Sometimes worship isn’t a celebration. Sometimes it’s an act of defiance.
It was a Sunday afternoon, shortly after church.
I was unloading the dishwasher, wiping down the counters, cleaning up the kitchen from lunch—doing the ordinary things you do when Sunday starts to quietly fade into real life again.
That’s when I started singing.
Not because I planned to.
Not because I knew the whole song.
We had just learned it at church, and it was the only part I knew.
“You’re never gonna let, you’re never gonna let me down…”
If you’re walking through infertility, you know how moments like this can sneak up on you. Ordinary, quiet moments where faith feels both familiar and fragile at the same time.
I remember the moment as if it happened yesterday.
As I sang, Mikayla, our daughter whom we adopted through foster care, came running into the kitchen wearing her princess dress-up costume. She stopped for a second, listening, learning the words. And then she started singing it too.
But the moment she started, I stopped.
I stopped because I was no longer singing to sing. My mind connected with the words, and my heart wandered to all the times I felt God had let me down.
My miscarriage.
My plans destroyed.
My God-given desires unmet.
My hopes deferred.
My prayers seemingly overlooked.
The words caught in my throat.
And then I thought of her.
The one who had been let down by the people she loved the most.
So without hesitation, I looked at her and asked,
“But what do you do when you feel God has let you down, and He answers no when you need a yes?”
I expected her to say, “I don’t know,” or something like that.
But instead, she looked up at me.
In all seriousness, she pointed her tiny finger toward my face, placed her other hand on her hip, and said with a stern voice,
“You keep singing it anyway.”
sigh
Such wisdom from a five-year-old.
You sing it anyway.
You sing His praises even when it hurts.
You keep declaring His love even when you can’t feel it.
You lift your voice when your heart feels bruised, confused, or tired.
Not because everything suddenly makes sense.
Not because the pain disappears.
Not because the answers come right away.
Worship isn’t always about what feels true in the moment. Sometimes it’s about choosing to anchor yourself to what is true, even when infertility, loss, and waiting argue otherwise.
There are seasons when worship is a celebration.
And there are seasons when worship is an act of defiance.
This was one of those seasons.
So I sing it anyway.
Through negative tests.
Through waiting rooms and long cycles.
Through grief that lingers longer than expected.
Even when my voice shakes,
even when my faith feels fragile,
even when my heart aches.
He is still King.
He is still good.
And He is still worthy of my song.
And sometimes, especially in the waiting,
the bravest thing you can do
is keep singing anyway.