The Most Beautiful Sounds You’re Not Supposed to Hear

Are you ready? I'm not.

My sons seem to finally be adjusting well to the time change out here in Ethiopia. My youngest woke up briefly around 1AM, but then fell back asleep properly around 2AM which is close to his East Coast bed time. He and his older brother are very asleep now, and for what feels like the remainder of the night.

I, on the other hand, am obviously not asleep. At the time I am writing this, it is almost 4AM. I woke up around 1AM with Judah, and then couldn't go back to sleep. Then I checked my phone and saw a text from one of my guitar players saying he had just finished recording his part to one of my upcoming songs. Now I’m not sleeping at all. I first listen softly from my bed, but just as I’m about to turn off my phone, I see another text from my videographer saying he had uploaded some more stuff to our shared folder for the upcoming music to the same song. Now I have to get up. I grab my laptop and headphones and sit just outside of our room to watch it. This is where I am now. Outside of our hotel room, now writing this piece to you.

These songs coming out are beautiful. It’s not arrogant to say that. I wouldn’t care to write music if I didn’t think I was at least decent, and it’s false humility (which is just pride in disguise) to pretend like I’m not. I am a good songwriter, and these new songs are beautiful; the most beautiful songs I’ve ever written, in my opinion. And given how these songs were birthed, through the death of my wife, I say they’d better be. That’s the least that can happen from such a traumatic ending to what was otherwise a beautiful marriage between us.

As I’m listening to the new additions to the song, and checking out another music video draft, I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s a feeling that I keep feeling whenever I work on this new music. There is a sort of uneasiness present. A sort of discomfort. As if my soul itself is a little queasy, if I can put it that way.

I’m realizing now that the uneasiness is the prematureness of these new creations. These are specific sounds I am not supposed to be making right now. These are vibrations that, as they echo through the ether, confuse the studio halls and airwaves it passes through. It confuses them because they know a sound like this is supposed to come out of me at some point, but not right now. Right now, there should be a whole host of other sounds. After I wrote my East African sounding song, ‘Song of Healing,’ which will be released soon, the next song I wrote was supposed to be about being grateful for my wife being healed, or something to that nature. It’s not supposed to be a song about her being on the other side.

Mother’s Day is tomorrow, and I really don’t know how I’ll feel. The boys are young enough to not have enough tradition to feel the void; but they’ll definitely feel it when they see Mother’s Day stuff around. Especially my oldest. A few days ago, I started making up stories to tell the boys. Sometimes they’re silly. Other times, they’re summaries of biblical stories. Last night, Ezra asked me to make up a story, and so I told them one I made up about him and Judah sharing one dream, and their mom appearing. I had never seen them more attentive in my life. I pray they have those kinds of visits from her if they aren’t already.

As I walk through this grief, I’m learning some things about the nature of destiny and how G-d walks us through it. I’ve said this many times, both on this platform, and in person, but Olga was not supposed to die now. She just wasn’t. Nothing anyone can say, except for G-d Himself, can make me change my mind. I believe that my steps are ordered by the Lord, and that He does delight in my way, as stated in Psalm 37:23. I believe that with all of my heart. But G-d doesn’t force our way. It doesn’t say he makes us go in the right direction. It just says he orders our steps. He arranges them. He still chooses to let us choose where we’ll go. For reasons I’ve written publicly, and those I keep private, my wife found it hard to choose at very crucial times in her life. Looking back, I realize now that it wasn’t a stubbornness, but a paralysis that often gripped her; one that she found damn near impossible to overcome, which is why her go-to was to push it down and move on.

I believe that G-d has a plan for me and my boys. I don’t think it was the original plan, but He knows every possibility of every permutation of every variant of every scenario in this universe. He knew this would be one of the outcomes, and already had something in place for it. What it is, I really don’t know, but I have to believe that it’s there.

Whatever it is, I know that I’m navigating as best as I can. The boys are as well, and I’m proud of them.

But yes, these songs are the best ones to date, and why wouldn't they be? This is just the beginning. I hate that they are being written now, but the closer we get to the first show of the tour, the more I look forward to sharing these new songs, and really just being with you.

Just as a reminder, I have concerts in:

Jerusalem, Israel

London, England

Chicago, IL

Los Angeles, CA

Manhattan, NY

Cary, NC

Charlotte, NC

And one is being formulated as we speak in Northern California.

We’re still waiting on a couple of ticket links to post, but most of them are up now. Just go to jodavimusic.com and get yours.

These are the most beautiful sounds from me that you shouldn’t be hearing, but I’m glad that we can at least have these moments together.