Mal Kakulak Se

Like a flower bud I smiled and lived, there in the spring
in the moment I stood alone in a desert, you were like a stream of water
as the flowers in my heart withered one by one, slowly swallowed by time,
in the fragrance that spread from such a flower, I saw your favour

Amid the storm that shakes the trees and leaves,
like a lamp-star burning on, unquenched,
you gazed at me, serene and still,
and gave a new meaning to my life

This is a short, quietly beautiful hymn about God’s steadfast presence through the changing seasons of a life. It opens in happiness, “like a flower bud I smiled and lived, there in the spring,” but the singer quickly moves to the hard times, “in the moment I stood alone in a desert.” And there is the first of its lovely images for God: in that dry, lonely place, “you were like a stream of water,” the exact thing a desert most needs.

The middle lines face loss without despair. “As the flowers in my heart withered one by one, slowly swallowed by time,” the hopes and joys of life fade, as they do for everyone. Yet even in the fragrance rising from a fading flower, “I saw your favour,” God’s kindness discerned even in the middle of decline. Nothing is wasted; even withering carries a scent of grace.

The final image is the most striking, and it is one of steadfastness against chaos: “amid the storm that shakes the trees and leaves, like a lamp-star burning on, unquenched, you gazed at me, serene and still.” God is the light that the storm cannot blow out, calm while everything else is shaken, and simply by looking on the singer with that steady gaze, “gave a new meaning to my life.” What the listener is left with is deep reassurance, that through spring and desert, blooming and withering, storm and stillness, God remains the unquenched light and the living water that make sense of it all.