It's easy to feel sorry for ourselves and to be overwhelmed with what's going on in our lives. But all it takes is for someone to remind us of the true beauty of life to lift our spirits. Recently this came with the stunning performance of Nightbirde.
The contestant (her name is Jane Marczewski when she's not performing -- Nightbirde is her stage name) recently entered the TV reality show America's Got Talent. Looking petite on stage, but with a captivating smile that filled the auditorium, the 30-year-old introduced herself to the judges.
She explained that she has not worked in recent years due to her fight with cancer. But previously she'd led worship in her church while also performing locally. However, she had begun to not like herself, or know herself, so she decided to take a three year hiatus from music to devote herself to God.
It was only when she'd planned on returning to music, in 2017, that the singer from Ohio found out she had stage 3 breast cancer and her battle started. On stage she went on to share that she was still battling cancer. Pretty casually she said that at her last check-up she had some cancer in her lungs, spine, and liver.
While she professed to being okay, she explained that she wants people to see her as being "so much more than the bad things that happen to me." Getting out there on stage with her own song "It's OK," she was able to pass on this message. She has also written beautifully about her suffering and her faith on her web site.
The name "Nightbirde" itself is significant. She chose it after many nights dreaming of birds singing in the darkness. She woke one night to hear birds singing by her window as if it were the morning. For her this symbolizes hope and her life at the moment:
"I want to be that way, even when I am in the middle of a dark time and there are no signs that it will end. I want to be the bird that sings in anticipation of the good things that I trust are coming," she shared with Liberty Journal, as reported by Religion News.
Her actual performance was captivating. Her beautiful voice proclaiming multiple times "It's okay" resonated around the auditorium and in the hearts of the judges. As she simply said at the end of her performance: "You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy."
That one sentence seems to sum up Nightbirde's life over the past few years: Her ongoing fight with cancer, her emotional pain when her husband of five years declared he was leaving her at a time when doctors believed she had six months to live, and her deep faith that keeps her going.
"I believe that God can heal in one instant. I also believe that ‘no good thing does he withhold,’ so there was something God was growing in the field that is me, and if God had pulled up all of this hardship too soon, it would have also pulled up all these miracles he did in my spirit," she shared with Liberty Journal.
With this outlook it isn't surprising that everybody was visibly moved by her live performance, and the joy she shared. It didn't take long for Simon Cowell, one of the judges and the producer of the show, to hit the golden buzzer to send Nightbirde directly through to the final.
An elated Nightbirde's smile lit up the stage. And as she talked backstage she shared that she now has a 2% chance of survival, but at the same time that is a whole 2%, something to grab hold of and be positive as she fights on.
The singer's performance was a reminder to perhaps many of us that there's a lot to be happy about, and what a privilege it is to be able to choose this happiness.
It's not a surprise that Nightbirde's song has already stormed up the charts and is now currently number one on US iTunes.
