City Lights        written by Lisa Gallant Seal

 City lights are pretty watching them through this window 

I don't like the city much, except for the people

who walk around the streets and such

they're the ones who teach me, as long as I want to hear.

 Do you know your eyes are beautiful as I'm watching them through My eyes

and that I can see anything that I want to see

and when you close them and feel a tear behind them,

I hope you know that you can come to Me

 Everything is easy, if that's the way you want it

and things can be really hard too

whatever you are feeling, take and you feel it

cause the feeling will be over real soon, making room for more feelings

 Once I saw a mother somewhere caressing her sweet baby

something deep inside got touched, I knew something that I missed

I yearned for soft arms around me, holding me, caressing me, 

telling me whatever I do, it's gonna be alright

 Once I saw the sunrise, I pretended I was an Indian, I took dirt, and I smelled it

I was sitting on wet dew. I felt a Power deep within me,

one I wanted to capture, and I looked toward the Son and then I knew

 Everything is easy, if that's the way you want it

and things can be really hard too

whatever you are feeling, take and you feel it

cause the feeling will be over real soon, making room for more feelings

 Once I saw the sunrise, I pretended I was an Indian, ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh

The song, City Lights is a tune I wrote several years ago; lately it has been impacting me with bittersweet revelation. It is a pretty little song that never quite fit into my concert song list. 

A few years back my life changed drastically. I never suspected I would be in the situation I am living now. In order to survive these changes, I needed to change, and I knew of nowhere else to go except to the feet of my Holy God. 

When the worst of it started happening, I remember laying my Bible across my chest at night, so to sooth myself to sleep. The emotions I was feeling were familiar; desperation, confusion, unrelenting fear … they reminded me of the emotions that held me captive, years ago, when I wrote City Lights. 

Throughout the years God has used my gift in music to speak to me. He has whispered songs across my heart for decades. Clearly, with this song, at this time, God is reminding me of things I know, teaching me new things and helping me grow and move closer to Him.

I wrote this song in 1993, in a hospital room, finishing the last of three chemo treatments. I remember arguing with a small voice in my head telling me to get my guitar (I brought it with me everywhere back then). Finally giving in, I found myself on the hospital bed with guitar in hand. I looked out the window and was taken back but the city lights against the sunrise. 

… It was sunrise, I stummed the guitar and started singing out words, I thought of the people who were helping me, I thought of my mom who I missed, she had passed away a few years before. I liked sitting in the sun and loved the feeling of cool dirt under my feet. All of the sudden the song was written. Did I know then it was the Holy Spirit wooing me unto Him? No, of course not. But I do now.

Jesus tells us not to look back or ahead, right? This is exactly what the Lord has for me in this song!  He's saying “feel those feelings daughter because there are more to come!" He is teaching me to not be taken over by my feelings. I am learning not to be led by feelings, to not act on them. God gave me the gift of feeling emotions, He gave this to all of us, we have an array of them and are to pay attention and feel them because they will be gone soon, making room for more. 

I think City Lights was written for me, for this time. And maybe it was written for you too :)

Love ya, L