Everthing Hallelujah... The Mom Edit

Happy Friday, friends!

I hope your week has held more mercies than messes. But if not, grab that cup of coffee (or glass of wine if it’s been that kind of week) and settle in for our weekly chat.

A few weeks ago at Coachella, Justin Bieber sat down in the middle of his set and performed an acoustic version of his song “Everything Hallelujah.” The lyrics are almost silly in their simplicity: “Brand new day, hallelujah. Brush my teeth, hallelujah. Take a swim, hallelujah. Everything hallelujah.” He wasn’t singing about the grand, sweeping moments of life. He was naming the tiny, ordinary ones that somehow add up to mean the most.

And it sparked a wild trend. Within days, everyone (moms included) started posting their own versions:

• Laundry done, hallelujah.

• Meeting canceled, hallelujah.

• They both wanted to play the same thing, hallelujah.

• Dinner didn’t burn, hallelujah.

I don’t know if Justin meant to light a spark in a religious sense. But I love a trend that pulls us out of overlooking our everyday ordinary and helps us see how holiness hides in the carpool line, the folded laundry, and the one meal everyone actually ate that week.

It also made me curious about the word itself. What does hallelujah actually mean? What kind of weight does it carry in Scripture? And then God did what only God does. I opened my Bible study for the week and laughed out loud at the title: The Hallelujah Chorus.

That sealed it. This week, we are planting ourselves right in the middle of the everything hallelujah trend — and digging into why this word was always ours to begin with.

Ready? Let’s go

Everyday Hallelujah by Phil Wickham

In the joy and in the pain
In the sun and in the rain
Every breath gonna bless Your name
Here's my everyday hallelujah
For the love and for the grace
For the hope that's never gonna fade away
Let my life be a life of praise
Here's my everyday hallelujah

I know the trend is based on Justin Bieber’s song, and I genuinely love getting a glimpse into what he praises the Lord for. But this one has also been on my playlist lately, and seeing the word hallelujah show up everywhere in my world right now feels like a tug at my heart to open my eyes to the goodness that surrounds me.

Earlier in the song, Phil sings about the many ways he sees, feels, and hears God throughout his days. And these lyrics stopped me cold: “I can feel You when my children wrap their arms around my neck.”

Isn’t it just the truth? How much closer to the love of God can we get than when these little beings He created and gave us to raise reach up and hook their tiny elbows around the backs of our necks?

But how many times do I brush that hug off as just another everyday occurrence instead of something to praise Him for?

I want these words to come alive in my own life. I want my life to be a life of praise — every day blessing His name, every night lifting something back to the One who gave it.

His mercies never cease. Shouldn’t our praise be the same?

This is the very last verse in the whole book of Psalms. And it ends with the phrase “praise the Lord.” Twice.

What have we talked about with repetition in the Bible, ladies? If it’s repeated, it’s worth paying attention to.

The interesting thing about this phrase is that “praise the Lord” is the exact definition of hallelujah. Strong’s Concordance tells us that the Hebrew word halal means to praise, to boast, to celebrate. And Yah, where the “jah” in Hallelujah is pulled from, is a contraction of Yahweh. This is His personal, sacred name.

So the literal translation of Hallelujah is: “Praise ye Yah.” This isn’t a suggestion, it’s a command. And according to Psalm 150:6, everything that has breath is called to do it.

If you’ve been around Messy Mercies the past few months, you know I’ve been deep in the Psalms. And this was our last week. We landed in the final five Psalms, a crescendo of boisterous, building celebration of who should praise Him, what should praise Him, and why.

Each one stacks on the last until we arrive at Psalm 150, where the answer becomes impossible to miss: everywhere, everyone, everything that has breath. With everything you’ve got.

And here’s what I can’t stop thinking about. God is using a social media trend to do what He has always done… Write His glory into everything. People everywhere are reaching for a word of complete worship to name the good things in their lives. They just don’t know whose name is in it yet.

This trend got something right: there is something powerful about pausing to name the beautiful, ordinary, good things.

As moms, we are in a constant state of go. From the moment a little voice asks for water in the morning until we read that last book at bedtime, we are on the move. We are wired to look for what’s coming next, what needs to be fixed, and who needs our attention. Our worlds are loud, stimulating, and don’t leave much space for simple pauses.

But simple pauses to praise Him are what this life is all about.

In the beginning, we were created to live in communion with our Creator. He breathed life into our lungs for one purpose: to know Him and make Him known. Praise is how we've been doing that since the very first breath. We were made to celebrate who He is and boast about what He has done.

Praise isn’t something we add to our lives; it’s what we were built for. And when we return to it, we are returning to who He made us to be.

My hallelujah list this week looked like this:

• Watching my boys’ friendship grow right before my eyes.

• An early night in the middle of a busy season.

• A quiet walk by myself in the sunshine.

This simple practice is teaching me something: it doesn’t have to be groundbreaking to be praiseworthy.

Confession: I have tried again and again to keep a running gratitude list and I have failed every single time. I have an unfinished gratitude journal shoved in my bedside table and a list on my phone I haven’t visited in weeks.

And it isn’t because I’m not grateful. I am! But I think these methods fail for moms because they require us to stop, sit, remember, and have a pen. None of those things reliably exist in this stage of life.

So what if gratitude didn’t require a system? What if it just required a word?

God doesn’t need physical proof of our praise. He just wants a moment of our undivided attention.

Here is what I’m practicing this week: I set an alarm on my phone for 8:00 PM and named it “hallelujah.” For us, 8:00 is right after the kids go down, the first real exhale of the afternoon. It’s also the hour when everything from the day is still circling my mind. When that alarm goes off, I know what it’s asking: what was praiseworthy today?

Close your eyes. Circle back to your Creator. Name what was good. That's your hallelujah.

My everyday hallelujah.

Lord,

Thank You for little loves and laughter.

Thank You for tiny cold feet that find their way into our beds in the morning.

Thank You for “I think I cans” as we hold our breath watching.

Thank You for big feelings that end in tight snuggles.

Thank You for sunny skies that melt into starry nights.

Thank You for backyard noise and dirty feet.

Thank You for an exhaustion that leaks into my bones but fills my soul.

Thank You for the smallest things that bring the greatest joys.

Hallelujah. I praise You, Lord.

Amen.

Until next week, Blair

Tell me one Hallelujah on your list this week!!

Leave a comment