You'll Be Blessed

Driving is tedious work when it involves traveling from Kentucky to Oklahoma in one day. Shifts are necessary. When it's my shift I want music. And I've always loved the music of Elton John.

Somewhere in Indiana my hubby slid the sleek, silvery disc into the player. Don't go breakin' my heart! Elton John pleads, to which Deedee Kee replies enthusiastically, "I couldn't if I tried!" After about one minute I could practically see the disco ball spinning faithfully over the vinyl-covered seats. Oh, the seventies.

The midwestern scenery began to pass easily as I sang out familiar lyrics like "I'm still standing -- yeah, yeah, yeah!" and "You can't hurry love, no you'll just have to wait...". It was upbeat and fun and spontaneous -- the best way to traverse endless cornfields.

About 20 miles and 100 farms later, the music changed. Rather than an upbeat, disco-like tune, this song spoke deep-rooted emotion in every opening note. It sounded a little bit like a lullaby. Then the words began: "Hey you, you're a child in my head. You haven't walked yet. Your first words have yet to be said...". Suddenly, I was crying. I wasn't supposed to be crying! Where was my fun-loving, upbeat disco music -- the tunes that made the cornfields pass by so pleasantly? Now the pasturelands blurred in my vision as he continued to sing, "but I swear you'll be blessed."

I had heard this song before, and though I remember liking it, it had always been one of those 'serious' songs that came in between his more chipper tunes. Sometimes I likely skipped ahead to signature Elton John stuff, the songs I remember piping out at fifth grade slumber parties in between adolescent girl-talk and lime-flavored popsicles. Those songs reminded me of time gone by, of the past. But this song -- it reminded me of, somehow, the future. How could the future make me cry?

As the lyrics continued, I realized that this simple song echoed a cry in my heart: The longing -- the hope -- for a child. Not a self-centered longing, as the lyrics so beautifully betrayed, but a selfless one. The sacrificial desire "to have and to hold" that child, as Elton John sings, and to invest my own life in him or her -- that is the emotion that stirred my heart and made me cry. The future made me cry.

I want to share those lyrics with whomever may be reading this. But I also want to dedicate them to the child -- or children -- of my future. These lovely lyrics are for you, and so I send them out into the future.

And I promise you that you'll be blessed.

Hey you, you're a child in my head.
You haven't walked yet.
Your first words have yet to be said;
But I swear you'll be blessed.
I know you're still just a dream.
Your eyes might be green,
or the bluest that I've ever seen;
Anyway, you'll be blessed.
And you -- you'll be blessed, you'll have the best, I promise you that;
I'll pull your star from the sky, pull your name from a hat;
I promise you that, I promise you that, I promise you that you'll be blessed.
I need you before I'm too old,
To have and to hold,
To walk with you and watch you grow
And know that you're blessed.
And you -- you'll be blessed, you'll have the best, I promise you that;
I'll pull your star from the sky, pull your name from a hat;
I promise you that, I promise you that, I promise you that you'll be blessed.