his suffering. But the second half of each verse belongs to God, and his answer overturns everything. “I was there, right behind you, my child, I was holding you so you would not fall; in the tears, in the disaster, I was right beside you; the heavier load, I was carrying it for you.”

The song is essentially the beloved “footprints in the sand” story set to music, in which a person, looking back at the hardest stretch of life, thinks God had left them, only to learn that God was carrying them the whole way. The final verse seals it: “My two hands were upon your shoulders, did you feel the warmth? I was there in your tears; I took you by the hand and carried you across; you were resting all the while in my arms.” What the listener is left with is deep and tender comfort, the assurance that in the very moments we felt most alone and unseen, God was closest of all, not absent, but silently bearing us and our heaviest burdens home.