Baydzar, a girl with a gift that feels like a curse–songs that take her home, but home isn’t there. “Once more,” she tells her sister, as they sail away. “And then never again.”

But someone hears her. He doesn’t know the pain in the words, only the beauty in her voice.

“Sing for me sometime?” he asks. “Sing with us tonight?”

“Tell him I sing when I am homesick.”

Later,

“You like the music?” He waits for a half smile. “Ask if she would like to sing. Something from her homeland.”

“Tell him it’s getting late. I should go.”

A couple days and a few head-shakes later,

“Baydzar, do you ever sing? Or is it that you don’t want to sing for me? And that’s all right.”

She draws bitter water from the depths of her hurt and draws a line in the sand.

No translator this time, and no holding back. Words fly like arrows. She means well, she speaks right and hits him right where it stings.

He swings truth like a fist. “…And here you talk about all the wicked things they did to you, all they took from you, but the one thing they didn’t take, what do you do?—you bury it! Talk to me about walls? God didn’t give you that voice so you could lecture me!”

Wounds from a friend.

Deep down, she knows.

Bird of the forest, born in a tree, why won’t you sing in a cage for me? Maybe she doesn’t want to remember flying. Maybe she doesn’t want to remember sky. Maybe she’s in a cage ’cause she’s not singing. Maybe she is too afraid to try.

She picks out the shards of truth from their wounded words. She lets his words hit deep. And she’ll never forget.

He was wrong about some things, but he was right about her gift.

“Who will speak?” she asked her sister. “Will you?”

“Some things are best not spoken of.”

“Don’t I know?”

Words can do marvelous and scary things. His words set her free.

Even a bird with a broken wing can learn to fly.

Little songbird, don’t hide it away. Show your heart to the world. Never stop singing. Don’t you ever stop singing. One of these days you’ll believe when we say, “You’re a songbird, God made you that way.”

-Ben Abraham (Songbird)

Did you know that in 2003 Ben Abraham decided that he never wanted to sing again? Tired of trying to impress people and playing popular music in order to make a name for himself, he laid aside his gift.

Four years went by, and Ben didn’t make music. Then he met a thirteen-year-old girl hospitalized for anorexia. Moved by her story, he responded the only way he knew how. He picked up an instrument and wrote her this song.

He’s been singing ever since.