Song Info
Genre
Charts
Peak #530
Peak in subgenre #129
Author
Dianne James
Rights
pc 1991 Bonnie Dianne James
Uploaded
November 07, 2009
Track Files
MP3
MP3 2.0 MB • 56 kbps • 4:59
Story behind the song
The song was written when the author was going through a tremendous struggle in her life- She had been diagnosed with Graves disease, after months of misdiagnoses as Anorexia. When she got down to 87 pounds, the doctor finally ordered a thyroid test and discovered that she had an overactive thyroid. She had experienced tachycardia (rapid heart beat 24 hours a day) for months and other symptoms that the doctor ignored. By the time she was correctly diagnosed, it had turned into Graves Disease. After her fiance died of cancer, she moved to a new place, started back to college without being able to afford a babysitter (they both went to classes with her), and was embroiled in a custody battle for her two children all at the same time she had Graves Disease. She had no furniture in the house except beds for the children, and a donated mattress and box spring that lay on the floor of her bedroom, and she and her children ate on a cardboard box with an old tailgate lying on top served as a table for study and for eating. With no washing machine, she laundered clothes in the bathtub for more than a year, using an inverted laundry basket and a scrub brush. One day she was particularly disgruntled with having to do this, and was griping to herself, when her thoughts turned to her grandmothers, and how they had to clean clothes without benefit of running water (great grandmothers), a water heater, and modern soap (her grandmothers made their own lye soap, and it was very harsh to the skin). She dwelt on their circumstances and realized how very blessed she was to have all the things they had not. Including her children. In just a few days, she was offered a washing machine, and the promise of low monthly payments. She remembers just watching it run, and feeling so blessed. She strung line between the trees in the back yard, and clothes and linens billowed in the wind like colorful kites of victory. She finally decided to have radiation treatment (since surgery was out of the question for her, due to her music dreams), and that cured the Graves Disease.
Originally entitled "Thank You Lord For The Rain", Manifest was borne of the need to be thankful in even the most dire of situations, thankful for the bad things that happen to us, because they will turn into good things, if we are patient and have a heart full of thankfulness for everything in our lives. Her first public performance of Manifest was to an audience of 200 people. She had locked the keys, and her guitar, in the trunk of the car, and so had to play it (for the first time) on the piano. She played and sang it without a problem, and then learned that some of the audience was crying. Manifest, borne of her own painful journey, had traveled into their hearts and touched her audience in a profoundly moving way.
Lyrics
I may never paint a portrait, nor see Fifth Avenue;
Lie upon a sandy beach, warm beneath the moon.
I may never climb Mt. Everest, nor sail on emerald seas,
but You have walked with me this far, and that's good enough for me,
Good enough for me.
I may never play Carnegie Hall, fly a plane above the clouds,
See the things that Renoir saw, but I will sing it right out loud-
Your kind of love is needed, in a world so torn with pain,
And my own life had been a desert, Lord, so I thank you for the rain,
For the rain.
CHORUS
Thank you, Lord, for the rain that falls,
Falls like manna from the sky,
And the love You sent, so that I might live,
Love, manifest in Jesus Christ.
I asked for wisdom, and the rains came,
Then I asked for strength, and there You stood.
I know, now, that no matter what form the rain takes,
you'll work it all together for my good.
And I haven't been to see the world yet,
But I have been to feel the rain, on a poor excuse for life,
And I know You can make a garden grow,
Where nothing could survive, nothing could survive.
Chorus: "Thank You, Lord, for the rain that falls..."
Tag: "Love, Manifest in Jesus Christ."
© 1991 Bonnie Dianne James
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