Story Behind 'Oh Love Divine' Song for Christmas

In the middle of the night back in mid October 2022, I could not sleep. Generally when something happens like this, I know it is the Lord calling me to spend an hour or so alone with Him when there is no one else around. So I sat alone in our living room and asked the Lord what He would like me to pray about. As I sat to think, I was feeling burdened about what I needed to do for Christmas for that year. By then I would usually have had my song written, which would have given me a theme around which I create everything else. But this year had been a hard year and I was feeling a bit panicky about the fact that I was so late starting.

My heart was heavy because my Mum asked me to do something a little bit special for her, and I hadn't got around to doing that either! I thought back a few months prior that I lost my opportunity to do this for her because she underwent a serious operation from which she was given only a small percentage survival rate. Thankfully in gracious answer to prayer, she made it through and has recovered remarkably well.

The thing she asked me to do was to do an 'Amanda version' of the beautiful Carol 'Oh Holy Night'.

I have always wanted to do this, and more so now that Mum especially asked this of me, but unfortunately because of circumstances outside of my control I wasn't able to do this when I wanted to, and now I was overrun with so much to do. But there, in the night the Lord suggested to me in His "still small voice": "Why not use the 'Amanda version' of this Carol for Christmas instead of starting a complete song from scratch?" Suddenly I thought that this would solve the problem of trying to produce two songs instead of one!

And so after finding out a thing or two about the original version, I knew I would be able to alter the lyrics to give them more clarity, being a little more honouring to the truth of the Gospel message, and the impact the 'Saviour Divine' can have on all who trust Him fully!