Piligamu sathutu sithin Lyrics by Bro. Charles Thomas

Let us welcome the obstacles that arise, with a glad heart…..
A hidden secret comes to light from within the tears…..
Without cursing the wind, then, like the trees that dance and dance and sing…..
Sing the song of spring, with a glad heart….

This is a short, wise hymn about how to meet the hard things in life, and its counsel is bracing and beautiful. Rather than praying for troubles to be removed, it urges the opposite: “let us welcome the obstacles that arise, with a glad heart.” It is not a denial that obstacles hurt, but a choice about how to face them, with gladness rather than resentment.

The reason for that gladness is tucked into the second line, and it is quietly profound: “a hidden secret comes to light from within the tears.” The song trusts that suffering is not empty. Weeping uncovers something, a truth, a depth, a grace, that could not be found any other way, so the very tears that seem like pure loss are also revealing a hidden gift.

The final image is the loveliest and the most instructive, drawn straight from nature. When the wind blows hard, the trees do not resist or complain; they bend, and in bending they seem “to dance and dance and sing.” So the singer calls us to be like them, “without cursing the wind,” to “sing the song of spring, with a glad heart.” What the listener is left with is a small lesson in joyful resilience, the invitation to stop fighting life’s harsh winds and instead, like the swaying trees, to let them move us into a kind of dance, welcoming trouble, trusting the secret it reveals, and singing anyway.