Menagerie of Souls : Thankful in the Turning
Not every worship song earns its altar call. Many settle for sweeping production and borrowed sentiment, leaving the listener moved but not necessarily met. Menagerie of Souls, the indie folk duo quietly building a reputation for lyrical honesty, does something rarer with their latest track -- they write a song of gratitude that actually earns it.
"Thankful in the Turning" begins not in a sanctuary but in the wreckage of an ordinary Tuesday. Bills on the table, a doctor's appointment with no answers, a phone full of people who don't stay. The opening verse is almost startlingly mundane -- and that's precisely what makes it work. This isn't a faith forged in dramatic crisis. It's one tested by cold coffee and waiting rooms, which is to say, by real life.
The chorus arrives not as a triumphant declaration but as a conscious, almost defiant act of will. "I will be thankful in the breaking / In the waiting / In the aching." The repeated "in the" construction is doing heavy lifting here -- it refuses to locate gratitude safely after the suffering, insisting instead on planting it right in the middle of it. That's a theologically honest and emotionally courageous choice.
The bridge is the song's finest moment. The duo sidesteps the prosperity gospel trap entirely with one quiet line: "You never promised an easy road / You promised You would share the load." It reframes divine faithfulness not as the removal of suffering but as companionship through it -- a distinction that will resonate deeply with anyone who has felt the gap between the two.
The outro brings the song full circle with an eternal perspective, imagining the other side of the journey where every mile and every tear becomes an act of gratitude. It lands with the quiet weight of something truly believed, not merely performed.
In a crowded contemporary Christian music landscape that often mistakes volume for depth, Menagerie of Souls makes a compelling case that the most powerful worship is written at eye level -- in the traffic, in the waiting, in the ache.
The full track is available now on Spotify, Youtube Music, Amazon Music, and other popular streaming platforms. You can listen below to the song preview from Spotify: