Lauryn Hill and Jully Black
In 1993, one of my favourite movies of all time came out.
Sister Act 2.
This is where my already forming of Lauryn Hill from the Fugees, star of Sister Act 2, was fully formed.
It was sealed when her tough character shows her “softer side” and sings His Eye is on the Sparrow… if you haven’t heard it, click here.
It went so far as that I determined that when I went to heaven, I would have a voice like Lauryn Hill. It was that significant to me.
And then, on one terrible night, I became completely disillusioned with Lauryn, ruining my image of her and tainting that Sparrow song.
A few years back in Toronto, I went to see Lauryn perform. She was HOURS late. She finally showed up drunk or high or both, with no apology or explanation for her lateness to the crowd, and then proceeded to flail around wildly on the stage trying to tell the band what to do who were clearly a practiced group of professionals. She sang terribly, and presented herself even worse.
One Toronto journalist stated in the paper the next day, he had never seen someone so close to writing their own obituary on stage. Yikes.
So, Lauryn and that Sparrow song were a bit tainted for me after that…
Until the day that Jully Black came to See Hear Love and decided to sing that song.
She blew me away. With her voice, her strength, her determination, her passion, and her faith in God in the midst of great challenges.
Jully Black is very much on a journey as she gets to know Jesus. But aren’t we all?
As she sang that hymn from Sister Act 2, Jully reminded me of God’s love and concern for us. Even in the most small and unseen parts of our lives, God notices and cares and sees and loves us. We are more precious than a whole flock of sparrows (Matthew 10:31) and so we need not be afraid of disappointments, or discouragements, or heartache.
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.