Benton Brown’s ‘Adoration’ is one of those worship songs that seems to burn with a stronger flame than many. Forged in the midst of grief, ‘Adoration’ is the sound of deep calling to deep, of meeting God in the valley of the shadow of death.
Brenton and his wife Jude were anticipating the birth of Grace, their first daughter. At nine months they were told that Grace had died in the womb. Jude was left to deliver her naturally.
“Our hearts were broken right at the start of what should have been a promising life,” explains Brenton. “It was hard to imagine that there could ever be a happy ending...
“I remember thinking ‘This is too much’ and wondering if we'd ever recover as a family. Oftentimes I thought this was too heavy for God—that we were not going to heal from this, but He managed to carry the weight. He can bear the weight of every heavy heart. He can turn our tears into songs of praise. And that’s a reason to worship with full abandon.”
Sensing that God was not absent in the grief, Brenton and Jude ‘resolved to fall upon the Lord’.
That ‘falling’ had a look and a sound. In the days around Grace’s birth Brenton wrote the song ‘Adoration’. He wrote not for the sake of it, but simply because worship is hardwired into people like Brenton and Jude. The lyrics were anchored in the deeply personal trauma of birth and death, yet remain universal and potent for all:
We bow our hearts, we lift our hands
we turn our eyes to you again
And we surrender to the truth
that all we need is found in You
As Brenton explains, “we can think that ‘most’ of what we need is found in him. Most, but somehow not quite all of it. Yet what brought us hope and encouragement is the fact that this life is not all there is to the story. The upward call of Christ draws us to the elements that continue.”
We choose to leave it all behind
and turn our eyes towards the prize
the upward call of God in Christ
you have our hearts, Lord take our lives
“Just singing this song was an act of faith. Jude and I felt incredibly empty and in so much pain, but we recognize that everything we need—and all that we love — is found in God, even our little girl that we lost,” Brenton says. “We get to sense some of that in worship when we experience His presence and the hope and joy of what’s to come. We taste a little bit of the kingdom of God.”
For Brenton and Jude, the truth is simple: “we didn’t just receive comfort and strength, but the knowledge that our little girl Grace is with Him, and that one day we will be reunited with her.